The Big Quiz Thing: Trivia for a Trivial Price!

I’ve just returned home from my regular trivia night, my hands stained with ink, and the logo of the Big Quiz Thing stamped underneath my wrist. The Big Quiz Thing is a trivia event held every other Monday night at Crash Mansion, in Manhattan, and hosted by Noah Tarnow, the Chief Copy Editor at Time Out New York. During the Quiz I spend hours in a cavernous semi-dark room, huddled together with my team as we scribble answers on scraps of notepaper or postcards filched from the box near the bathroom, competing heatedly with longtime rival teams with names like “Jefferson Davis Starship,” “Cash Cab for Cutie,” and the “Fantastic Fournicators.” “I’m very proud that I’ve created something that people really care about, and that I genuinely know I’m entertaining them…I really enjoy trivia, so it’s a great feeling when a question or round really comes together as challenging, clever and entertaining, all at the same time,” Tarnow says.

Our team works well together, I think because we each have our own specialty, one team member knew the different names for Sesame Street, another could say that Annette Bening and Dan Ankroyd were in the movie The Great Outdoors together, while another teammate was able to unscramble an anagram to piece together the answer of chicken tikka masala for a visual round dealing with food. My specialty is literature (I was able to identify mystery authors this time around, though I’m still mad at myself for spitting out Sue Grafton for an answer rather than Patricia Cornwell, whose books I’ve read, luckily a teammate quickly corrected me.)

It’s a rather motley bunch I play with, we vary in age from 30 to 40, and our professions range from personal assistant to financial analyst, yet somehow when we’re cozily (sometimes too cozily)squashed next to each other in our booth, furtively whispering possible answers or grabbing furiously for the official team notepad if we immediately know the answer to a question, it somehow all works out-we’re almost always in the top ten teams and often the top five, and we even win from-time-to-time, garnering the $200 prize and the chance to display the much coveted plastic trophy the following week.

There are five rounds of play, with the first and third rounds general knowledge questions, the second round a video round (this may include cut-up movie scenes, pages from recipe books, or bidding Price is Right-style on airplane catalogs, or word puzzles), audio rounds that are usually theme-based (such as Maximum Michael Jackson-all MJ songs) and then the last round is the Lighting Round, where teams have just ten seconds between questions and a minute at the end of the round to decide on responses and turn in the answer sheet. Regarding these unusual rounds, Tarnow says, “I knew from the beginning that I wanted the quiz to be more of a show than a typical bar-trivia night, and these elements are key. EDP [Eric de Picciotto, Tarnow's sidekick on game nights] and GB [the show's DJ, DJGB] have been instrumental in helping make these elements a reality.”

If a team doesn’t know the answer they can make up an answer, and if it gets a laugh, they'll get what's called a "Smart-Ass" point. “The idea of smart-ass points came to me very early on, when I was making the earliest plans for the quiz. Just seemed like a good idea, a great way to inject comedy into the competition,” Tarnow says.

At the end of five rounds, the team with the most points wins. General knowledge questions can range from any subject from literature to history, pop culture, geography, current events, and sports (our weakness.) Tarnow finds inspiration for questions from a variety of sources, “I keep a notepad in my back pocket, and am constantly jotting down ideas that inspire trivia questions or special rounds, wherever I may pick them up. I maintain a large file of unused questions, and to prep for every show, I go through it and pick what I want to use for that edition (tweaking/writing new material as I go). I bounce ideas off of EDP (especially the video round) and GB (especially the audio round), but mostly I craft the material solo.”

As the game progresses my team has its own rituals that include singing along to the theme song for the special four-part questions in the first and third rounds, counting down at the lightning round and erupting with ‘Happy New Year!’ as the clock ticks down to zero, singing along to our favorite songs as they play during the music rounds, and even dancing in-between rounds. Personally I doodle a lot, mainly flowers, though sometimes random faces or plates of spaghetti-weird, I know.

At a recent night, my team won, which is always fun, and we always get ridiculously excited when we win, leaping up in the air when we hear our name, and then much high-fiving and hugs ensue, sometimes pictures are taken. “I think for many—at least the ones who win with any regularity—the competitive aspect is addictive. But I like to think that people appreciate the show’s entertainment value—the cleverness of the questions, and humor of the show in general—separate from the game itself. I’m always proud that teams who never win come back again and again,” Tarnow says.

Show Details:
200th Anniversary Spectacular! August 31, 2009
7 p.m.
The Big Quiz Thing is celebrating its 200th show next Monday, with a one-time only venue switch to Le Poissen Rouge, the entry fee will be upped to $10, but the grand prize will be a smokin' hot $400!
Cheap Chick Info: $10
Location Info: Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker at Thompson Street
Subway: A,C,E,B,D,F,V to West 4th Street, 1 to Houston, R,W to Prince

Regular Shows at Crash Mansion
7:30 p.m. (but best get there early to grab seats)
Upcoming dates: September 14, and September 28, 2009
Cheap Chick Info: $7
Location Info: Crash Mansion
Subway: F,V to Second Avenue, 6 to Spring Street