Trivia Hunt Invitational: December 20th, 2021
Trivia Hunt 2021 season ended with a dramatic contest where all the previous winners gave it their best for one last big prize. Getting an invite for this event was no small thing. As you’ve all proved it, one does not become a Trivia Hunt winner by accident. It takes skill, great organization, trivia knowledge, persistence and determination to become one. We admit that we’re amazed by the level you’ve reached since we started this event together. This final Hunt was significantly harder than the usual ones, as we were aware of your capabilities. Thank you for your support throughout the year, the useful feedback, criticism or praise, that has allowed us to create a better product and provide a different type of fun for our users. Trivia Hunt Invitational was our way to thank you, and award your mastery in this game. Only one team could win it, and it was the Exotic Fruit Basket. Big congrats to them! They win $1,000 by answering all ten questions correctly in slightly over 30 minutes. Two other teams have submitted a perfect sheet within the next 90 seconds! Fantastic job!
FULL STANDINGS CAN BE FOUND HERE
We hope that you’ve enjoyed the added level of challenge. While the quickest teams managed to get all the answers in half the allotted time, there were several questions that weren’t as straightforward as usual. Those who may have successfully tackled the Happy Hogan detour may have lost time searching for the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission or initially missed the subtlety of ‘directors in media’ wording in Question 7. You were also surely aware how strong your rivals are, so time surely was a factor that contributed to a few mistakes. In the end, only four of the ten questions were answered correctly by every team, while questions #1, #6 and #9 stumped more than one team. You can find the answers and the stats below.
The 2022 season begins on February 26, and we hope we’ll see you then. If that’s too long for you to wait for another Hunt, we’re doing private events during the holiday season, so feel free to contact us to set one up for you to play with your friends, coworkers or family.
TRIVIA HUNT PRIVATE EVENT!
We are excited to announce that we are now booking private Trivia Hunts. These hunts will be 90 minutes each (with 60 minutes being gameplay). All private hunts include a live host/Zoom call, one celebrity-reader video question, and will skew slightly on the easier side in terms of the questions.
With that said, it’s company holiday party season, so feel free to suggest a company Trivia Hunt for this year’s shindig! More info and inquiry forms can be found at www.sporcle.com/private-events
A quick note about the questions and how we go about them: when we write each question, we test it in a small group, re-write them, and try again. A different group does a test run 2-3 days before the hunt, and again, we revise. Even with all that, we sometimes don’t discover an additional answer or a possible wording issue. We certainly do our best, and our intent is never to trick you. We want you to get them right, but we also want them to be a challenge. With that said, there are sometimes questions where there were multiple accepted answers. If your team answered a question differently than shown below, please email us to explain it before we do the scoring. Slight misspellings are accepted. Thank you!
Question #1:
If you combine the first name of the character from the top part of this image with one of the names of the actress from the bottom part of the image, you’ll get a movie character’s full name. That character hosts a game show in a film in which someone with the initials ‘MB’ is credited for voicing the title character. What is the answer to the first question (for $5) that that game show host asks that movie’s protagonist, who is the first person to speak to the title character?
Clarifier: The movie protagonist is the first person that speaks to the title character, not the game show host.
A: Aardvark
Discovery Path: Happy Hogan → Champagne for Caesar → Caesar (Mel Blanc) → Beauregard Bottomley → What is the first animal mentioned in Encyclopedia Britannica? → Aardvark
% Correct: 78%
Common incorrect answer: Various
Question #2:
Starting in 2008, the IISE announces a list of the Top 10 New Species for the preceding calendar year. One of the animals that made a top 10 list was found in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, near Northern California. The researchers who discovered it used two remotely operated vehicles. The name of one of those two vehicles is a Spanish word for a different type of animal. An ABC TV series contains the name of that animal. In addition to the main series, the show also has a number of international versions. What television station has the rights to broadcast the version of the show that was announced in 2020 and that is planned to start airing in 2021?
A: Himalaya TV
Discovery Path: Lyre Sponge → MBARI → Tiburon → Shark → Shark Tank → Shark Tank Nepal → Himalaya TV
% Correct: 100%
Common incorrect answer: –
Question #3:
The first person heard speaking in this audio clip from a Netflix series trailer earned his undergraduate degree from a school that is a member of a college athletic conference in the United States. The only other school in that conference as of the 2021-22 season that has the same athletic team nickname was named for a man who belonged to a U.S. political party that has put forward presidential candidates. In the presidential election in which this party gained the highest percentage of the popular vote across its history, the winner claimed a certain number of electoral votes. In the only other presidential election in which the winner claimed the same number of electoral votes, who was the aforementioned party’s nominee for president?
