1. Identify the fictional character who has been the subject of an epic poem by Lord Byron, a film starring Errol Flynn, a comedy by Moliere, and an opera buffa by Mozart.
This question had four points of entry, and one of them was theater, and another was movies. Therefore this was a gimme in every possible way, except for the small problem that I didn’t know the answer. I’ve been trying not to get hung up on any particular question but this one sucked me in, because it seemed so, so gettable. I squeezed my brains like a kitchen sponge, trying to come up with something, anything. Whatever it is I wanted, it wasn’t coming to me. I knew I was going wince when I saw the answer, and I was right: Don Juan.
2. Of the 12 other nations on the South American mainland (including one overseas region of France), Brazil borders all of them but two. Name those two.
I said “Chile” with a surprising amount of confidence, given the category. But there wasn’t much hope of naming both countries. I went with Peru. Should have gone with Ecuador.
3. This is the work of what French Primitivist?
I didn’t spend even ten seconds on this one. I put down Miro for no particular reason. Correct answer: Henri Rosseau.
4. The highest possible hand in cribbage consists of three fives and a Jack, with the cut card being a five same-suited to the Jack. How many points is this hand worth?
My wife and I used to play cribbage almost every day, and I also used to play online — anybody remember Sierra Online? It was an early online service specializing in parlor games. I was on there a lot, at one point.
So, sure, I remember cribbage, and I remember the scoring is fairly nuts. Cribbage is like a drinking game that’s tried to go straight. Combinations of cards that add up to 15 are worth two points each. So four 5s and Jack would be worth 16 points. (Trust me.) Then you’ve got a four-of-a-kind. That scores 12 points, bringing us up to 28.
But, aha! Let’s not forget “nobs.” That’s 2 points when the suit of the cut card matches the Jack. You see what I mean about the rules of this game? So now we’re at 30 points, and we’re done.
WHAT? The correct answer is 29?! You what how the COME ON WHAT?!
Oh, crap. “Nobs” is only worth one point. There’s a different cribbage rule called, for unfathomable reasons, “his heels.” THAT is what scores two points — when the cut card is itself a Jack. So I was off by one.
What a stupid game.
5. Ryan Dunn, Chris Pontius, Bam Margera, Brandon DiCamillo, and Raab Himself were all, originally, members of the cast of what television series?
“Raab Himself?” I went with Reno 911, on the basis that the answer was surely an absurd comedy. Right genre, sort of, but wrong show: Jackass.
6. A 1964 album subtitled England’s Newest Hit Makers, which featured the singles ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘Tell Me’, as well as the Holland/Dozier/Holland classic ‘Can I Get a Witness’, was the U.S. debut release from what rock band?
And we conclude with my one right answer, which was the result of a modestly educated guess. I’ll take it, I guess.
At first, I misunderstood the question, believing this to be an album by an American band, released in England. Two of the songs, after all, are American classics. I knew the Grateful Dead covered Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” so that’s what I put in the blank.
Then I finally saw “U.S. debut” and it dawned on me that this was a British band. Oh. Well, didn’t The Rolling Stones also cover “Not Fade Away?” I thought they had, and the timing seemed about right. So I went with it. Yay.
Won again, 4(3) – 2(2). It’s funny to be sitting in 2nd place in striking distance of 1st while barely being 10th in TCA. I think I’m fluking out in terms of opponents that Thorsten’s choosing for me:
1) Of course, it helps if the fictional character is actually fictional and I chose Robin Hood, who’s based on a real person (Fortunately this would have been my zero)
2) I listed all the countries, Then I determined that Chile borders Peru and Argentina, and that Ecuador was the Northwesternmost country in South America. Took time, but I got there for 2 points.
3) I also thought Miro, but I remembered that he’s Spanish. Despite having seen the picture somewhere, I threw my hands up and guessed any French painter, I don’t know, let’s say “Degas” – wrong.
4) Guessed 23. Never played this game, woulda been a nice 3 pointer,
5) Picked up 1 for knowing Bam and Pontius pretty well. Ryan Dunn died in a car accident last year so his name was also prominent.
6) I knew this from “Not Fade Away”
I used to frequent The Sierra Network quite a bit back in the day. There had a great trivia group (TTG: The Trivia Group, if I remember correctly), where I used to play and host.
