Month: March 2021

Let the Madness Begin!

April Madness is here, folks, and things have worked out quite nicely. We hit our goal of 48 teams, all of them vying for the prestigious tourney title. Here’s everything you need to know:

WHO: 48 of our most illustrious teams. Well, actually 49, 48 of whom will make the tourney.

WHAT: The second annual April Madness Tourney.

WHEN: March 29th-May 23rd.

WHERE: On Zoom.

WHY: Why not?

HOW: 5 weeks to accumulate points, then we seed based off of those points. All regular season games will be your team in zoom with your quizmaster. Top 16 teams will get a first round bye, the next 32 teams will have a first round game….then 16 of them that win move into the next round. The 16 that lose start the losers bracket. Of the final 32, the losers in that first round will also go to the losers bracket. So everyone is guaranteed at least 7 games.

HOW DID IT LOOK LAST YEAR? Here’s the bracket from last year’s tourney. This years will be even better, since we’re actually basing seedings on something, so we’ll have a fun regular season before we get to the tourney.

WHAT’S UP WITH PAYMENT: Pretty simple, half of payment is due on April 1st, the other half on May 1st. (Cost is $350 total per team for the season). You can venmo payment to @jgtquizzo or paypal it to johnny at johnnygoodtimes dot com.

WHAT WILL THE TOPICS BE: Not going to tell you the definite topics, but we’ll be picking 15 out of the following 20. Once the playoffs start, we’ll be going with general knowledge.

CAN WE STILL ENTER: We’ll take one more team to get it up to 50, so if you wanna be that team you can sign up here.

WHERE CAN WE SIGN UP FOR THE REGULAR SEASON QUIZZES? Here.

IS THERE A CHARITY COMPONENT? Yes, $10 of each teams fee goes towards the Poor People’s Army’s ongoing struggle to house families.

WILL CARL BE THE DE FACTO LEADER OF THIS LEAGUE, WITH JGT JUST A DELUSIONAL FIGUREHEAD: Yes.

ANY “EXTRAS”? Yes, I am still working on putting an All-Star game together, and if my idea comes to fruition it’s gonna be awesome. Hope to have it locked up in the next week. Also, put it down in your calendar: we’ll be doing a giant movie quiz on April 25th, before the Oscar’s begin.

LET’S PARTY: Let’s do it to it!

Possible Quizzo Topics for April Madness

Thanks for your suggestions for topics for April Madness! We got some great ones. We have cut them down to our favorite 20, of which we’ll select 15 over the next 5 weeks. They are:

  • 2010s sitcoms
  • Cheese
  • The stock market
  • foreign languages
  • Baking
  • One hit wonders
  • Countries that No Longer Exist
  • Music of the 50s and 60s
  • Famous addresses
  • Chinese food
  • 90s hip-hop
  • Rivers and Lakes
  • First Ladies
  • Famous Addresses
  • Beer
  • TV commercials
  • mythology
  • Bizarre old medical practices
  • The Caribbean
  • British Invasions

Sign Ups for This Week

The April Madness pre-season is this coming week. $35 a team to play, just venmo @jgtquizzo, and we’ll have a normal general quiz. You can sign up here.

Carl’s on vacation this week and JGT’s got some corporate events, so might be a chance for some of our regulars to try out a new Quizmaster. Also: the All Star game that we promised will be next weekend. More details coming soon.

Our Finals Are Set!

We started with 60…we’re down to our Elite 8. The Championship takes place on Sunday night at 7:30…and you’re welcome to play along. Just go to playbigquiz.com and enter the Event Key “mar21” and you can enter your team in Sunday Night’s play-along (we’ll be airing the game live on Facebook, with a Finals preview starting at 7:15).

The finals are really a collection of true Quizzo bluebloods. Some truly elite squads in the finals this year, with only one team I’d call a Cinderella. Here are the Vegas odds and what you should know about each team:

Mathematicians Must Be Right (Odds 3/1): A new team of trivia veterans from around the country, they have come into the league and made their presence known. The highest scoring team of the regular season, they advanced easily in the semis. They are not fan favorites here in Philly, but thus far they don’t seem intimidated by the local fans.

Smells Like Quarantine Spirit (Odds 4/1): They won Summer Slam. They won Fall Brawl. Could they make it three in a row? It’s quite possible. They dominated the wild card and had the 3rd highest score in the semis.