A: J. Frank Hanly
Discovery Path: Hakeem Oluseyi → Tougaloo College → Gulf Coast → Fisk College → Clinton B. Fisk → Prohibition Party → 1892 → Grover Cleveland → 277 → Woodrow Wilson → 1916 → J. Frank Hanly
% Correct: 89%
Common incorrect answer: William Varney
Question #4:
This Google doodle celebrated an event in history. On the same date, but over 100 years later, a reigning monarch died. The day that monarch was crowned, an American comedian who appeared on Saturday Night Live was born. That actor gave voice to a character in a single episode of The Simpsons. What famous actress, who later appeared in more than ten feature movies and a number of television series, made her film debut in a movie with a title matching that character’s name?
A: Jennifer Love Hewitt
Discovery Path: Waitangi Day → February 6, 1840 → February 6, 1953 → George VI → May 12, 1937 → George Carlin → Munchie → Jennifer Love Hewitt
% Correct: 100%
Common incorrect answer: –
Question #5:
An author has had a top 10 bestseller in the U.S. each year from 1991-2005, as determined by Publishers Weekly. Of those titles, eliminate those that do not begin with ‘The’ and those that were not adapted into a feature-length movie. Which of the remaining books was adapted into the movie that grossed the most worldwide?
A: The Firm
Discovery Path: John Grisham → The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992), The Client (1993), The Chamber (1994), The Rainmaker (1995), The Runaway Jury (1996), The Partner (1997), The Street Lawyer (1998), The Testament (1999), The Brethren (2000), Skipping Christmas (2001), A Painted House (2001), The Summons (2002), Skipping Christmas (2002), The King of Torts (2003), Bleachers (2003), The Last Juror (2004), The Broker (2005) → The Firm ($270,248,367), The Pelican Brief ($195,268,056), The Client ($117,615,211), The Chamber ($22,540,359), The Rainmaker ($45,916,769), The Runaway Jury ($80,154,140) → The Firm
% Correct: 89%
Common incorrect answer: A Time to Kill
Question #6:
Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi played against 45 different teams in UEFA European competitions, scoring a goal against 40 of them. Of the remaining five, find the one that won the most domestic titles. A day after this club was founded, a US president named a group of seven people to lead a project. Of those seven, which person was born on a date that comes last in a calendar year?
Clarifier: Domestic titles are only the titles in the national league of that team. Continental leagues, continental cups or domestic cups should be disregarded.
A: General George W. Davis
Discovery Path: Atletico Madrid (11), Benfica (37), Udinese (1), Inter (19), and Rubin Kazan (2) → Benfica → February 29, 1904 → Isthmian Canal Commission → General George W. Davis (July 26), Admiral John G. Walker (March 20), Frank J. Hecker (July 6), William Barclay (April 15), William H. Burr (July 14), Benjamin M. Harrod (February 19), Carl E. Grunsky (April 4) → General George W. Davis
% Correct: 67%
Common incorrect answer: Various
Question #7:
The oldest European-founded city in the United States was named for a man who died in a year that is the same as the numerical placement of a clothing company on Forbes’s list of America’s 500 Best Employers for Diversity 2021. The two letters in this company’s name are the same as the initials of two notable directors in media who were both born in Japan in the 20th century and who also have the same eight-letter family name. What noun appears the most times in the titles of works directed by the younger director of the two?
A: Souls
Discovery Path: St. Augustine → 430 → H&M → Hayao and Hideteki Miyazaki → Souls
% Correct: 100%
Common incorrect answer: –
Question #8:
During the same year in which a filmmaking studio with a Jenny Joseph-inspired logo was acquired by a company that owned it for just 5 years, a movie debuted at the Santa Fe Film Festival. The cinematographer of this film made a movie of his own based on a similar concept about a decade later. That movie was shot in numerous locations across 24 world countries. Which of those countries has submitted the most movies that have won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020)?
A: France
Discovery Path: Columbia Pictures → 1982 (The Coca-Cola Company) → Koyaanisqatsi → Ron Fricke → Baraka → Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, United States, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, Australia, Poland, France, Vatican City → France
% Correct: 89%
Common incorrect answer: Italy
Question #9:
Of the U.S. state capitals with names that begin with a vowel, which one is the closest (as the crow flies) to this tripoint marker of three states that all begin with a consonant?
A: Indianapolis
Discovery Path: Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia tripoint → Albany (559 miles), Annapolis (504 miles), Atlanta (295 miles), Augusta (788 miles), Austin (1,031 miles), Indianapolis (271 miles), Oklahoma City (1,405 miles), Olympia (3,483 miles) → Indianapolis
% Correct: 78%
Common incorrect answer: Atlanta
Question #10:
Three of the current UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassadors from the United States joined Twitter in the same month of the same year. A number of songs reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 during that month. What is the first word that begins with the letter ‘O’ in the lyrics of the song that was at the #1 spot on the first weekend of that month?
A: Out
Discovery Path: April 2009 (Judy Collins, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow) → Right Round → Out
% Correct: 100%
Common incorrect answer: –