Yep, I was on The Sierra Network too, and I think I even wrote a trivia game or two (at age 13 or 14). Really should have known the cribbage answer, because I used to play with my brother a lot, but for some reason “31″ was in my head, and I didn’t try to remember the scoring details. Though I could have told you that His Nobs is one point!
Elsewhere: Didn’t think the Rolling Stones started that early, so I guessed the Beatles (maybe those were lesser-known songs on their US debut?) but assigned 0 points. And I would have been pissed if I couldn’t pull out the opera/theater one, but fortunately after a while it came to me. Scored the rare 5(2)-1(2) win, continuing my season of lucky matchups.
1. Got Don Juan from the Mozart clue (is it true that there’s a version pronounced “Dawn Jew-an”?).
2. Wrote down Chile immediately, then decided Colombia was a decent guess since it borders Central America, so might be the farthest away. It didn’t pan out.
3. I don’t know anything about primitivism. Guessed some random artist or other.
4. This was basically “guess a random integer” for me.
5. Bam Margera rang some bells. This was scored 3 for me, which seemed odd.
6. Guessed Procul Harum since it’s fun to say. I am not a Stones fan.
Won 3(2)-1(2) to go up a place in my rundle, 2 MPD behind the third place person.
1. Knew this from the opera and from Lord Byron’s poem. Byron actually pronounced it “jew-un” and rhymed it with “new one”. If I recall, it seems to go on forever. Np one in Champ missed this and I’m not surprised.
2. Went with Chile and Ecuador, all full of confidence and stuff.
3. I knew it was Henri Rousseau. No one in Champ missed this – I *am* surprised.
4. My dad and my grandfather played Cribbage for hours when I was growing up. I learned how to play in my early teens. I managed to add up all the stuff, and hit the answer right on His Nobs.
5. Not a show I have ever watched much, but I knew a couple names so that was enough.
6. I didn’t recognize any of these as Stones songs (by title anyway) but the timing seemed right so I guessed correctly. No one in Champ missed this, which slightly surprised me.
I actually won, and racked up 3 MPD, which is pretty significant here, 9(6)-6(4). Unfortunately, in a Rundle in which ties are pretty common, both the #1 and #2 players also notched wins, so I remain in 3rd place.
My opponent and I played the exact same perfect defense and got the exact same four questions right, which I think is a first for me.
1. I said Robin Hood as well (and still consider him fictional, since being based on something real isn’t the same as real, as watching any number of TV movies will tell you ;-) ).
2. Chile was the easy one, but I had to work a little to remember which country in the northwest was wedged between which other two countries. Got it right.
3. Buh. Gauguin?
4. At first I tried calculating the score but I never got close to the range I knew the answer was in. I knew that this was A Thing that serious cribbage players — and there are a few in my family — knew about the game, because it had been quoted at me a few times. They sell cribbage boards where the pegging holes trace out the shape of the numeral “29″, starting at the beak of the two, crossing from its bottom straightaway to the foot of the nine and spiralling inward from there. That was in the range I wanted, so I said it.
5. Again, pretty close but wrong: The Real World.
6. Given the timing and that it was a band surfing the wave across the ocean started by the Beatles, I deliberately tried the obvious answer and this time it paid out.
My loss yesterday didn’t take me down, but my 3(3)-3(3) tie today took me down to 9th place, almost tipping into the D-zone. I need to start winning matches to stave off rank erosion.
1. I felt like I should be able to figure this out with all those points of entry, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t Captain Blood or Robin Hood, and after that, my Errol Flynn filmography gets spotty. Mozart was probably the easiest road in, but I couldn’t come up with it, so I said Tartuffe.
2. Said Chile. Unfortunately, also said Argentina.
3. Knew it.
4. Used to play this a lot–two decades ago, spent most of a week’s vacation on a Honduran island with my brother playing cribbage in the hotel bar, on a pier over a water. Eventually, the four of clubs fell between the slats into the water, which ended our marathon. Nevertheless, the niceties of the scoring are lost to me now.
5. Or, “the guys on Jackass who aren’t Johnny Knoxville.” Bam Margera is the most famous one of this group–wouldn’t have gotten it without him.
6. A good, if raw, album.
I played perfect defense (for once), but went down 3(3)-4(4).
1. Plenty of entries but I was unable to come up with the correct answer.
2. Got Chile and incorrectly assumed that Ecuador is much larger than it actually is and that it cuts of Colombia from being adjacent to Brazil. If I had gotten this right I would have tied.
