Triviology pub quizzes are $5 per team to play, last a couple of hours, and are composed of six short rounds, giving teams instant gratification for their efforts. Team size can range from one – five players, with prizes for the winning team. Questions are thoroughly researched and cover a wide variety of topics. Here’s my standard format (play the sample quiz here!) :

Round I: CHOTCHKIE’S

Miscellaneous trivia, including The Token Sports Question.
ex: What is the best-selling candy bar in the world?

Round II: POTATO POWER

TV and movie trivia.
ex: In Napoleon Dynamite, what animal which Napoleon is sketching does he proclaim is pretty much his favorite animal ever? This is a real animal, a hybrid of two species of critter.

Round III: BOOK LEARNIN’

Questions about geography, history, science, literature, etc. . . y’know – book learning!

Round IV: WHAMMY!

I pick a different, specific topic each night, and ask you stuff about it. Past rounds have challenged teams’ knowledge of Saturday Night Live cast members, US state quarters, Stephen King novels, and Latin phrases, amongst other things.

Round V: I AM A WALRUS

I provide information about an individual, one piece at a time. The sooner you guess, the more points you could get. Past subjects have included Harriet Tubman, Beyonce, Charles Darwin, Woody Woodpecker – you get the idea.

Round VI: I DON’T FEEL TARDY

Identify musical artists from audio clips; music ranges from hip hop to classical to punk to pop to country.

RETIRED ROUNDS (Mind you, I still use these formats, I just usually scatter them thoughout my trivia nights, rather than composing enitre rounds of them):

NATALIE PORTMANTEAU: Combine film or TV show titles to form a new one.
ex: film adaptation of an Alice Walker novel + movie in which
Apollonia cleanses herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka = “The Color Purple Rain”

YOU COULD BE A CONTENDER (quote from “On the Waterfront”): I play video or audio clips from film or TV; you identify the title and actor.
ex:”I love my dead, gay son!”

WORD UP (title of a song by Cameo): literature, poetry, grammar, theater, comics, etc.
ex: What author asked the question, “Who is John Galt?”

I’M JUST A BILL (from Schoolhouse Rock!): History, geography, current events.
ex: What is the most common first name for a US president?

WHO BRINGS THE HEAVY? (a student asked a teacher friend of mine this question in an effort to understand gravity): All manner of scientific inquiry.
ex: What anatomical feature of gorillas do primatologists use to identify and distinguish individual apes from each other?