This coming weekend, I’ll participate in the fifty-fifth staging of The World’s Largest Trivia Contest^TM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about trivia answers that have been especially memorable for me over the years, in that contest and now from another weekend-spanning events of quirky questions.

There are plenty of challenges in slugging through more than fifty hours of trivia questions about subjects arcane enough to thwart quick Google searches. One of them is how it can feel like the posers provided by the contest’s writers so rarely align with mass media offerings that hold any personal appeal. I have unwillingly expended so much thought on the likes of Two and a Half Men and Two Broke Girls while the Reservation Dogs and The Americans of the pop culture universe go entirely unmentioned. So it feels like cosmic magic when a question cycles up that hits on multiple favorites.

A couple of years ago, a question rolled out of the radio that went more or less like this: “A cheery song about a couple who hate and wish death on each other is a yell-along staple of live performances. It is used in a montage featured in a cable series finale about another dysfunctional couple? What is the name of the song?”

It’s a textbook question structure for the current iteration of 90FM’s Trivia. The description is vague enough to prevent a cursory internet sweep from quickly coughing up the answer but also specific in a way that will light up brain synapses like a pinball machine for those have a strong working knowledge of what’s being referenced. I am someone who has had the pleasure of standing in a sweaty little club and joining the rasping audience chorus in belting the lyrics “Our friends say it’s darkest before the sun rises/ We’re pretty sure they’re all wrong.” And I took an inordinate amount of pleasure when I heard those some lines score a portion of the final episode of You’re the Worst.

The certainty was immediate and powerful. My team promptly called in the answer “No Children” and earned 85 points, a nice haul for a single answer in the contest.

More info about 90FM’s Trivia can be found at its official website or at the radio station’s online home. More info about KVSC’s Trivia can be found at the radio station’s website.