World's Worst Pub Quiz

[Chris]

Nah, if Schadenfreude is a recognised trait, there must be an equivalent when Mrs Nemeis catches-up with those guilty of an excess of hubris.

[petewins57]

I remember that WWTBAM incident as well. If ever an incident was made to generate a ROFL moment, that was it! Mr T must have enjoyed that one - a LOT!

[davidmfay]

One of the hazards in relation to dodgy questions is the tendency of Quizmasters (seems to be mostly chaps in the role) to take questions verbatim from quiz books as if they are some form of holy writ. I was reading Nigel Rees's Brainbox Quiz Book again last night (sponsored by a brewing giant who shall remain anonymous) and it asks the question: "Which three US Presidents died on July 4th 1826?". It gave Adams, Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as the answer although the last of these three was good for another two decades and wasn't elected to the office until 1828 or so. This error doesn't seem to have been subsequently corrected by the publishers either.

I wonder if people have any suggestions concerning which is the most error-strewn quiz book of them all and if some kind of Golden Raspberry Award could be awarded to the illustrious winner of said accolade?

[Chris]

...I wonder if people have any suggestions concerning which is the most error-strewn quiz book of them all and if some kind of Golden Raspberry Award could be awarded to the illustrious winner of said accolade?

No comment

[BenPhillips]

Not necessarily a 'bad' question in the traditional sense but the most inappopriate one I've seen was designed for hotels I've been working in where the average age of the guests is about 80.

First question: In Eastenders, who helped Elsie commit euthenasia?

[Gmackematix]

If it said "Elsie" rather than "Ethel" it was certainly bad and inappropriate!
There are certainly some dodgy quiz books such as the sports one I didn't buy because an example question given in the introduction was something like "Who hosted the 2008 FIFA World Cup?".

Among the worst quizzes I've been to were hosted by a guy who was taking his questions from the 2000 edition of the "Carling Pub Quiz Book" full of such delights as:
Who played Philo Vance in the 1940 film "Calling Philo Vance"? Who is the Olympic silver medal winning father of the runner Inger Miller? What shape is a tomb called a tholos? Who recorded the 1999 album "Niun Niggung"? Approximately how many miles in diameter is Uranus' satellite Belinda?

These questions might be easy to someone but in our village pub, until people stopped coming and they were cancelled, low scoring and low levels of will-to-live were the norm.

[Chris]

Well, if those questions were anything like typical of the "Carling Pub Quiz Book", I can only assume it was written/compiled by members of a militant temperance society!

[petewins57]

....or people heavily under the influence of Carling, perhaps?

[Dogmanjack]

Have to say, I was at my old school quiz on Friday. The Headmaster runs it now. He's a good chap, and his quizzes are improving, but there's still some stinkers.
Last year, there was a round called "James Alexander Gordon". He read out the first half of the previous weekend's football results, like so: "Oldham Athletic 1.... Leyton Orient ____". The participants then had to guess the score! He claimed that you could tell from the tone of voice. He was sort of right. We got the most and won the round, and a prize, though I put this down to me being a psychologist. I shouldn't complain, having won a prize, but it was slightly weird!
On Friday, we had a round called "European Food and Drink" in which various dishes were named in their native languages, and we had to determine what they were from three options (i.e. "Is it a) A biscuit; b) A cake; or c) A stew?"). Bit of a crapshoot.

[lhermann]

I thought the following question asked at yesterday's pub quiz was particularly bad - does anyone else agree?
In choral singing, what are the highest and lowest male vocal ranges?
No difficulty about the lowest - my thought processes went along the lines of
Tempting to answer 'castrato' and see whether they can justify it being wrong - the question does say 'is' so they probably aren't looking for that - doesn't say adult male though so is it treble? I know there's an adult one above tenor - countertenor?

The answer given was tenor. (Having read the Wikipedia article on vocal ranges Countertenor isn't strictly a range but I still thought it was an awful question.)