A toast to trivia

Pub patrons take their best shots at matching wits for points, pints

Alex Neth, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 16, 2006 at midnight

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The Tuesday-night throng - a beery, tattooed, smoke-stained cavalcade - muttered and milled about Nallen's on Market Street while the bosses laid down rules via loudspeaker. The bout was about to begin, but this would be no free-for-all. If the Marquess of Queensberry had been present, he would have approved - a competition, nay, a combat, of such nature demanded focus and respect.

This wasn't just some tequila-fueled bar brawl or meatheaded underground fight club. This was important. This was a pub quiz.

In a growing number of bars across the metro area, pub quizzes and trivia nights are popular diversions for bored local brainiacs and customer-hungry bar owners. Where once the midweek tavern crowd would consist of little more than service employees and hard cases with nicknames for their gin blossoms, now educated urbanites huddle, sip cocktails and try to remember the name of Gary Coleman's goldfish in Diff'rent Strokes. (It was Abraham.)

The pub quiz came from back East. Far back East. Across-the-pond back East. The Brits have been crazy about answering trivia questions over their Guinness and Boddington's for years. Folks on our own right coast picked it up and imbued it with a certain pop-cultural fanaticism, marrying the American affection for mental detritus to the Old World's appreciation of public intellectualism.

Think of it as public intellectualism displayed over shots of Jameson and multiple packs of Marlboros, punctuated by yelling and catcalls.

Proving their mental mettle

Folks who take part in this group brain-teasing are eager to prove their thorough mastery of the minutiae of soul music, famous disasters or the political affiliations of U.S. vice presidents. They form teams, refrain from gleeful answer-shouting and, in at least one case, arrive in matching jerseys.

Imagine Jeopardy! played by soccer hooligans. And instead of offering thousands of dollars in prize money or trips to the Cayman Islands, Alex Trebek rewarded contestants with free pints of beer and promotional T-shirts. And, naturally, the glorious right to smack-talk.

"I never did play bar trivia, I just kind of stumbled in one night after $3 martinis at CityGrille," said Russ Esposito of the Slump Busters, who appear in matching orange-and-white softball jerseys with names on the back (we assume that one female Buster isn't really named Sugar Pants). "It's become kind of a Tuesday-night tradition." He paused and added, "It's gonna be bad for the other teams."

The big brains behind the quiz at Nallen's (as well as other quizzes at pubs in Parker, Fort Collins and Denver) are the Geeks Who Drink, John Dicker and Joel Peach, who begin each event by reading three unarguable rules:

Rule No. 1: Don't shout the answers. Rule No. 2 (we'll paraphrase here to keep it PG-rated): Don't mess with the quizmaster. Rule No. 3: The quiz is fixed.

Invigorating Denver's scene

While living in New York, Dicker discovered the bar quiz while reading a Roddy Doyle play called War, in which a desperate gang of Dubliners competes in a local bar contest which then takes over their lives.

Intrigued, he found a local Irish bar that offered a quiz night, took on some guest shifts as quizmaster and discovered that he enjoyed crafting silly questions more than he did answering them. Upon moving to Denver, he and his snowboarding pal Peach decided to start their own, unhappy with what they felt was the pedestrian nature of most local quizzes.

"The format of ask a question, play a song, ask a question, play a song is pretty weak. There were no theme rounds, no questions for free pints, no heckling between the quizmaster and crowd, no music rounds, nothing," Dicker groused about Denver's fledgling trivia scene.

While the pacing of pub quizzes varies from bar to bar, Dicker and Peach move quickly, alternating themed rounds of fairly straightforward but chuckle-worthy trivia questions - Sports and Makeup, for instance - with audio rounds, a visual round and plenty of bonus questions for free beer.

Questions vary in difficulty from the blatantly obvious to the fairly obscure, although the pendulum definitely swings obscurity's direction. Some other local quizmasters, though, aren't convinced tougher is always better for bar trivia.

"You want your customers to get around seven out of 10 right, so they come back," says Luke McDowell, who runs the Thursday-night quiz at Fado Irish Pub. "The important thing is, you've got to know your pub. Your clientele determines your content, whether you're dealing with doctors or teeny-boppers."

McDowell cites the quiz that runs at the Irish Snug on Tuesday evenings as one that balances difficulty with accessibility.

The Snug's quizmaster, Jay Rabideau, agrees - to a point.

"If I think it's too hard, I'll give them a clue," Rabideau said. "But I'm not giving people points for knowing who won American Idol. It's a backhanded way to promote what knowledge you think is valuable."

Bar tabs and Jell-O molds

As for prizes, every quizmaster appears to drink from the same well - free beer and promotional items - with a few twists. Everybody provides a free round, but at Fado, the winners' picture hangs on the wall for a week. At the Snug, the winner also gets a $40 bar tab. At a Geeks Who Drink quiz, winners might go home with just about anything.

"I once won a Jell-O mold of a brain," said Josh Schade of team It's Not Easy Wearing Green Pants (the tag being a nod to Dicker's Kelly green trousers, Irish-aware sartorial splendor that could lead cars to run stoplights). "And a Rambo, First Blood Part Two video game."

The quiz may indeed be fixed. Seems like it to all the teams not named The Slump Busters, at any rate. By their own not-particularly-modest assessment, the Busters have won 40 percent of the quizzes they've played over the past year. Other squads freely admit a healthy animosity toward them.

