Trivia is information and data that are considered to be of little value.
53-419: Modern usage of the term trivia dates to the 1960s, when college students introduced question-and-answer contests to their universities. A board game, Trivial Pursuit , was released in 1982 in the same vein as these contests. Since the beginning of its modern usage, trivia contests have been established at various academic levels as well as casual venues such as bars and restaurants. The ancient Romans used
106-609: A Trivial Pursuit game show based on the game in the UK hosted by Rory McGrath . Another British version (with rules/format similar to the Wink Martindale version, and also using the same theme tune as the Wink Martindale version) was hosted on The Family Channel (now Challenge) by Tony Slattery . In 1991, was aired a local version in Austria , hosted by Bernadette Schneider on ORF . In Germany , Birgit Lechtermann hosted
159-475: A downloadable online game on The Station@Sony (home to Everquest at the time), where up to three auto-matched players could chat with each other live while they played. A correct answer on any space earned a wedge on the category answered, the wedge spaces gave the player their choice of category, and the first person to earn four wedges was the winner. It was hosted on The Station until 2001. In 2003, Bolenka Games released an online game of Trivial Pursuit on
212-456: A lawsuit against the game's creators. He claimed that in the fall of 1979, he and a friend were hitchhiking near Sydney, Nova Scotia , when they were picked up by Chris Haney. Wall claimed that he told Haney about his idea for the game in detail, including the shape of the markers. Wall's mother testified she found drawings of his that looked like plans for a Trivial Pursuit -like game, but the drawings had since been destroyed. Wall's friend, who
265-505: A local version for VOX from 1993 to 1994. In 1988, a made-for-television movie entitled Breaking all the Rules: The Creation of Trivial Pursuit aired. Treated largely as a comedy, the movie featured the music of Jimmy Buffett and portrayed the creators of the game as three beer-loving Canadians. The actors were Gordon Clapp as John Haney, Malcolm Stewart as Chris Haney and Bruce Pirrie as Scott Abbott. In Spain ,
318-670: A love song or doing a dance routine based on a theme. The contest was founded in 1966 by James Bailey deRosset as an alternate for a serious academic retreat with professors (called "Encampment Weekend"). deRosset visited his girlfriend at Beloit College ; he was disappointed with Beloit's trivia contest and had ideas on how he wanted to improve on their contest. deRosset spoke with his friend, Junior Dave Pfleger, who worked at WLFM and arranged airtime. The first contest consisted of questions in four categories (television, rock 'n' roll music, comic books, and movies) that were written by deRosset and his friends. The first question asked in 1966
371-429: A pilot in 1987, but it was not picked up). A syndicated version entitled Trivial Pursuit: America Plays aired from 2008 to 2009 and hosted by Christopher Knight . In September 2004, Roger Lodge hosted a sports trivia game show on ESPN entitled ESPN Trivial Pursuit , which aired five episodes. A new version of the game premiered on October 3, 2024 on The CW hosted by LeVar Burton . BBC Television produced
424-451: A popular book by British aphorist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), first published in 1902 but popularized in 1918 (with More Trivia following in 1921 and a collected edition including both in 1933). It consisted of short essays often tied to observation of small things and commonplace moments. Trivia is the plural of trivium , "a public place." The adjectival form of this, trivialis , was hence translated by Smith as "commonplace." In
477-460: A previous contest. The 56th annual contest was held in 2021, and was held virtually instead of on WLFM radio as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic . The contest was streamed via Twitch . Contestants submitted results via a Discord phone answering system as well as a Google form instead of solely via telephone. This method continued to be used for the 57th contest. The 58th annual contest
530-523: A single knowledgeable player from running the board. After collecting all six wedges and filling their playing piece, the player must land on the hub by exact count and correctly answer a question in a category chosen by the opponents in order to win the game. If the player misses the question, they must leave the hub on their next turn and return to it for another chance to win. Over the years, numerous editions of Trivial Pursuit have been produced, usually specializing in various fields. The original version
