581 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN WWW.KANSAN.COM | BACK TO SCHOOL | MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2007
ENTERTAINMENT
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
A team of trivia contestants discuss possible answers to a question. With the emergence of television shows like "The World Series of Pop Culture", trivia games have caught on around town.
And the correct answer is... Trivia contests a big hit throughout Lawrence's bar scene
BY JAIME NETZER
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
A scorekeeper tallies the number of correct answers during a trivia game. Trivia players often encounter bizarre questions ranging from pop culture to world geography.
jnetzer@kansan.com
The host announced the final category: this day in history. Laura Watkins, 2006 graduate, took a swig of her Newcastle and decided with the three guys on her team to bet all of their points. They were far behind the other 11 teams playing at the Brick, 1727 McGee St. in Kansas City, Mo., that Friday night, and had nothing to lose.
"On what show was John Lennon's death first announced?"
Watkins was worried. Under pressure her memory is horrible, she says.
Then it hit her.
"Just from a time I randomly vegged out in front of VH1 for like, 20 hours, I remembered it
was announced on Monday Night Football. Watkins says.
Because of Watkins's ability to retain this seemingly useless piece of information, her team was the only one to answer the question correctly. They won first place.
Watkins is one of several dozen regular trivia players in Lawrence. She plays almost every week in different bars around town. Watkins says she enjoys trivia because she's naturally competitive and learns interesting, random facts. But the main reason she plays is to spend time with her friends, she says.
So if youre stuck in Lawrence during spring break, avoid the usual get-drunk-and-stand-around routine, and give trivia a try — you just might learn something useless.
What is trivia?
Trivia first took off in the United States in 1927, although the term wasn't coined until the 1960s. The publication of a series of popular quiz books called Ask Me Another, filled with questions like "what is a Bunsen burner?" and "how do kangaroos carry their offspring?" got Americans hooked on quizzing themselves.
Trivia in Lawrence is set up in a system similar to the one used on Jeopardy! Teams select categories and answer questions for points. One team can challenge another team if they think the other team won't be able to come up with the answer. If the other team fails, the original team receives double the points. If the team being challenged answers the questions correctly, they receive