3. This was a gimme for me as I have always loved Rousseau’s imagery. My opponent lives in France and knows Art so I decided to score her 0. She got it as well but scored me a 3 having very little faith in my ability to identify Rousseau.
4. I used to play cribbage and remembered that His Nibs (what it was called in my game) was worth 1 point. Unfortunately I didn’t remember the 12 points for 4 of a kind and so I assumed all the 15s were worth 3 each and that the highest point count was 25. I never played on one of those 29 shaped boards so that was not helpful to me. My opponent only scored me a 1 while I correctly assigned her the 3.
5. Jackass was a gimme for me.
6. Rollong Stones also a gimme for me as I was aware that Not Fade Away was their debut single.
Ended up losing 4(3)-6(5). If I had just put Ecuador I would have escaped with a tie. Now I’m beginning a dangerous slide into the relegation zone. If I don’t pull out of this soon it looks like I’ll be back in C in the new season.
Gavin,
It’s fun to read how your solving path on Q1 was very similar to my own. I went through the exact same steps but rejected Tartuffe in the end and stuck with the equally absurd Captain Blood.
Another loss means I’m almost certainly back down in D next time around.
1) My first thought was “Figaro”, who has been dramatized by various artists, but that seemed like an odd Errol Flynn vehicle. Running down the list of Mozart characters got me to Don Juan pretty quickly, and then I knew that was it. I’d have felt pretty stupid if I’d missed this, as I designed a production of Don Giovanni in the spring.
2) Knew that Chile was a thin sliver on the west coast, and the other was going to be a northern nation, but guessed wrong.
3) Gimme, Rousseau is a particular favorite.
4) No clue. This kind of question is tough to defend against, because it seems like it’ll be easy if you play cribbage, impossible if you don’t, and who knows? Funny that it seems this was tough even for people familiar with cribbage. I guessed 25, on the off-chance that jacks were 10 pts, but with no real confidence.
5) Thought of The Young Ones based on the odd names, but was pleased as punch not to have known the correct answer.
6) The Stones seemed like the most plausible guess, and “England’s Newest Hitmakers” seemed familiar in that context for some reason.
1. So many ways in, and I still had no idea. Ended up guessing Figaro.
2. I drew a rough map of South America, and ended up with Chile & Ecuador (despite my putting Ecuador on the wrong end of Peru).
3. Said Gauguin knowing that it was probably wrong, but I couldn’t come up with another French painter who didn’t sound even more wrong.
4. I’ve never played cribbage, so I just took a shot with 25.
5. It struck me as a large number of male stars for one show, and Bam Margera and Raab Himself both sounded familiar, but I couldn’t find my way to Jackass. Guessed Mad TV.
6. Random guess of 60s British rock band = correct!
2(2) – 3(3) loss to firmly cement me in the relegation zone, but considering that I expected to get 0 after my initial read-through of the questions, I can’t complain too much.
this day was frustrating as hell. after a ridiculously long hot streak, i’d managed to get up to #1 in my rundle, and i played the #2 player (tied with me, and had been leading the rundle for quite a while), MasonR. he’s awesome—his strengths are much like mine except he’s also better at my weak areas. and… i choked. urgh.
1. gimme. gave this my 0.
2. i thought about chile, ecuador, and colombia. eventually went with the latter two. my only consolation is that if i’d put chile in, i would have taken ecuador out, because i know colombia borders panama.
3. my other gimme. i included the first name because there’s another 19th-c french painter named theodore rousseau, of the barbizon school, but i couldn’t imagine it was going to matter. nevertheless, i included henri because i was 100% sure of it.
4. i did the exact same thing as eric, counting 2 points for nobs. FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU … (on the other hand, i figured this would be damn hard, and gave it 3 points.) it’s actually a non-trivial combinatorics problem: you get 2 for a pair, and 4 of a kind is 6 pairs because 4c2 = 6. you get 2 for a combination adding up to 15, and four 5′s plus a J turns out to give you 8 15′s.
5. had no idea, raab himself was such a ridiculous name that i guessed real world. on the right track, i guess, and even the right network, but no.