583-620: A specific time period or as promotional tie-ins (such as Star Wars , Saturday Night Live , and The Lord of the Rings movies). The game was created on December 15, 1979, in Niagara on the Lake , Ontario , by Canadians Chris Haney , a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette , and Scott Abbott , a sports editor for The Canadian Press . After finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing, they decided to create their own game. With
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#1732771745285636-513: A version of the show called Trivial Pursuit: Spain Plays premiered in September 2008 on Antena 3 and then in 2011 presented by Silvia Jato on Veo7 with the title Trivial Pursuit . The Soviet Union in 1989 bought the rights to produce its own version of the board game, and also started an official championship for family teams, finals of which were broadcast on Soviet Central Television as
689-407: Is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question they are asked from a card (from six categories including "history" and "science and nature"). Each correct answer allows the player's turn to continue; a correct answer on one of
742-506: Is green, and Sports & Leisure is orange. The game includes a board, playing pieces, question cards, a box, small plastic wedges to fit into the playing pieces, and a die. Playing pieces used in Trivial Pursuit are round and divided into six sections like wedges of pie. A small plastic wedge, sometimes called a cheese (like cheese triangles ), can be placed into each of these sections to mark each player's progress. During
795-529: Is known as the Genus edition (or Genus I ). Several different general knowledge editions (such as Genus II ) have followed. Other editions include Junior Edition (1985), All-Star Sports, Baby Boomers, 1980s, All About the 80s, 1990s, Harry Potter , and others. In total, over 100 different editions in different languages have been printed. In the United Kingdom, Trivial Pursuit players complained that
848-549: Is the largest consumer of Jell-O?" The board game Trivial Pursuit was released in 1982 and was a craze in the U.S. for several years thereafter. The largest current trivia contest is held in Stevens Point, Wisconsin , at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point 's college radio station WWSP 89.9 FM . This is a student-run community station with 30,000 watts of power and about a 65-mile (105-kilometre) radius, and
901-537: The Virgin Group ; in 2008, Hasbro bought the full rights, for US$ 80 million. By 1986, the board game had sold 20 million units, grossing $ 600 million in sales. As of 2014 , more than 100 million games had been sold in 26 countries and 17 languages. Northern Plastics of Elroy, Wisconsin produced 30,000,000 games between 1983 and 1985. In December 1993, Trivial Pursuit was named to the "Games Hall of Fame" by Games magazine . An online version of Trivial Pursuit
954-731: The Williams Trivia Contest , which both debuted in the spring of 1966. Lawrence hosts its contest annually. Unusually, Williams has a separate contest for each semester, and thus its 84th game took place in May 2008. The University of Colorado Trivia Bowl was a mostly student contest featuring a single-elimination tournament based on the GE College Bowl . Today, many bars and restaurants host weekly trivia nights in an effort to draw in more patrons, especially during weeknights. Trivial Pursuit Trivial Pursuit
1007-475: The trivia (singular trivium ) came to refer to the lower division of the Artes Liberales : grammar , rhetoric , and logic . These were the topics of basic education, and were foundational to the quadrivia of higher education: arithmetic , geometry , music , and astronomy . The adjective trivial introduced into English in the 15th to 16th century was influenced by all three meanings of
1060-407: The 1918 version of his book Trivia , Smith wrote: I know too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me. In the 1960s, nostalgic college students and others began to informally trade questions and answers about
1113-528: The 1980s. This version included pictorial and musical questions but was otherwise mostly faithful to the mechanics of the original board game. Later, Domark released another version called Trivial Pursuit: A New Beginning , also across multiple formats. This version featured a plot about the dying Earth and significantly altered gameplay mechanics. Hasbro Interactive released a "Millennium Edition" in 1999 with three different modes, and different categories: There are also three different ways to answer
