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Original article December 22, 1995 TRIVIAL PURSUITS By: Kevin McManus, Washington Post NOT SO LONG AGO, a satellite dish planted outside a pub would have meant one thing only: televised sports inside!! Lately, though, a dish may signify games of a different sort -- trivia contests that pit nimble-fingered barflies against one another. Across the country, nearly 3,000 bars have bought into the slick concept of NTN Communications, a California firm that produces interactive trivia games for pub and restaurant patrons. NTN games are broad cast by satelliteand watchable on TV screens. Players compete by pushing buttons on portable boxes equipped with keypads and wee antennas. A computer in Carlsbad, Calif., tracks every player's score, game by game. Locally, about three dozen pubs and restaurants carry NTN, including all Damon's outlets, most T.G.I. Fridays and a collection of independents. All let customers play for free. Among the indies is the Stained Glass Pub in Wheaton, which most evenings draws between 20 and 30 NTN trivia buffs. Bartender Bob Cudd says any Tuesday is a perfect night to see them in action: Starting at 8:30, NTN airs its biggest weekly game, "Showdown," which features 90 minutes of questions. To secure a game box on a Tuesday, Cudd says, it helps to arrive by 8 p.m., which I've done. But now it's 8:45, "Showdown" has begun and 15 boxes (roughly the size of VHS tape boxes) are sitting idle behind the bar. Cudd shrugs apologetically. "I don't know where everyone is," he says. "Maybe the rain's keeping them away." Hey, no complaint here. With just five players competing, I've managed to grab the lead in the bar. The overhead screen now flashes a question, Who directed "Casino"?, followed by five choices. Easy! I push "3" (Martin Scorsese) on my keypad, then "enter." A lightning reply like this will net me 1,000 points. Players have 20 seconds to answer, but the point reward drops steadily as time elapses. With 15 seconds gone, clues begin to appear on the screen, helping players narrow down the choices. The third and final clue is usually a pun that suggests the right answer (in the Scorsese case, it's Keep score). Answers entered after the third clue net 200 or fewer points. Beside me at the bar is Bill Murphy, a Stained Glass Pub regular who has been explaining the game to me. His NTN handle, "IWISH," appears just below "KEVIN" on the screen now. In third place is "MARY" -- a buff in her forties who's been eyeing me curiously from a nearby booth. Which term does not mean "to gather together"? Easy! I push "2" (rend) and "enter." Gimme another thousand. Beating these folks at their own game is a kick. I feel sort of conspicuous, though, and I can't help but wonder what'll happen to my lead when the questions get tougher. NTN has been in business for a decade, but until a few years ago its best-known game was QB1, in which pro-football fans use their boxes to try to predict which play the real quarterback will call next. Trivia games, introduced in 1987, began outdrawing QB1 in 1993. Their popularity gave rise to elite players with millions of accumulated points, players known far and wide by their handles and their home pubs. (The country's top 20 point-scorers over the previous month are posted briefly throughout the day.) Some NTN fanatics have even toured the country, going from one trivia bar to another, seeking out the faces behind the famous handles. Steve "SLAP" White, a 47-year-old writer, says one such touring player called on him at his home pub, Damon's in Franconia. "She just walked in and asked, Where's SLAP?' " he recalls proudly. "She had to meet me." They played. He won. She said goodbye and continued her tour. NTN's executive producer, Dan Purner, says 28 games are broadcast daily, 153,000 questions are asked yearly, and about 15,000 game boxes are now in use. Offering his take on why NTN works, Purner says, "In the past, when people were giving answers to trivia questions on shows like Jeopardy!,' it came down to the contention of, I said that' or I didn't say that.' What we've done is provide a modern outlet to verify that. We've put everyone on an even playing field." It's a loud, smoky even playing field, in the case of the Stained Glass Pub. The game itself is silent, but the jukebox roars on while the match proceeds. Bar and restaurant owners pay $600 a month for NTN service (the fee is higher for those who want more than 10 game boxes). Many local owners and managers say they easily recoup that expense, thanks to NTN buffs who show up three, four, even five nights a week to play trivia. "Damon's concept is they like to keep the guests here as long as possible," says Chris Clontz, general manager of Damon's in Waldorf. "They don't just want to rush you in and rush you out. They want you to sit down and eat and drink and play NTN." Like many eateries, Damon's whets players' appetites for trivia by giving winners small prizes such as movie tickets, apparel and free meals. Joe Scaggs, owner of the Stained Glass Pub, which has 13 TV screens and five satellite dishes, says NTN has grown so popular there that he'll soon put game boxes in the dining room as well as the bar. "We're a sports bar, but we've developed more of a trivia crowd," Scaggs says. "We even get schoolteachers who come in and play." Stained Glass habitues say their pub's best NTN trivia player is either bartender Cudd or a Montgomery county teacher whose handle is "TEACH." But tonight Cudd is working too hard to keep focused on "Showdown." And TEACH is absent. So it's just me and four others, challenging our recall capacities with such questions as: At which event could you expect to see a catafalque? Let's see. That would be . . . "4" (state funeral). Correct. "Hamadryad" is the scientific name for which animal? Damn, there goes my hot streak. I'll have to guess. The correct answer turns out to be king cobra, which means I guessed wrong. But MARY got it right! MARY grabbed 800 points. I resist the temptation to turn and glance at her, even though she's chatting amiably with Murphy, the guy beside me at the bar. Murphy now gives me a quick rundown on how "Showdown's" fast-approaching final question works: Five answers appear on the screen; you bet a percentage of your accumulated points -- up to 50 percent -- that you'll choose the right one. Then you get the question. "You can be dead last and still win on that last question," Murphy says. The answers come on screen: Poland's election. Bosnian peace agreement. U.S. budget battle. Princess Di's interview. Slovakian kidnapping. Placing a 30 percent bet, I wait for the question. Franjo Tudjman is in the news in connection with? Entering the correct answer ("2"), I stare up at the screen. Ouch! MARY, with her 50 percent bet, has tiptoed past me and won tonight's "Showdown." The loss is meaningless, but stings anyway. Like so many players before me, I decide to stick around, hang on to my box and try my luck in the next match, a regular NTN trivia game, which will light up the screen in about 19 minutes. CAPTION: At Wheaton's Stained Glass Pub, Ron Postman and Mary Welter battle each other -- and contestants across the country -- in a game of NTN Trivia. CAPTION: After reading the questions on a TV, Bill Murphy punches his answers into a keypad. |