Where Mensa meets margaritas
Inside the world of pub trivia
Stuff@Night - October 12, 2004
By Ryan Stewart
QUICK! TELL ME who played Violet Bickerstaff, Screech’s love interest, on three episodes of the television show Saved by the Bell?
If you said "Tori Spelling," then going to a trivia night might be for you.
There are trivia competitions all around Boston, on nearly every night, in nearly every neighborhood, where you can unleash your inner Ken Jennings. And while you won’t approach Jennings-like earnings, you can win some cool stuff, ranging from gift certificates, to concert or sports tickets, to cash, to a bottle of Champagne for your team. At one recent night, a team was even fortunate enough to walk out with a VHS copy of All of Me, the film starring Lily Tomlin and Steve Martin.
As you can tell from that bountiful collection of spoils, trivia in this town is a pretty big deal. Most local nights are run by one of two companies — either MCO Productions (which calls its game "Pop Quiz Team Trivia") or PrimeTime Trivia (which uses the simpler handle of "Stump").
MCO is the older of the two. Its main quizmaster, Michael O’Neill, got the bug in 1996, when he was living in Atlanta and hanging out at bars with Olympians. He brought the trivial pursuit to Boston the following year, starting at T’s Pub, the establishment where he still tests the drinking public’s knowledge every Thursday night. Boston being the well-informed, diverse town that it is, O’Neill found equal enthusiasm among students and suits, and gradually expanded his company until he had an army of six hosts spread in different neighborhoods across the city.
Here’s where it gets ugly: Bob Carney, one of O’Neill’s former employees, jumped ship to start his own company. "He got the idea for running trivia games after playing my game for two years," O’Neill says with a hint of bitterness. In fact, PrimeTime now exceeds MCO in the number of different trivia nights it holds around town. (There you have it: a piece of trivia about trivia.)
The games are run the same way: there are 16 normal questions, followed by four bonus ones. Your team bids on each question, but each point value can be used only once, so there’s some strategy involved. The two games differ in their bonus plans, but only slightly.
So the games are a wash. The companies, really, are a wash as well. PrimeTime offers more — and on the whole, better — locations, but MCO runs a better game. MCO’s questions are more difficult, and the action is more competitive. PrimeTime quizmasters have a tendency to dispense hints as though they’re Pez, which can be either good or bad, depending on your perspective. And MCO gives you pens instead of custom-made PrimeTime golf pencils, which is surprisingly important.
Either way, the appeal is clear: people, especially educated people in this town, like to feel smart. They like to be rewarded for being smart. And they like to get competitive with other people when it comes to being smart — even if the knowledge in play isn’t likely to get you too far in the world on the other six nights of the week.
Going to trivia sessions every night of the week is ill-advised. Some questions may be recycled, and more important, everyone drinks during competition. But here are one man’s picks for the best trivia bet for each night.
On Sunday, head over to Charlie’s Kitchen, in Harvard Square. The venerable diner serves cheap beer and quality food, and refreshingly, you’ll be competing with as many Cambridge townies as with snotty Harvard brats. It’s a PrimeTime locale, so you’ll have a fighting chance.
Mondays belong to MCO’s gig at Our House West, in Allston. Drop in between four and seven for two-for-one burgers, then grab a couple of Brubakers, the best $2 beer you’ll find in this town. Then, sit back and prepare to show up a bunch of BU and BC students; it’s a perfect way to get revenge on them for clogging up your commute on the B Line. But be forewarned: those couches are not as cushy as they look, so don’t flop down unless spinal damage sounds good to you.
On Tuesdays, PrimeTime descends on the Brendan Behan, in Jamaica Plain. This is arguably the best, most-authentic Irish bar in the metro area, but it is in the Hyde Square neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, and accessible only by bus (or a long walk up the hill from the Stony Brook Orange Line stop) if you don’t have your own transportation. Those MassArt kids and über-hipsters have their comeuppance coming, but the location is almost more trouble than it’s worth. Some alternatives include the Asgard, in Central Square; the Green Briar, in Brighton Center; and R.F. O’Sullivan’s, in Somerville. All of them provide solid, standard Irish fare and have a good mix of demographics.
On Wednesdays, there’s the Kinsale, in Government Center, which has some pretty good food, but you’ll be competing against some aggressive suits. At CitySide Bar & Grille, in Cleveland Circle, the game is run by an extremely liberal quizmaster, so it’s eminently winnable. Hennessey’s also puts on its trivia hat on this night.
Feeling confident yet? Then you may finally be ready for the grandmother of them all: Michael O’Neill’s Thursday jam at T’s Pub. The pub’s got a decent menu and a good selection of beers, plus one enormous television. But O’Neill doesn’t mess around. He writes all the questions used by the rest of MCO, which are above normal in difficulty, and the regular competition will answer the bell. It’s a good time, and a victory there nets you actual money, as opposed to a gift certificate or an old videotape. If you can even crack the top three, consider it a badge of honor. As for the weekend, Friday and Saturday are not big trivia nights in this city.
Finally, I won’t leave you without offering some tips on how to finish near the top, if not on it: pick your teammates to be as diverse as possible in their knowledge. Don’t mistake trivia for a race. Don’t interpret a hint when there isn’t one. Bet the most points available if you know the answer. And most important, pick a good team name — the quizmaster is going to read your name up to six times a night, so if it’s a bad joke, you’ll just be embarrassed.
