The two ladies on the left were gracious to let me join their team: Go Coney Island Whitefish!
About eight years ago, I, along with the other four members of Kappa Kappa Wong snatched semi-defeat from the jaws of victory at Geeks Who Drink’s first, and what seemed to be only, Futurama-themed quiz. Time heals all wounds but I always wanted a rematch. I received my wish back in January! I’m confident the people who set up the poll of seven choices back at GWD HQ in Denver were shocked and slightly annoyed to see Futurama, a show which has been cancelled twice with no new episodes since 2013, beat out newer options (Bob’s Burgers, Bojack Horseman) and two stalwarts; South Park and The Simpsons, both were restricted to certain season ranges. It was a bittersweet win though. I’m the only remaining KKW member in Austin. As you steady readers know, Kristin and Jeremy moved to the Netherlands in 2017, and the very nice Kate and Chip moved to Canada to be closer to their families. Both couples getting to escape the ineptitude of Orange Foolius and his thuggish GOP probably weighed heavily into their decisions. I know I would leave America in a heartbeat even if Bilary won…oh wait, those NeoLiberal Boomer assholes did.
Enough about politics.
I had absolutely no luck in recruiting a brand new team to get the prize I so coveted. There was one candidate who loved to recite quotes with me but he worked weekends and taking a vacation day to do this on a Saturday afternoon wasn’t compelling. I even had a kick-ass name ready to go…Recumbent Urinators. Obscure. Semi-Dirty. Damned Funny. The hat trick of a great team name.
As the day approached, I discovered that the event was sold out with a week to go. Resigned, I went anyway hoping for a team to let me onboard if they hadn’t hit the limit of six players. The Quizmasters, Fry & Scruffy, were very helpful and introduced me to two nice ladies who said “Sure thing!” Couldn’t convince them to go with my team name, probably hit a little too close to home but I thought Coney Island Whitefish followed the rules of comedy. Besides wearing my Mars University shirt, I brought my Simpsons Chucks bearing the autographs of Futurama voices Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, Phil Lamar, Dave Herman and guest star Hank Azaria with showrunner David X Cohen, as a totem to bring us luck and to intimidate others. Rounding out our team was another gentleman in my situation and out of nowhere, a co-worker I’ve known for 20 years! Dan and his wife who strolled in for the hell of it!
Quizmaster Fry is not sure if I’m taking their picture ironically or for a dumb meme to post later on Twitter.
Away we went, 22 teams this time and I have to say this crowd was savvier than eight years ago, about all the names were excellent, well-thought out. The visual round for number five was called One and Done, name all eight characters who only made a single appearance. Nailed it as a team! Beck was rather obvious, he played himself. GWD definitely structured this one to get progressively harder too. After three rounds, we were in a tight spot, tied for second with several teams. I’m so grateful they didn’t ask about super obscure songs in round two because I can never remember “Eggman” by Eli Wolfe upon command.
Hermes Conrad dropped in to compete as well!
Knowing our margin of error was practically none, the Whitefish carried on and by the end of seven rounds we had hope. Tied for third as the several in first were within reach. I helped out here: Fry’s grandmother is Mildred, Crushinator is from the Moon and giraffes dominate the earth in 1,000,00 1/2 AD. Thankfully a teammate corrected me about coolness, it’s measured in megafonzarellis, not mere fonzarellis. Phew! Ten to the sixth power is a colossal difference!
On my Earth, Leela is Fry’s wife and has two eyes. She came out for moral support.
Round eight was the coup de grace for the Whitefish just as it was for KKW. Holy crap it was hard. We knew the egotistical actor from “Thief of Baghead” was Langdon Cobb yet his world being Bryoria 6? Damn, and being a quantum lichen, argh! I remembered he was a lichen or fungus. Guess what? I also promised to never forget who the worst blernsball player was until Leela in 2011. Yeah. I did forget and it was the only recycled question I discovered while composing this. We were off by ONE. We wrote Hank Aaron XXIII, it’s XXIV. Why couldn’t there have been questions regarding the Robot Mafia or the different things Bender is 40% composed of‽ We came in fourth, five points behind third.
Mom came to play but said she couldn’t stay. Something about going to a benefit for dumb, knocked up sluts.
The Rematch was much more exciting this time for a tiebreaker was needed to decide the winner! Man, if we made it, I think the Whitefish would’ve succeeded, I knew four out of five. The math problem, should a tie remain, after those questions is never easy, even for diehards. The numbers I tend to have ingrained in my brain are Math functions I learned through Simon Singh’s book, namely Bender’s number, 1729, aka the Taxi Cab number.
Congratulations to the new, reigning champs of Austin…Belligerant and Numerous! They beat out Popular Slut Club for the bragging rights.
Will it be for another eight years? I hope not. It’s not sour grapes. I just love Futurama, amongst other fantastic adult-oriented cartoons we can thank The Simpsons for spearheading into American popular culture. This competition’s location was also a place I need to visit more often too. Knomad Bar had better food and atmosphere than Mr. Tramp’s. Parking? Could be better. What won me over: good pizza, decent hard cider options, a QM (Fry) who loves Futurama so doing this rematch was a wish come true for him and something I don’t see every day in Austin, dartboards for steel tips! I need to find mine. I bet my skill will return quickly now that I have glasses!
Epilog: Sadly, David X Cohen isn’t on Twitter or other venues of Social Media. I had to ask Bill Oakley to relay my disgrace to the former show runner/co-developer. In a couple years, I can hope GWD develops a Disenchantment tournament instead! The QM and I talked about pushing HQ for The Venture Brothers as well.
Until Futurama 3…Goodbye, losers, whom I’ve always hated! C’mon, it’ll be fun!
Panucci’s! The pizza you don’t feel guilty about when you stiff the delivery boy!
This lady has a big big thirst for human blood!
After the last two years, why not Zoidberg in 2020?