6. did not recognize any of the songs, but considered the stones just based on time period and british invasiony-ness. but i rejected them because i didn’t recognize holland/dozier/holland, and i thought those people would be band members, and i know they’re not in the stones. oops.
so a dreadful 2/6 for me… but miraculously, my opponent also scored only 2/6 (don juan and stones) and we drew, 2(2)-2(2). not exactly the clash of the titans you would have hoped for with #1 going against #2 in the rundle, but i’ll take it. now i just need to hold off NissleyT and BassB… yikes.
So, if you were playing against me yesterday, and saw the first two questions were opera and geography, and then went on to see that the other questions included … games? TV? Music from the year I was born? You would have surely assigned me 3 and 2 on the first two questions. Go on, admit it.
Thanks for handing me a 5(2), pal!
1 — For me, the Don Gionvanni question was really a movie question — it is memorable from Amadeus (so, OK, maybe a theater question, but I don’t remember it from the theater, even though I did see it on Broadway way back when). And, in an amusing coincidence, I *almost* noted the other day the part about how, when my a cappella group used to sing “Don’t You Want Me (Baby),” we would often (in rehearsals, or when sloshed) sing it as “Don Giovanni’s Baby.”
2 — Just a good guess. I certainly was not sure of my answer.
3 — I’m upset at missing Rousseau, which I should have gotten, since I know of and like the work. It was kind of middle of my tongue — not so close to the tip that I thought spending time on it would be useful, so I just shrugged and went with the clearly wrong (but had nothing better) Matisse. I would have gotten Rousseau right from a multiple choice, but could not conjure it up on my own.
4 — Cribbage was the one I was tearing my hair out on. I don’t play, but I have read this trivia about the best hand a dozen times, and I know a tiny bit about scoring. So, I tried scoring the hand in the way I thought at least had a shot a being close to right — a point for each 15 (there are 8 of them), a point for each pair (there are 6), a point for each triplet (there are 4), a point for each quad (there is 1) and 2 points for “nobs” or “nibs” (the matching Jack) = 21. That did not ring a cribbage bell, but I wasn’t going to do better, grumble grumble. The bright side, it was easy for me to park the 3 there, as I suspected this would be tough for most people.
5 — And bah, I should have been able to tease out the TV show. At first I thought about whether there was an early season of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy that might have had these gents (though conspicuously missing Carson). I decided no. I ultimately punted with The Real World, not liking it in part because no women were listed, and why wouldn’t they list at least one? Dunno whether more thought would have gotten me around to Jackass — I put the odds at about 25%. Definitely possible, but I don’t think likely, but then again if I set my brain to working on “shows having at least 5 cast members, all guys (because no woman was mentioned), and probably an irreverent unscripted show because, really, Raab Himself??.” Had I stumbled onto Jackass, I almost surely would have stayed there.
6 — And blerg — coin flip between Beatles and Stones. I knew “Meet The Beatles” came out in 1964, and thought it was their first US album (cover says first, but evidently it was second), and “England’s Newest Hitmakers” sounded like a good subtitle for “Meet The Beatles.” But meh — had I thought deeper, I *should* have concluded that by 1964, the Beatles were no longer new *in England,* however new they might have been in the US. Had I thus excluded them, then Stones was really the only other choice. Shoulda Got.
My opponent managed to give me a 1-2 on the first two questions (huh?? on my stats??), and in so doing, pulled off the win.
1: I did that thing where you struggle between two answers, and it turns out neither one is right. In my defense, I didn’t feel enthusiastic about either Robin Hood or William Tell, partially because I couldn’t remember how fictional either one of them was.
2: I was pleased to reason this out correctly. I knew that Chile is “blocked” by Argentina, and the only other small-widthed country on the Pacific coast is Ecuador, so …
3: I guessed Gauguin, a name that never looks correctly spelled to me.
4: I have played cribbage a few times in the distant past, but I was never going to remember anything about the gameplay, much less the scoring system. I went with the very silly guess of 5+5+5+10=25, and don’t count the “cut card” because it’s been cut, obviously.
5: I thought Bam Margera was on Entourage for some reason. Hmm.
6: I fumbled around trying to remember who had covered “Not Fade Away” before just deciding to guess The Rolling Stones because I was pretty sure they had debuted in the U.S. around ’64, but didn’t become megastars until “Satisfaction” in ’65.
3(2)-0(F) win. Frowny face.
Rousseau! That’s it. Bleah. And sorry, thought it was the last one the other day, so ignore my g’bye.