Stranger Things Trivia Night

What’s the best way to celebrate the series finale of Stranger Things? Yup, that’s right, by geeking out and participating in a Stranger Things Trivia Night!

Last January 3, a Stranger Things trivia night was held at Fuego Cafe & Bistro in Angeles, Pampanga, and was organized and hosted by Quiz N' Tell. And now that the beloved Netflix series had concluded, with the sinister Vecna and the big boss eldritch horror, the Mindflayer, finally being defeated, Ly and I decided to join the said trivia event, as a way to sate our Stranger Things hangover.

Okay, event night…

We registered in the event as a duo (plus one with Kaiju the Dog serving as our unofficial team mascot), and named ourselves as Team Kaiju. There were three other teams that we competed against; Team Nuggets, Team Eggos, and Team Hellfire, with all teams being a reference to an element from the show, and yes, the Mindflayer is basically a kaiju with Robin Buckley even quipping that it was Godzilla, so yeah, I’m making that connection.

The game itself was divided into multiple rounds with each round focusing on different categories, and included questions that tackled facts about the show, the characters and the actors who portrayed them, the locations in the show, quotes from the show, some items from the 80’s, and the songs used in the show.

Very early in the game, we had managed to answer a lot of questions correctly and garnered a lot of points. If my memory serves me right, we were even leading during the first few rounds. But the game was as easy as traversing through a Demogorgon-infested Upside Down (meaning, nope, it was not that easy). It was a very tight game all throughout, especially against Team Eggos. Team Eggos and our team were practically neck-and-neck, and lead changes were happening. Both teams were very competitive, and this just added intense in the game which, honestly, made it more fun and more exciting.

First few rounds focused on the facts and aspects from the show. We answered a lot of show's facts and plot questions such as the Christmas lights which Joyce used to communicate with Will during his time in the Upside Down, the Mindflayer's weakness which was heat/fire, the Planck's Constant, Alexei's favorite Slurpee flavor (Cherry Slurpee), and the name of the mall in season 3 and the establishment that Steve and Robin worked at in that mall, Starcourt Mall and Scoops Ahoy, respectively. There was also a round in which an item would be shown on the screen and we had to correctly identify what that item was, and I could just remember Ly getting the Cabbage Patch Kids, walkie-talkie, and the Demogorgon (the Dungeons and Dragons figure) correctly. Other items included were the Care Bears, the Walkman, and the Game Boy.

The final round focused on the songs that were used in the show. They would play a portion of a song, and we would just have to guess the title for one point, and another point if we answer the artist correctly. And plot twist, another point for whichever team would sing that song. And when I say the game was competitive, it dialed up on this round. Team Eggos and our team were volunteering and taking turns on the mic, just to get those sweet sweet additional points. Didn't even care if strangers would be hearing me sing, but hey, I sang Should I Stay or Should I Go that night.

Before the scores were announced, I was having a fifty-fifty feeling, thinking that we lost, but Great Scott! we tied with Team Eggos at 55 points. So was it over? Nope! We headed into overtime!

So tiebreaker round. Our host had prepared questions for the scenario in which two leading teams tied, and the first one to outscore the other wins the trivia night. This moment had me feeling so much excitement and pressure, as a single mistake could cost us the game. The tiebreaker round went on for several questions, and the questions were difficult, still, we managed to keep on holding on through it. Luckily, when we didn't know the answer to the question, the other team didn't as well. The host even ran out of prepared tiebreaker questions, so they had to resort to googling some trivia online. And yes, those were hard ones as well. Finally, the host asked, what was the spell that Will the Wise cast in the first episode of the show during their DnD session. And I'm grateful to my gamer and high fantasy nerd background for this one as I was able correctly guessed and answered "Fireball", which ultimately sealed our victory for the night. Woohoo! And then we got Fuego Cafe & Bistro gift checks for winning, which we used that very same night to get a couple more drinks and enjoy the rest of the night.

So yeah, that was how we celebrated the finale of Stranger Things.