Rolling Trivia
Full Circle Bar; 8/30 at 8 p.m.; 318 Grand St., Williamsburg; 347-725-4588
This Tuesday night trivia–Skee-Ball hybrid’s official slogan is “Drink, Think, and Roll!” but the actual rules are a bit more complicated: Members from each group bowl a round, and then take their scores and divide them by 100; those quotients will then determine how many points each team can earn per correct answer in the ensuing trivia stage. Free hot dogs at the bar help make the math feel less fuzzy. The coveted $75 bar tab, on the other hand, is reserved exclusively for the winning cohort.
The Drunken Smartass Olympics
Dempsey’s; 8/31 at 7 p.m.; 61 E. Second Ave., nr. 4th St.; 212-388-0662
Dempsey’s reliably crowded Wednesday night game prides itself on the diversity of its categories, with questions ranging “from Shakespeare to Shakur,” as well as weekly staples like “On This Day in History” and the famous audio round. The prizes handed out by co-hosts Tony Hightower and Lisa McCorvie tend to vary, but the bar’s generous drink specials alone will make sure your time is well spent.
Quizz Off!
Pete’s Candy Store; 8/31 at 7:30 p.m.; 709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg; 718-302-3770
More than ten years strong, the Brooklyn bar’s Wednesday night gatherings have been vetted by a generation of brainiacs (Ira Glass and John Hodgman included) and have a history of acting as an unofficial farm league for future Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? MVPs. Unlike those shows, however, the purse at Quizz Off! won’t be putting anyone in a higher tax bracket: First place wins $25, the runner-up gets $15, and the bronze medalist is given a sandwich. And after a 120-question-long night, who doesn’t want to eat?
WOO HOO! Classic Simpsons Night
Berry Park; 9/1 (8 p.m.–11 p.m.); 4 Berry St., Williamsburg; 718-782-2829
Even Comic Book Guy would cringe at the prospect of fielding 50 questions culled from 248 episodes of any sitcom, let alone one as vividly detailed as The Simpsons. Yet the first Thursday of each month inspires scores of otherwise rational people to do just that at Berry Park, where the sitcom’s first eleven seasons are divvied up into intensely specific categories — “Edna Krabappel,” for instance, or “medicine.” Thankfully, the event’s ringleader, Andrew Ennals, helps jog rusty memories by screening popular episodes between rounds. And while there are no bar tabs or pots of money awaiting the victors, Ennals does present the best three teams with boxes of doughnuts from Peter Pan Bakery, and the bar provides the night’s overall champions with a well-deserved bottle of champagne.
The Big Quiz Thing: Ladies’ Night
Highline Ballroom; 9/6 (8 p.m.–11 p.m.); 431 W. 16th St., nr. Ninth Ave.; 212-414-5994
The roving Big Quiz Thing series is giving a shout-out to the females by offering discounted admission ($9, as opposed to $13 for the guys) to the famed trivia night’s next installment. BQT’s (male) quizmaster Noah Tarnow will interrogate the competing ladies and, in the early rounds, gents with specially designed questions that focus on “women in history, business, pop culture, and more.” Hit a snag? Don’t fret, wrong but sufficiently entertaining answers can still earn “Smart-Ass Points.” All that will eventually come down to a male-free “three-way finale,” where a trio of women will compete for the $300 cash prize.