Quizbusters (WNAB)
Quizbusters is a quizbowl show that airs on WNAB in Nashville, Tennessee. The show premiered in 2008.
Format
2008-09 season
The season consists of 13 regular season games. In the regular season, each game consists of three rounds. The first round consists of 10 point tossups, as does the second round. The third round is the lightning round, where "the game can turn upside-down," because each team has two minutes to answer up to 20 questions in a category for 20 points each. As teams are assigned the categories, this has the effect of potentially screwing a team that gets stuck with a category for which they have little knowledge.
The top 8 teams advance to the tournament. In the tournament, the format changes slightly. The second-round tossups are worth 20 points, and the lightning round questions are worth only 10 points. Additionally, teams can now select from a choice of three categories from vague descriptions, with the lower-scoring team picking first.
Later changes
The tournament format from the second half of the first season became permanent. Also, the second round consisted of two alphabet rounds where all the answers began with the same letter. Finally, the higher scoring team picked first in the lightning round, rather than the lower scoring team, but the lower scoring team still played first.
Question sources
| Season | Provider |
|---|---|
| 2008-09 | Questions Galore |
| 2009-10 | Bryce Avery |
| 2010-11 | Questions Galore |
| 2011-12 | unknown, possibly NAQT |
| 2012-13 | NAQT |
During the first season (with Questions Galore as the provider), some questions have been shown to come from the same packets as Wheaton North F/S tournament questions (which previously used Questions Galore).
Sample questions (from the first season)
- "What elderly female American painter..." (Ans: Grandma Moses)
- "What credit card company's website is www.priceless.com?" (Ans: Mastercard)
- "Since 1949, what do all treasurers have in common?" (Ans: They are all female)
- "What tablet is written in three languages..." (Ans: Rosetta Stone)
- "What is the full title of Darwin's book on evolution?" (Ans given: On the Origin of Species, which is not the full title)
Links
Greg Gauthier's liveblog of an episode. [1]