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#17327717452851166-414: The 2006 version of the game was dumbed down in comparison to previous editions, with easier questions and more focus on celebrities and show business. The Toy Insider mentioned that it can be "enjoyed by baby boomers, millennials, and everyone in between", while Board Games Land called it "The timeless classic and the godfather of trivia games". In a review for Issue 31 of Games, Mike Shenk stated
1219-515: The Friday of the last full weekend in January. It ends at around midnight on Sunday for a total of approximately 50 consecutive hours. Students are appointed "trivia masters" and they administer the contest. Every year, a new lead trivia master, called the "Head Master," is appointed by the previous Head Master. The Head Master has the final say on any disputes. About 12 Trivia masters make up
1272-460: The Latin adjective: Trivia was used as a title by Logan Pearsall Smith in 1902, followed by More Trivia and All Trivia in 1921 and 1933, respectively, collections of short "moral pieces" or aphorisms. Book II of the 1902 publication is headed with a quote from "Gay's Trivia, or New Art of Walking Streets of London. ", Trivialities, Bits of Information of Little Consequence was the title of
1325-650: The Nokia 3650, 6600, N-Gage, and Siemens SX1. Ubisoft released Trivial Pursuit: Live! , on 17 December 2014 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, on 18 February 2015 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 . It is similar to the Buzz! series. On Xbox One and PS4, it is a part from the Hasbro Game Channel, and it was released in physical on the Hasbro Family Fun Pack compilation on 25 October 2016. It
1378-429: The book was an extension of the pair's Columbia contests and was followed by other Goodgold and Carlinsky trivia titles. In their second book, More Trivial Trivia , the authors criticized practitioners who were "indiscriminate enough to confuse the flower of trivia with the weed of minutiae"; Trivia, they wrote, "is concerned with tugging at heartstrings," while minutiae deals with such unevocative questions as "Which state
1431-591: The contest serves as a fund raiser for the station. The contest is open to anyone, and it is played in April of each year spanning 54 hours over a weekend with eight questions each hour. There are usually 400 teams ranging from 1 to 150 players. The top ten teams are awarded trophies. As of 2022, the contest is in its 52nd year. The two longest continuous trivia contests in the world are the Great Midwest Trivia Contest at Lawrence University and
1484-515: The early 2000s. Great Midwest Trivia Contest The Great Midwest Trivia Contest , or Midwest Trivia Contest, is held once a year in Appleton, Wisconsin , broadcast over Twitch . It has a claim as the longest-running college bowl trivia contest. From 2006 to 2020, the contest was livestreamed by WLFM , Lawrence University 's internet radio station , which ceased FM broadcasting in 2006. The contest begins at 10:00:37 p.m. on
1537-482: The game show Lucky Case (russian: Счастливый случай). After the agreement ended in 1991, the show changed their rules, dropping Trivial Pursuit elements, and continued broadcasting until 2000. In 1984, Bally Sente released a Trivial Pursuit arcade game. Like the board game, several variants were also subsequently released. British software company Domark released a home computer version (billed as Trivial Pursuit: The Computer Game ) for multiple formats during
1590-576: The game's questions were "excellent in quantity, scope, and level of difficulty" but warned that "the wait between turns can be uncomfortably long." Games also included Trivial Pursuit in its Games 100 in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986, saying "The game’s winning formula is to offer well-written, entertaining questions in a continuing flow of new categories for players of all ages and interests." Jeux & Stratégie reviewed Trivial Pursuit ( as " Remue-méninges ") in Issue 28, generally praising
1643-438: The game, players move their playing pieces around a board which is shaped like a wheel with six spokes, rolling a single die to determine how far to move. The board is divided into spaces of different colors, and the center space is a hexagonal "hub." At the end of each spoke is a "category headquarters" space. After landing on a space, the player is asked a question in the category corresponding to its color. A correct answer allows
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1696-539: The help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1981. During the development of the game, some of the early work and question writing was completed by Chris and John Haney in Weymouth Library, Dorset where they were staying with family. The rights to the game were initially licensed to Selchow and Righter in 1982, then to Parker Brothers (later part of Hasbro ) in 1988, after initially being turned down by
