Pub quiz with a drink
[attach]2677[/attach]Question: In the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune which actor played main character Claus Von Bülow?
Answer: Who cares? Let’s have another beer!
And so goes [url=http://www.mytowncrier.ca/pub-quiz-are-you-smart-drunk-enough.html][u]quiz[/u][/url] night at pubs all across the city where loyal locals fill tables week in and week out for a chance to flex their knowledge muscles in a boozy display of nerd-chismo.
Originally a British phenomenon, the quiz night (or pub quiz, live trivia or table quiz, as it’s variably called) has taken the rest of the world — including Toronto — by storm. Patrons love them for the addictive trivia and good times. Restaurateurs and pub owners have taken a shining to them because they tend to develop a following and fill seats on otherwise slow nights of the week.
Head to any pub with a British or Irish-sounding name and you’re likely to find a quiz night that’s been running for years, but lately even the trendier spots are joining in the fun.
Head to the Drake Hotel on Wednesdays, for example, and you’ll find a quiz night with a little extra shoe polish. The Ossington, just around the corner, offers a young beards-and-tight-jeans version every second Sunday called Brass Facts.
At quiz nights around the city you’ll find the Quizmaster at the centre of the action. Usually some affable fellow fond of his own voice on the microphone, a good Quizmaster will deliver a set of amusing and original questions peppered with the odd jab or joke.
Terrance Balazo is one such Quizmaster. He’s been running the wildly popular quiz night at Fionn MacCool’s (at Yonge and St. Clair) for four years. Balazo says that the quiz night here is successful for two reasons: the camaraderie and the nerdery.
“On the nerdy level, people like to think that they know everything. They want to come to a bar with their friends to prove that they know more than their friend does,” says Balazo. “It’s like sports for knowledge nerds.”
People at MacCool’s come back for the chance to do better, he says, but also because they form bonds with fellow quiz addicts.
“At the end of each round we pass the sheets around so everyone gets to know each other. From that many friendships have blossomed.”
The friendships were apparent as people began filtering in to Fionn MacCool’s well over an hour before game time on a recent Tuesday. Some tables greeted each other with a friendly and familiar round of handshakes and hugs while others acknowledged each other only with a head nod and a stern, game-on gaze.
Balazo, who also works as an actor, comic and DJ, took to the stage in fine form, greeting the crowd with the line, “Good evening, everyone. Welcome to your annual quiz night that happens every Tuesday.”
As the evening progressed the guffaws kept rolling in, although most of them aren’t fit to print in the sober light of day. Suffice it to say that every opportunity for fun is maximized in this environment, from the ribbing of so-called know-it-alls right down to the naming of the teams themselves, which tonight included: “Trivia Newton John”, “The Brass Rail Poetry Society” and “Ghandi’s Cagematch.”
[attach]2678[/attach]Beyond the laughs, the goal here is the glory, of course, but also a gift certificate to the bar. Balazo says there used to be a cash prize, but things became too competitive.
“Once we took the cash out of it things became a lot friendlier,” says Balazo.
Smart phones, which have led to high-tech cheating, have also been a challenge.
“Everyone here is pretty good at self-policing it. But occasionally when new people show up someone will try to check their phone while a round is on and it causes a major problem,” says Balazo.
And what if the Quizmaster gets an answer wrong?
“Every week people challenge things and I try to have enough back-up information to support my answer. I try to out-nerd the nerd. That’s my goal,” says Balazo, who spends between four and eight hours per week preparing, though it wasn’t always this way. A low-point in Balazo’s quizmastering came a few years ago when he attempted to wing it.
“I got the year of Princess Diana’s death wrong, which caused a major uproar. I’ve never seen people go so bananas when I read out the wrong answer. It was nuts,” he recounts, adding that he was off by about a decade.
The story illustrates that, as with more physical sports, people can take things pretty seriously when it comes to trivia. (For those of you still arguing, it was Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune.)
Quiz Night at Fionn MacCool’s is every Tuesday from 9 – 11 p.m. 21 St. Clair Ave. West. Get there early! Click [url=http://www.mytowncrier.ca/pub-quiz-are-you-smart-drunk-enough.html][u]quiz[/u][/url] to test your knowledge. For the answers, click [url=http://www.mytowncrier.ca/pub-quiz-answers-are-you-smart-drunk-enough.html]here[/url].
