Vote for Johnny Goodtimes on Big Money Tuesday!
There is only one quizmaster in this town worth voting for, and that’s the one offering not only the best questions in town but the best prizes. We start at O’Neals, where margaritas are $3.50, the first place prize is a $50 gift certificate, and the competition is wide slam open. Anybody could come away with a win at O’Neals tonight, as we have a new winner there literally every week.
On to the City Tap House at 10:15 p.m. Two weeks, two different winners. Expect a new winner this week, as the questions tonight are going to be quite interesting. And the prize there is insane. A free two hour Happy Hour for you and ten friends! Off the chain, folks. Spread the word to your peeps in West Philly. Also, $3 Sly Foxes and $10 buys you a personal pizza and a can of beer. A tough deal to beat.
Also, we’re taking the physical challenge to a whole new level tonight. The scoreboard is getting tense, and so now so will the bonus points. Hope to see you tonight!
Question of the Week
On November 2, 1959, Charles Van Doren admitted to a Congressional committee that he had been given the answers in advance on the game show Twenty One. Who was his opponent (above) who threw the game, later regretted it, and blew the whistle on the rampant cheating that was going on in TV game shows?
Autumn Invitational Scoreboard with Two Weeks to Go
Here’s the JGTAI Scoreboard after 6 weeks. The top 3 teams looked to be pretty locked in, but after that it’s wide open. Keep in mind, teams in blue will be eligible for the $100 bonus drawing. Teams in yellow or blue would be guaranteed slots if the season ended today. Teams in green are on the bubble. They could get in if a couple of teams ahead of them drop out or if there is an extra table or two. Which means that teams in the green would be well served to try to score a few points in the next two weeks. There is an extremely easy opportunity to earn points right now. Just post a pic of you in your Halloween outfit. Up to three members can post a photo for a point each and the best outfit will earn their team another 3 points. With 9 teams within 3 points of that last slot either way, 3 points could wind up being huge. Remember, winner walks with $300, and everybody gets to enjoy the sweet soulful sounds of Anthony Riley. The Summer Invitational was a ton of fun, and I don’t expect this to be any different.
Quick Notes
Scoreboard will be up Monday. Two weeks left to go in the JGTAI, and I will start handing out invites next week to teams who have qualified. Teams who have not qualified, here is a golden opportunity! I am giving bonus points for you posting photos of yourself in your Halloween costumes. Best Halloween outfit posted on the wall earns you a bonus 3 points!
In sports, here’s my latest podcast with Lee Russakoff…is Instant Replay hurting the NFL? This is a pretty funny one. In the “In case you missed it category”, I highly recommend the poem about Ryan Howard’s last at bat.
And finally, in the “Most interesting thing I’ve read lately on the 3 blogs I semi-regularly check” category, here is a highly entertaining piece from Joey Sweeney at Philebrity about his time spent working in the porn industry. Sort of.
Perfection, Inception, and Rejection: The Week That Was
A wild, wild, Spooktacular week. Steak Em Up finishes 3rd twice, Satan’s Minions (above) get a perfect score, I blow a tie breaker at O’Neals, and two new teams win for the first time ever.
We start at O’Neals, where I didn’t realize until I was announcing final scores that we had a tie. I ran over to Insert Topical Team Name Here and said “When was Dracula born?” Not knowing that it was the tiebreaker, one of them started looking it up on his phone. They were disqualified. Bad call by the ref: In a rush, I had neglected to tell them it was a tiebreaker. Savage Ear got the win. A tough loss, but the fact that they tied means they only lost one point on the JGTAI. Also getting a win on Tuesday night? The Tubular Two, whose City Tap House win was their first ever victory.
No tiebreakers needed at the Black Sheep the next night, as Satan’s Minions went 40 questions up, 40 questions down to record a perfect 120. Remarkably, after 7 years and over 350 quizzes without a single perfect game ever at the Black Sheep, we’ve had two in the month of October (Duane’s WOrld had one a few weeks ago.) It’s a funny sport.
Earlier in the night, 1022 kept their incredible hot streak going. Through September 10th, these Rendezvous regulars had won three times all season, and hadn’t won since early June. In the last 6 games, they’ve won 5 times.
Onto Thursday, where the serial killer wild card round was an instant classic (The Ghost Movie Speed Round, on the other hand, not so much. A fair amount of anger over what constitutes a ghost). And when the dust settled, the Exhausted Nihilists were the 2nd team this week that won their first ever quizzo.
Then to a packed Bards, where incredibly 4 teams finished within two points of each other. Eschaton escaped with the win. Lots of surprises in the Halloween Spooktacular. Going to be interesting to see how the standings shake down on Monday.
1022 Wins at Vous
First Place: 1022 104
2nd Place: Inglorious Barristers 95
3rd Place: The Jams 91
The Tubular Two Win at City Tap House
First Place: The Tubular Two 92
2nd Place: The Basil Cartel 81
3rd Place: L. Ron Hubbard’s Diabetics 75
The Savage Ear Wins at O’Neals
First Place: The Savage Ear 102
2nd Place: Insert Topical Team Name Here 102
3rd Place: Different Name Every Week 96
Atlantic City in the 1920s: The Real Boardwalk Empire
I’ve been watching Boardwalk Empire for the past few weeks, and I gotta say it’s the best show I’ve seen in a while. (Even better than the Jersey Shore). Started a little slow, but has quickly picked up, and the scene this past week with Al Capone bringing Jimmy those steaks was terrific. If you haven’t been watching, I highly recommend it. You can watch it On Demand if you get HBO. Anyways, I spent some of the day looking at some photos, reading some stories, and looking at some video of AC in the 1920s, and thought I’d share.
- Here’s a bunch of old AC photos put together as a montage by the AC Visitors Bureau. You’ll notice plenty of the landmarks from the show.
- Recently Philly Mob guru George Anastasia has gone out to Atlantic City to do a couple of shorts about Nucky Johnson. Here’s one of them.
- Meanwhile, though it’s not from exactly the same time, you’ll see many of the landmarks from the show in this family video taken in 1932.
- A short but informative piece in the AC Weekly about all of the entertainment that went on in AC in the 1920s. Among the nightclubs that existed back then were the Paradise Club on Illinois Avenue, which was billed as the oldest nightclub in America and the first to host “breakfast shows.” The talent was largely black (and the audience largely white), and many of the artists who performed would take their place among the greatest in history like Count Basie, Ethel Waters, Nat King Cole, Lena Horne and Duke Ellington. The Paradise later merged with A.C.’s famed Club Harlem, which was created in 1935. Babette’s was a club established in the early 1920s by singer/entertainer Blanche Babette, and featured such stars of that era as Velma and Buddy Ebsen, Rudy Vallee, the Three Stooges and Milton Berle.