Quizzo Totally Explained

Everything about Quizzo totally explained

Quizzo is a pub quiz or trivia game. It was first popularized in New Jersey & Philadelphia, but has become popular in other parts of the United States, including Chicago, Illinois, Portland, Oregon, Denver, Colorado, Logan, Utah, Wahiawah, Hawaii and Washington, D.C..

History

Origins of Quizzo can be traced back to Ireland, where pub trivia games with similar format have been played for a long time before Quizzo's inception. The unique format and style were brought over to Wildwood, NJ, where Pat Hines started running it and eventually exported it to Philadelphia. Hines brought the first "Quizzo" to Philadelphia in 1993 at The New Deck Tavern in University City. In 1995, the second "Quizzo" in Philadelphia began at Fergie's Pub, which was run by Hines as well. Shortly thereafter, several Quizzo style games began to spread out through the Philadelphia / South Jersey region leading to expanded popularity in many Delaware Valley and Jersey Shore establishments.

Rules

Given that no one person or organization owns the rights to "Quizzo", the rules vary at nearly every venue that runs a "Quizzo night". The original American Quizzo that was held at the New Deck Tavern in Philadelphia saw teams of 1 to 6 players. There were 3 rounds of 10 question on various subjects. These question were asked verbally. One round, a bonus round known as 'the speed round' consisted of a sheet with ten questions on it that teams would have a short time span to fill out and return. One strategy that existed was for each team to "joker" (or "double") one round. By doubling a round, every team would have one opportunity to double the score of any of the three regulation rounds before turning in their answer sheet.
Rules from other Quizzos have different amounts of question per round as well as themes and bonus points made available.

Variations

There are many types of establishments which host Quizzos, using a variety of different rules and point calculations. Some of these variations include:

At the Locust Bar, quizmaster Kevin Oliver provides a shout-out section after the game where correct answers are rewarded with sets of "bar crap".
At Valanni Restaurant in Philadelphia, Kinky Quizzo is played in which winners are rewarded with sex toys.
Johnny Goodtimes, who hosts six quizzos a week in Center City and who was named Philly's Best Quizzo by Philadelphia Magazine in 2006, doesn't include joker rounds. Instead, the difficulty of the questions and the point values go up each round. Goodtimes also hosts an online version of quizzo on myfoxphilly.com.
Another of Philadelphia's quizmasters, Irish John, runs a game of three rounds with one "joker" round.
In Brigantine, New Jersey the similar "music/movie" round at Steak 38/Mickey's Raw Bar features clips from older and more recent films as well as themed song rounds.
At many Quizzo locations along the Philadelphia suburban Main Line corridor, the game features a spinning wheel between rounds that allows teams to acquire bonus points or drink prizes. Additionally, this game features a "picture" round, during which teams are asked to place names to pictures of famous faces.
The game at Schileen's Pub in Westville, NJ includes a 50/50 raffle, where the winning ticket holder gets half the money from that night, but is also asked one question in order to win all the money that has accumulated over the weeks of wrong answers.
The Grey Lodge Pub in Northeast Philadelphia, PA has a Humor Round, in which participants can opt to answer questions with funny responses in hopes of getting bonus points.
McCrossen's moved to a Tournament-only format beginning in the summer of 2007, which is held on a schedule and offers enhanced prizes for regular players.
Harry Caines, a native Philadelphian, started hosting the game (with the traditional format) at the White Owl Tavern in Logan, Utah. Three lunch prizes are awarded because it's illegal to award beer in a contest in the state of Utah.
At Dirty Frank's, Drinker's Tavern, Lyon's Den and Ray's Happy Birthday Bar in Philadelphia, hosted by Quizmaster Chris, the quiz is 6 rounds in duration. The fifth round is a "Secret Theme" in which participants can earn additional points for correctly identifying the unifying theme between 10 seemingly unrelated answers to the questions in that round.
Philadelphia bar The Khyber occasionally hosts a Quizzo based entirely around the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons. Its format varies but generally includes rounds involving identifying pictures of minor characters, attributing quotations, and answering questions about obscure events and objects depicted on the program. The winning team of this particular Quizzo receives the pool of money paid by all contestants. For a while they also held Quizzo nights based entirely around the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, but this has since been phased out.
At the Pour House in Washington DC on Tuesdays, with host Neal Racioppo, several innovations make it the most popular quiz game in DC. Two games a night, three rounds each. Middle round of each game is the speed round. Also, there's a halftime show between the two rounds, in which Neal uses a list of some kind (greatest home run hitters, academy award winning actresses of the last 30 years, etc) and each team has to shout out an answer as Neal calls out their team. They also post photos of the winners each week to their blog: (External Link)

Organization

Many places around the country that run Quizzo can be found listed at myQuizzo.com - a site dedicated to providing resources for and bringing together Quizzo lovers. In 2005, the National Trivia Association was formed to launch a nationwide version of Quizzo with a common set of rules, questions, and centralized payment for quizmasters. Most Philadelphia-area quizzes pre-date the NTA, which doesn't own the rights to the word Quizzo, and are not affiliated with that group. Franchised NTA presents Quizzo! games have expanded into Illinois, Oregon, California, Hawaii, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

Further Information

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