Still, when the beers are empty and the final scores are tallied, the end result has them atop the Geeks Who Drink standings - updated online weekly for each of the Geeks' quizzes - yet again.

Despite the Busters' history of success, Esposito had earlier declined to predict a victory for his group. He did, however, make one prescient observation, which in retrospect might explain some of the pub quiz's lure.

"I make no guarantees," he said. "Except for that I will have a heavy buzz by the end of the night."

First question . . .

Where can you find a good pub quiz? Start here:

• The Irish Snug 8 p.m. Tuesdays; 1201 E. Colfax, No. 100, 303-839-1394

• Nallen's Irish Pub 8 p.m. Tuesdays; 1429 Market St., 303-572-0667

• The Irish Rover 9 p.m. Wednesdays; 54 Broadway, 303-282-4643

• Fado Irish Pub 7 p.m. Thursdays; 1735 19th St., 303-297-0066

• Conor O'Neill's 9:30 p.m. Mondays; 1922 13th St., Boulder, 303-449-1922

• Scruffy Murphy's 8 p.m. Wednesdays; 2030 Larimer St., 303-291-6992

• The D Note 7 p.m. Tuesdays; 7519 Grandview Ave., 303-463-6683

Loaded questions

A sampling of the categories and questions that John Dicker and Joel Peach might ask patrons as part of their pub quiz:

SECOND PLACE: IT BEATS HONORABLE MENTION

• 1) Vince Lombardi was the first coach to win two Super Bowls; who was the second?

• 2) What's the second-most-popular Ben & Jerry's flavor?

• 3) What city has hosted the second- most Super Bowls, after New Orleans?

• 4) Who has the second-most career home runs in the history of baseball?

• 5) What denomination of Christianity is the second-largest in the U.S.?

• 6) Who played second base on Charlie Brown's baseball team?

• 7) This mountain in the Indian province of Kashmir is the second-largest mountain in the world.

• 8) What U.S. city is known as the second city, and why?

• Bonus: Bill Gates is the richest American; who's the second-richest?

ROUND SIX: GANGSTERS AND GANGSTAS

• 1) Michael Corleone told this character he was NOT a wartime consigliore.

• 2) 50 Cent's hit single Wanksta was a diss aimed at what rapper?

• 3) What ancient Chinese text did Tony Soprano read on the advice of Dr. Melfi, helping make it a best-seller?

• 4) Name the actress who plays Carmela Soprano.

• 5) What rapper claimed, in the title track of his 1990 album, to be the Original Gangster?

• 6) The opening shot of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights is an homage to a steady cam shot in this famous mob film.

• 7) What Irish-American actor played the fictional gangster Rocky Sullivan in the film Angels with Dirty Faces?

• 8) Which of the following gangsta rappers was never produced by Dr. Dre: 50 Cent, The Game, Snoop Dogg, Geto Boys.

• Bonus: This notorious Irish-American gangster from South Boston has been on the top 10 of the FBI's most-wanted list for nearly 12 years. His brother was a Massachusetts state senator and president of the University of Massachusetts.

FAST FOOD

• 1) Also known as the porcelain palace, this is the oldest operating hamburger fast-food chain.

• 2) Hungry Jack's is the Australian version of this burger chain.

• 3) I name the slogan, you name the company: "Think outside the bun;" "It's good to be square;" "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face."

• 4) Sir Shakes A-Lot is to Burger King what ______ is to McDonald's.

• 5) What Coney Island fast-food institution sponsors a hot dog eating contest every Fourth of July?

• 6) What did Burger King's fish sandwich used to be known as?

• 7) What state did McDonalds originate in?

• 8) Which of the following is not a locally headquartered chain: Old Chicago, Carl's Jr., Quiznos, Chipotle.

• Bonus: Who is the mayor of McDonaldland?

Quiz answers

Give yourself one point for every correct response; two for the bonus question in each category.

• Second place: It beats honorable mention

1. Don Shula

2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

3. Miami

4. Barry Bonds

5. Catholic

6. Linus

7. Qogir (K2)

8. Chicago, because the fire of 1871 was so devastating the city essentially had to be built a second time.

Bonus: Warren Buffett

• Round Six: Gangsters and Gangstas

1. Tom Hagen

2. Ja Rule

3. The Art of War

4. Edie Falco

5. Ice T

6. The Copa shot in Goodfellas

7. James Cagney

8. Geto Boys

Bonus: Whitey Bulger

• Fast Food

1. White Castle

2. Burger King

3. Taco Bell, Wendy's, Carl Jr's

4. Grimace

5. Nathan's

6. The Whaler

7. California

8. Carl's Jr.

Bonus: Mayor McCheese-

How did you do?

24-30: Feel free to bask in the glory of your own amazing smartness. With a brain that size, you should be out inventing something instead of hanging at the bar.

16-23: Congratulations. You've reached the nebulous "be proud of yourself . . . but not that proud" zone.

8-15: Things were tough in grade school, we know. If it makes you feel better, we didn't know who Sir Shakes-A-Lot was, either.

0-7: OK, this was a mistake. Put your head back down on the bar and go back to sleep. We'll wake you at closing time.

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