1749-435: The highest scores are declared the winners in on-campus and off-campus categories, receiving prizes such as pink plastic flamingos and stainless-steel bedpans . The Great Midwest Trivia Contest is known as the "World's Longest Running Trivia Contest" because of its custom of having the university's president ask the previous year's Super Garruda as the first question of the next year's contest. Questions used include "What
1802-409: The hub, but may not backtrack. "Roll Again" spaces allow the player an extra die roll without having to answer a question, while landing on the hub allows a player to answer a question in the category of their choice as long as they do not yet have all six wedges. Any number of playing pieces may occupy a given space at the same time. A variant rule ends a player's turn on collecting a wedge, preventing
1855-497: The internet. At the end of the contest, several difficult questions called garrudas are asked. Teams are given 10 minutes for the first few garrudas. The final, most difficult question – dubbed the "Super Garruda" – is worth 100 points and teams are given 30 minutes. The endeavor is governed by the Trivia Credo: "Trivia is meant to be entertainment and should be perceived solely in that light." The teams with
1908-428: The now-defunct website Uproar.com where it features five editions such as: Genius , Silver Screen , Music , 1980s and TV . Trivial Pursuit was released for a number of home video systems, including Sega CD , Wii , Windows Phone , Xbox 360 , Xbox One , PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 . The board game was also adapted into a mobile game called Trivia Crack as well as Trivial Pursuit Genius Edition for
1961-454: The player to continue their turn, while a miss passes control to the next player in sequence. Questions must be answered without any outside assistance. Landing on a category headquarters space and answering correctly awards a wedge in that color, if the player does not yet have one; wedges are fitted into the playing pieces as they are earned. The player may move in any available direction and change directions at any category headquarters space or
2014-406: The point of reproducing typographical errors and deliberately placed misinformation . One of the questions in Trivial Pursuit was "What was Columbo 's first name?" with the answer "Philip". That information had been fabricated to catch anyone who might try to violate his copyright . The inventors of Trivial Pursuit acknowledged that Worth's books were among their sources, but argued that this
2067-482: The popular culture of their youth. The first known documented labeling of this casual parlor game as "Trivia" was in a Columbia Daily Spectator column published on February 5, 1965. The author, Ed Goodgold , then started the first organized "trivia contests" with the help of Dan Carlinsky. Ed and Dan wrote the book Trivia (Dell, 1966), which achieved a ranking on the New York Times best-seller list ;
2120-478: The precise date of the first Williams contest is not known; before its playing schedule was standardized, spring semester Williams Trivia games were sometimes held as early as February and March. Teams originally had to be within about 30 miles (48 km) to receive the FM signal for WLFM . The radio station changed to internet broadcast and the first internet-only contest was held in 2006. The 50th annual contest
2173-425: The quality and accessibility of the game's questions, but also expressing that they are sometimes subject to doubt. In October 1984, Fred L. Worth, author of The Trivia Encyclopedia , Super Trivia , and Super Trivia II , filed a $ 300 million lawsuit against the distributors of Trivial Pursuit . He claimed that more than a quarter of the questions in the game's Genus Edition had been taken from his books, even to
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2226-466: The questions, and teams are given 3 minutes to answer each question, which is done via telephone. Students volunteer to answer phones at the WLFM studios during all 50 hours of the contest. All teams that answer the question receive its points. Most questions are worth 5 points each. In the early years of the contest, teams researched using massive numbers of books; now teams find answers using computers on
2279-416: The questions: This game featured a total of seven voice-overs, one host, and one for each of the six categories: People & Places (blue wedge), Arts & Entertainment (pink wedge), History (yellow wedge), Science & Nature (brown wedge), Sports & Leisure (green wedge), and Wild Card (orange wedge). In 1999, Sony Online Entertainment licensed Trivial Pursuit from Hasbro Interactive to release
