I won’t help you win, but I will help you not look like an idiot when you go for your first time.
1: Go early, but not that early.
If you’re going with a group of four or more and want to sit at a table, you should arrive by 7:00. I’ve had friends be so committed to trivia night that they’ll save a table by drinking by themselves until friends arrive. The friends are so appreciative that they buy the staker-outter drinks. Then they’re too drunk to play. Just make your friends go with you.
2: Make up a funny team name, but don’t expect anyone to laugh at it.
Bunny rabbits die when the team names are announced. They’re disgusting. Do not think you can come up with the funniest team name ever. Trust me. You can’t. Start out with something simple like, “I [did] K-Fed and now my [crustaceans with pincers] have [STD that rhymes with slurp]. Don’t look at me like that.
3: Don’t wait for the TV.
The questions get called out over a loudspeaker and you submit your answers on paper. It’s not Damon’s. Go to the table in front of the TV and collect one score sheet and way more answer sheets than you need. (I don’t have to tell you to do this. You’ll do it anyway.)
4: Make your table shut up while the questions are being asked.
You might feel rude, but how do you plan to dominate Trivia Night if you can’t hear the question? Once the question is out, they can go back to singing Toto.
5: Know how to score.
Three categories are announced before each round, and you’re supposed to decide then whether to assign 1, 3, or 5 points to each category, based on your confidence in knowing the answers. The antes are upped in the second half. Once you write your answer down, the table “bitch” brings it to the front to be scored.
I’ve learned over “the years” that Trivia Night is neither for the weak of intellect nor weak of liver. So unofficial #6: Keep track of what you’re drinking. Lame? Well, if you like having your boss still be able to smell beer on your breath at 5pm Thursday, go ahead and drink two pitchers of Blue Moon. If you want to avoid Rule 6, invite your boss to join your team, but let them make up the team name. Good luck!
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Trivia is for people who’ve wasted their intellect by absorbing vast numbers of data points that have no use other than to impress drunk people eating fried foods.
In other words, it’s perfect for me! (did you know the etymology of “trivia” derives from the Roman practice of posting news at the intersection of 3 roads or, in Latin, “Tri Via”)
Hmm - can’t hope to come up with the funniest team name? Maybe I should just skip “funny” and go for the throat with “offensive”. Who wants to join me for Team “Skull Fuck Baby Jesus”?
(a little part of my soul died while typing that)
Addendum to Rule 1: half of your group has to be there to be able to claim a table. (So if you have 6 people coming, 3 of you need to be there drinking).
Addendum to Rule 2: Team names should be topical. I suggest brushing up on CNN.com and perezhilton.com (maybe even cVillain.com) prior to trivia so that you have the most cutting edge name.
Other than that, a most excellent post. I LOOOOOOOOVE my trivia.
Oy - That name is so 2005 trivia. Now you have to be both offensive AND make fun of Mellow Mushroom waitresses to win.
The only problem is that Trivia is nightmarishly long and then you can be winning and the final question is something like
“Name the top 10 TV SHOWS IN ORDER by gross income divided by number of cameo appearances.” You have to roll the dice, inevitably lose and you are all of a sudden no cooler than Shooter McGavin
I tried going to MM trivia night in the Spring and it was PACKED. Any comments on the other trivia nights around town? Fellini’s, Rivals, ?
I’ve only been to Mellow for trivia once, but I thought it was awesome, despite arriving too late, and being worthless at the trivia. I thought I’d be OK, since I have a fair amount of worthless knowledge up top, but no dice. Sample question: what are the names of the two dogs in Labyrinth, the Bowie movie? (Merlin, and Ambrosius, FYI)
Best team name the night I was there: I want you in the worst way, and that is, standing up, in a hammock.
oy- i’m in!! seriously.. i laughed out loud because only you could dare to be so offensive, and not offend at all.
maybe next week we can round up the troops!
ps.. not to bring down the group moral already, but i suck at trivia.. unless of course, it regards reality television or little-known facts about britney spears
Best MM trivia name I ever heard was during the week that President Bush announced expanded space exploration, including the possibilty of a manned mission to Mars.
And that team name was “Fuck the poor, we’re going to Mars!”
You guys are hilarious. Thanks for the nod, Tim.
sdot - good to know team SFBJ will have our Britney anchor. I have to confess I’ve been too busy looking at her cooter to compile any useful trivia.
let’s make it happen.
One of the proudest times of my life was winning Mellow trivia. I think the final question had something to do with a Julian Schnabel film, so that was just money in the bank.
I still have never won the name competition. Most offensive and hilarious that I’ve seen win the pitcher: “I was balls deep in JonBenet Ramsey and she said ‘Is it in yet?’ so I fucking killed her”
There is also trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings. It seems they usually sit at the bar and get drunk while playing it, leaving me to ask: why haven’t I tried it out?
I did play at Fellini’s one time. I like Fellini’s as a bar, but the prize was pretty low, and it turns out a team comprising the waitstaff won, which seemed like a conflict of interest. So I go to South Street on Tuesday instead.
[…] We wrote the manual to Trivia Night at Mellow Mushroom– any more team names that would make Chuck Norris cry? Any other trivia nights to review? […]
The last time I played Trivia at Mellow Mushroom, one group had a team name incorporating Dakota Fanning and some things I can’t mention on this blog.
To this day, if anyone says “Dakota Fanning,” I think of that team name. Ugh. Yikes.