Who doesn’t love a good comeback story? Steve Winwood emerging from a couple of different 60s/70s rock groups (The Spencer Davis Group and Traffic, just to name a couple of them) and scoring a few big solo hits in the 80s, Rocky defeating that blonde Russian guy played by Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV, the Full House TV series getting rebooted recently.

Okay…maybe not all of these comeback stories will resonate with everyone. I know that there are far better examples of comeback stories out there!

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been putting forth a good effort at making his own kind of comeback in the Netflix streaming series “Fubar,” which to me, seems an awful lot like the movie True Lies, only fast-forwarded a bit. Hey – Tom Arnold, who was in True Lies with Schwarzenegger – also makes an appearence in “Fubar.” Also there’s spy stuff in “Fubar” which is totally like the TL movie. Too bad Eliza Dushku isn’t in it and playing his daughter.

Here’s a pic of Arnold from one his earliest films, The Villain, directed by Hal Needham (which I actually saw in a theater when I was a kid…I think my mom had a crush on him 😉):

Our trivia team made its own kind of comeback in a recent trivia game at McShane’s Pub! First off, we won a first place prize for the first time in nearly three months. Secondly, we had another chance at an Oscars question round after missing out on being able to answer it this past weekend! About that…

Rewind to last weekend, Sporcle Events trivia teams across the country battled it out on some tough Oscar movie questions in a two-day weekend “Globe Games” cash tournament. There were a couple of anagram best picture mystery rounds, and a couple of really tough final questions about Oscar winning actors that barely any teams got correct.

We had to leave our virtual game while the anagram Oscar mystery round was going on, since we were technically on vacation – and had people to meet. Poor planning on my part, I thought the virtual games were only an hour long like they usually are. 😂

Believe me – I would have LOVED to have had a chance to take a real crack at this “anagram” mystery round, especially with my trivia pardner/husband Mike. We tend to team up well on anagram questions, since he has a knack for looking at the scrambled words and finding patterns – while I try to brainstorm the things that are scrambled. If nothing else, I could have helped with eliminating answers that were NOT names of best picture winning films.

As for the tough actor final questions that most teams missed? I would not have been much help on those! They asked about actors from the 1996 Hamlet film and the 1991 film JFK. I watched each of those movies exactly once when they came out, and… never again. Seriously – how re-watchable are most Oliver Stone films, really? 🤔 Or Kenneth Branagh films? Maybe I’m just not enough of a film snob…

Still, the “superteam” that we managed to assemble for this cash game with players from my team and Sparty On – with a couple of “guests” added – didn’t do too badly in their game at Hopcat! Had they wisely wagered zero on the final question, they would have wound up in second place! I hear that they teamed up well during the game! 👍

Being the triviai junkie that I am – and being out of the official running at these weekend games – well, let’s just say I started scratching my arms frantically as if there were imaginary bugs on them like junkies do (do they really do that or is that just a cinematic thing)? In my case, the bugs weren’t imaginary – those sand flies on the beach where we were camped last weekend came out in DROVES the very second temperatures hit 85 degrees! Those flies are no joke – they will nip your ankles good and coat your extremities if you let them – and they are resistant to most insect repellents!

My husband and I talked on the car ride back about how the Natives dealt with the sand flies. And we surmised that wearing knee-length deerskin moccasins were probably a good way to keep their ankles from getting bitten! As well as looking super cool – like an ’80s hair band singer!

I was very happy to have a second chance at an Oscars halftime round in Thursday’s game! It “almost” made up for me not being able to help my team with that round in their game Sunday! Special thanks to friend and trivia collaborator Kim for sharing some of the questions that her and her team battled on Sunday!

The most exciting part of our recent trivia game? The score, of course…

Now how about some game questions?

Round One

Musical Instruments – What family of instrument does the clarinet belong to?

Folkore – What winged animal are vampires said to turn into?

Logos – What company’s logo features a mountain surrounded by 22 stars?

Round Two

Construction – What part of a building does a truss support?

Solar System – Which planet in the solar system is named for the Roman god of war?

Rocky Marriages – Who married Kid Rock in 2006? There were more qualifiers to this – former Playboy playmate, model – Not surprisingly, Dave was all over this one!

Round Three

What is the name for the dominant male in a wolf pack?

Board Games – What letter is most numerous in a standard Scrabble board game?

Cocktails – What cocktail is made with bourbon, sugar, bitters and water?

Halftime – Academy Awards

Given the choices between best actor, best actress, best original song, best director and best picture, decide which of the following films received which award (no repeats):

The Color of Money, Green Book, Blind Side, Brokeback Mountain

We got all of these correct.

Halftime scores

Ypsi Starlings/Spacecats, 30; Scotty, 31; Pursuit of O Snappiness, Nope and Seymour Butts, 33; and Pod Squad (us), 37.

Round Four

Shopping – S.S. Kresgke founded what retail chain in 1962?

Guest House – What is the name for the official guest house of the White House? Miss.

Cooking – What company introduced Spam in the U.S. in 1937? Your trivia team might be the dorkiest in the room if this is what you think of when you think of Spam:

Round Five

Sequels – What 1956 book is a sequel to 101 Dalmatians by Dobie Smith? Miss.

Web Sites – Founded in 2009, what is the name for the German travel and marketplace web site with the slogan “Book Forward to It?” We used our freebie option to avoid answering this for six.

Medicine – The medicine Diazepam is more commonly known by what trademarked name?

Round Six

Currency – What is the official currency of Denmark?

Movie Characters – What title movie character famously took a day off in a 1986 film?

States – What U.S. state borders the Yukon Territory?

Scores heading into the final:

Seymour Butts, 51; Pursuit of O Snappiness, 53; Ypsi Starlings, 54; Scotty, 55; Spacecats, 56; Nope, 59 and Pod Squad, 69.

Final Category – Media Personalities

What media personality got his start as a stand-up comic, hosted a reality show, appeared alongside Phil Hartman on a sitcom, and famously endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020?

Dave was all over this right away. But because we’re the Pods, we proceeded to almost talk ourselves out of the right answer. Thankfully, we didn’t!

Two teams got this…which happened to be the top two teams, so, someone movied up to third by wagering zero:

Final standings: Spacecats, 56; Nope, 118; and Pod Squad, 119. We never want to wager any more than we have to!

We’re done with our trivial pursuits for the week, but we’re more than 90 percent sure that we’ll check out a new Sporcle Events spot in Ypsi next Monday. We meant to check it out this week, but the oppressive heat and humidity – and us being a little exhausted from our road trip Up North – made us want to stay home that evening!

It really was hot that day. How hot was it?

As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Phil Hartman (RIP) You voiced my absolute favorite Simpsons character!

Answers:

R1

woodwind, bat, paramount

r2

roof, mars, pamela anderson

r3

alpha male, e, old fashioned

halftime

actor, picture, actress, director

r4

kmart, blair house, hormel

r5

the starlight barking, get your guide, valium

r6

kroner, ferris bueller, alaska

final

joe rogan