2332-474: The six "category headquarters" spaces earns a plastic wedge which is slotted into the answerer's playing piece. The object of the game is to collect all six wedges from each "category headquarters" space, and then return to the center "hub" space to answer a question in a category selected by the other players. Since the game's first release in 1981, numerous themed editions have been released. Some question sets have been designed for younger players, and others for
2385-546: The word triviae to describe where one road split or forked into two roads. Triviae was formed from tri (three) and viae (roads) – literally meaning "three roads", and in transferred use "a public place" and hence the meaning "commonplace." The Latin adjective triviālis in Classical Latin besides its literal meaning could have the meaning "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar." In late Latin , it could also simply mean "triple." In medieval Latin ,
2438-655: Was "Who was Superman's father?" (answer Jor-El ). The first winners received a broken refrigerator as their prize. It may be the oldest college-based radio trivia contest in the United States. Lawrence's inaugural edition on April 29, 1966, predates both the presumed May debut of the biannual Williams College Trivia Contest by a week or so and the February 1969 debut of the Stevens Point Media Trivia Contest by three years. However,
2491-627: Was Holden Caulfield's middle name?" and "In 2004, which nation drank the most coffee per capita?" (The answers are " Morrisey " and " Finland ," respectively.) The 2009 Super Garruda was "Who was going to be married next to what was the " World's Largest Cedar Bucket " in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in June 2005, before it mysteriously burned down the week before the wedding date?" (answer: James Walters and Jaki Neubauer). On-campus teams are occasionally asked to do special action questions such as composing
2544-585: Was allegedly hitchhiking with him that day, never testified. Haney said he never met Wall. Over the years, there was much legal wrangling, notably around whether the suit should be decided by a judge or jury. On June 25, 2007, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled against Wall. A version of Trivial Pursuit , hosted by Wink Martindale , aired on The Family Channel in the United States from 1993 to 1994 ( Jay Wolpert had attempted
2597-439: Was held in 2015 and it featured teams as far away as Sweden . The question difficulty had grown significantly because the teams could quickly find answers to simple questions using Google and the internet. Several Head Masters and deRosset returned for the contest. The contest had amassed over 18,000 questions in 2450 hours of competition by the end of the 2014 contest. The 50th contest featured one question per hour taken from
2650-722: Was held in 2023 and saw the erection of the "Trivia Flag" on the cupola of Lawrence University's Main Hall, an ode to the year's theme: pirates. The Lawrence trivia contest has been written about in Playboy , USA Today , The Chronicle of Higher Education , the Chicago Tribune , Washington Post , The New York Times , and most of the newspapers in Wisconsin . The 1984 Head Trivia Master, John Landis, '84, appeared on ABC 's " Good Morning America ." Paul Harvey asked
2703-495: Was launched in September 2003. The object of the game is to move around the board by correctly answering trivia questions. Questions are split into six categories, with each one having its own color to readily identify itself; in the classic version of Trivial Pursuit , the Geography category is blue, Entertainment is pink, History is yellow, Art & Literature is originally brown, later purple, Science & Nature
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#17327717452852756-772: Was not improper and that facts are not protected by copyright. The district court judge agreed, ruling in favor of the Trivial Pursuit inventors. The decision was appealed, and in September 1987 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling. Worth asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case, but the Court declined, denying certiorari in March 1988. In 1994, David Wall of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia , launched
2809-555: Was ported on 30 October 2018 on Nintendo Switch , for the Hasbro Game Night compilation in physical or individually for download. A sequel called Trivial Pursuit Live! 2 , published by Ubisoft and developed by Snap Finger Click , was released in 2022 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Stadia . Trivial Pursuit was also adapted into a featured game on the NTN system of video-bar-trivia games. The game ran during
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