Now for a rare look at my own material for Friday Night Trivial, in particular the latest episode. Now, a tradition for me is to write all of my material by hand in a composition book. This goes back to the beginning of the original Trivia (although back then I was using large sheets of printer paper), and I would keep track of points by hand, too. This just made things easier for me to manage than relying on Notepad++ or web browsers or whatever. Just have everything there, in s physical form, less of a hassle.

So that’s the setup, I write up a list of categories. The checkmarks I put when I’ve written all the questions for a round.

The first round I had planned for this week was a round of Doctor Who trivia, since I know that’s the show that brings everyone on trivia together, it’s common ground we all know to some extent. The idea for the round was to pick six stories and make a list of secondary characters, and have people guess the story based on those characters (more points earlier in the list, you know the routine if you participate in or listen to the show), but I never got around to writing /anything/ for that round. Maybe I’ll revisit it one week, maybe not.

Here’s the round I was most excited about, the classic automobile pun round. I just love each of those clues and answers. The Ford Mustang one was my favorite. Just an all-around fun round.

Now, I don’t come up with these questions. If you know my source, you know my source, but I’m always afraid these questions won’t work with the usual Trivia crowd. I’m not saying the questions are too difficult (though maybe they sometimes are), I’m just saying that often the questions are not what the normal participants might know. The Definitions/Derivations round is a great example of this.

Often the derivations are too obscure for a right answer to be guessed, so I just go with a general answer. For example, the “Ivory Tower” derivation comes from the Bible, from the Song of Solomon. I didn’t ask for the specific source of the Bible for that, just a general guess of that collection of books.

To be honest, I’m thinking of dropping the Definitions/Derivations round entirely from Friday Night Trivial; while I find that round fascinating (I love learning about etymologies of words/phrases), I don’t think the Trivial regulars enjoy it.

I then went on to a round of Auto Correct, in which I had six books, one letter changed, and you had to guess the altered title. There was one on that list that, from the source, just didn’t work, the clue didn’t have a specific reference to a part of the book and it fell apart upon scrutiny. You get the answer, but only in a general sense. This was a fun round that I think went over well.

Then I had a round of “Famous Daves”. This round is actually something I found buried in my typed notes for the old Friday Night Trivia. Maybe I used this on the final episode. Maybe I used it at some point before that. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I was digging around my backup drive for old trivia notes and found that. I have no idea if I actually used it.

I ended the show with a round of “Books by Subject”: I gave a list of genres/subjects for a particular book and you guess the book. I actually had eight questions ready, but I think I only ended up using six on the show. I was surprised The Bell Jar wasn’t guessed (I wrote the title incorrectly in my notes, I know), actually. I also didn’t use Invisible Man; I don’t think anyone in the current Trivia group besides me has even heard of that book (I’m talking about Ralph Waldo Ellison’s book, not “The Invisible Man” by Wells). I’m also sort of surprised (and disappointed) that no one guessed “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. I also had planned a question about “Animal Farm”, but it somehow missed the cut.

I’ll leave you with the scoresheet. Hastily written and scribbled out and rewritten as the show went on.

As always, thank you to everyone who participated in Friday Night Trivial 4, and thank you to everyone who listens, either through the published podcast feed or on the archives on Internet Archive.