Last Call Trivia hosts will always entertain you at a show, but they will also always amaze you when you find out about their life away from the mic. Cate is no exception. She’s been with Last Call for almost 4 years, running every show we offer. She collects academic degrees the way Sheldon collects t-shirts and has a day job as a reference librarian. She has further proved her fearlessness as an accomplished triathlete.
She was kind enough to answer several of my inane questions:
What’s your favorite Last Call show to host? Feud? Trivia?
I’ve hosted all of the Last Call Products, but TRIVIA has always been my favorite. It draws in the biggest crowds and brings in a ton of regulars.
What question types/categories do you love / always get right?
All of them – when I’m hosting and have the answers in front of me. Other than that – none? There is a reason I host instead of play.
What’s the best *wrong* answer a team has given you? (Or even just a few funny ones, if you remember.)
One night I was hosting to crowd in their early 20s. The question was to name a specific Toto song. Just to give these guys a little hand, I played “Africa,” and said – “It’s not this one.” At least 5 teams still turned in “Africa.”
One team likes to wager infinity when they are having a pretty rough night. It’s fun to read out that they have infinity points.
I’m also a big fan of illustrations with answers – this tends to happen more often when a team has no clue what the answer is.
What are some of your favorite/funniest/filthiest team names?
I’m a big fan of current event or pop culture-themed names. “We’re On A Tinder Date” is a pretty good one. A group of my friends likes to slightly tweak the name of the team who won the week before and use that. In this case they used “Tinder’s Not for Dating.” It’s great when the team names are read back to back during the scores.
I also really like the team name Deep Palpitations. Only because for 3 years I thought that was their team name only to recently find out they have been writing Deep Palpations this entire time. I guess they were waiting to see how long it would take for me to notice…
Do you try to tailor your setlist to the questions?
A perfect trivia night is when every song has something to do with the question or answer – even if some songs are those I think are clever and it’s not likely anyone will catch the connection.
Do you have favorite songs to include or theme music that you start with every week?
If a team name has a corresponding song, I like to play it at the end of the show or while announcing scores.
What are some ways a team can get on your bad side? / What do successful teams do well?
My regulars know not to turn in the answer before I start the music and to always give me my pens back. My favorite teams buy me pens at Christmas time (hint, hint…)
Don’t you hate it when a team folds their answer sheets into something the size of an aspirin with a thousand folds in it, and it takes half a song to unfold it so you can see what their answer is?
I won’t answer this question, because teams like to have fun with the host by intentionally doing the things we hate. So if I told you that it drives me crazy when people fold their answers, I know I’ll be getting some new answer origami in the coming weeks. = ) (Rob’s note: OOPS)
Any favorite / funny stories from hosting? Mispronouncing a key word in a question? Slamming down hecklers?
I have had at least 2 team names come about due to the fact that “I’m Ron Burgundy?” and have been known to read exactly what is written on the paper. Hug Kabams (huge kabams) and Sassy Flassy (Lassy) are names that came about from errors in my old Buffalo shows.
I recently created an entire extra round of questions for April Fools. The categories were Letters, Numbers, and Colors and all corresponding songs were themed around the word fool. A few people caught on. The rest weren’t very happy with me when I told them it was a fake round and that they wouldn’t be getting the 14 points…