Cool Cats and Kittens (Odds 9/2): An incredible semi-final performance saw them put up a perfect score. They’re certainly a top contender (leading scoring regular season team in Summer Slam, missed the Elite 8 in Fall Brawl by a single point, and a 10-0 record and the 3rd highest average this season). They’re hungry for their first title.

Boyz II Menehune (Odds 5/1): The Boyz (and Taryn) fell by 2 in the World Cup Final Four, suffered a devastating overtime loss in the Summer Slam Finals, and suffered a stunning Wild Card Loss in Fall Brawl. Just over a year ago they brought home their first Quizzo Bowl title. Could they bring home the hardware for the Winter Warz?

Quizteama Aguilera (Odds 7/1): Another team that’s been damn close with no cigar…a Final Four in the World Cup, a 5th place finish in Summer Slam, and 4th in the Fall Brawl. Can they get over the hump?

Social Distance Warriors (Odds 9/1): They won last year’s April Madness and finished 2nd in the World Cup. But they were a no-show at the Summer Slam finals, and took off for Fall Brawl. People in the media were questioning their heart. But they returned with a bang in Winter Warz, going 9-1. They’d love to hoist another trophy.

Del-COVID 19 (Odds 11/1): You know you’ve got a hell of a field when a team that goes 10-0 and has Quizzo Bowl wins on their resume but has the second worst odds to win the title. They finished 15th at Summer Slam and fell in the Semis of Fall Brawl, but do have some members from the Cracked Pact, which has won a couple of Quizzo Bowls. The team is beloved in their home stadium, located in Upper Darby.

Babysitters Fight Club (Odds 42/1): Last season, America’s sweethearts were FFSF. This season, it’s Babysitter’s Fight Club, a wild card team out of the Ewok Division. They snuck into the semis with the lowest score in the wildcard to advance, then snuck into the Finals with the lowest score in the semis to advance. They have the same odds as Buster Douglas did vs Tyson. Could they shock the world?

What Best Pic Nominee Should We Do for Our Next Movie Club?

Gonna do our next Movie Club meeting next Sunday, March 28th. (And we’re planning a MAJOR Oscar’s Night quiz on April 25th.) And if you’re anything like me, you wanna cram some Best Pic noms into your viewing over the next few weeks. So let’s do that this week, and then discuss one of them next week. But which one? I just put up a poll on twitter, and wanna know which of the Best Pic noms currently streaming we should watch. Then we’ll have movie Club next Sunday the 28th. More details once we pick the film. And mark your calendars: MAJOR movie quiz coming April 25th for the Oscars.

Quizzo News and Notes

JGT, J Michael, and Carl were just talking playoffs on the Facebook page on Sunday night. If you wanna see who they think are the favorites, the sleeper picks, and the Cinderellas, give them a listen here.

Did you not make the playoffs but wanna play in the Winter Snorez? You can sign up here.

Wanna hire JGT for your next corporate event, birthday party, or fundraiser? Check out our snazzy new commercial!

Checked out our new quizzo-inspired podcast! Each week my buddy Nat the Truth and I do a deep dive on a question we’ve recently asked at quizzo…Week 1 was Leopold and Loeb, Week 2 was Heaven’s Gate. New episodes released weekly, and you can listen to them all here, or on itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.

A young man I used to coach and I have started a small charity and had our first event over the weekend, a block clean-up at 15th and Allegheny. It was awesome: music, burgers, and a great turnout. The org is called Us Not I, we’re going to be doing a lot of events this spring and summer (and as the weather gets warmer, some crossover quizzo/cleanup events), and I’d love to have you guys follow us on Instagram and Facebook to see what we’re up to.

Yes, I am talking to some outdoor venues about starting up some outdoor quizzes. I am hoping we can be ready to rock and roll in a month or so. In the meantime, we are kicking off April Madness 2. Your team wanna join the fun? You can learn more and sign up here.

And while I’ve got you here: if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for the Friday Five, my weekly roundup of my favorite local bars, restaurants, and bands.

OK, we’ve got an exciting few weeks lined up! Look forward to seeing you!

Friday Five: Suburbs Edition

Every Friday, I share local places I’ve eaten, great things I’ve read, the best watering holes I’ve visited and great local music I’ve been listening to. And this week there were even bonus boxes! Sign up for the JGT mailing list so you don’t miss anything. In the meantime, here are a couple of this week’s suburban picks.

Continue reading “Friday Five: Suburbs Edition” →