Fallout Theatre Hosts Hardass Trivia Tournament of Champions

So, yes, the Fallout Theatre’s been shuttered for all these pandemic months, and that’s not trivial for the local improv comedy scene.

Because the Fallout Thea – what?

Yes, of course we know that The Hideout’s still offering an amazing slate of shows and classes online and trying to run a goddam coffeeshop Downtown on top of all that industry.

And, yes, we also realize that ColdTowne, even though their physical venue is 86’d, has a relentless crew that’s similarly rocking the performative pixels with laughs and inspired spontaneity.

And, no, we’re not forgetting that MerlinWorks continues its bring-improv-to-the-world teaching mission and that Tom Booker is honing new comedy talents toward professional status, class after class, whether for improv or sketch or look-I’ve-learned-some-actual-skills-here.

But the Fallout Theatre’s dormancy isn’t trivial – except that it isn’t quite dormant and some of it is exceedingly trivial.

“WHUT?” you may well interject at this point.

Listen: Jeremy Sweetlamb (he of those legendary Well Hung Jury and Available Cupholders troupes) and Mike D’Alonzo (of The Knuckleball Now fame) and both of ‘em among the original instigators of the Out Of Bounds Comedy Festival … those two guys, Sweetlamb and D’Alonzo, have concocted a trivia quiz show via Zoom that they’ve been running through Fallout Theatre's Twitch outlet.

It's called Hardass Trivia.

And now, this Thursday, comes the Hardass Trivia Tournament of Champions, featuring a crowd of returning combatants vying for knowledge-based supremacy among their fellow popcult brainiacs: Kaci Beeler. Shannon McCormick. Kareem Badr. Maggie Maye. Yamina Khouane. Devon Coleman. Mical Trejo. And –

Wait – Mical Trejo?

Yes, Mical Trejo.

And many more.

“This will be a two-show event,” announces the latest Hardass press release, “beginning on Thursday, November 5. It will operate much like the March Madness bracket, with losers from our previous 2020 shows going head to head until we reach a lone finalist. This winner will face our winner from the Nov 15th show, which will be a bracket made up of 2020's HT champions. By the end of it all, we will have our 2020 Champeen of Champeens.”

“Champeens,” they say – like they’re, what, the loquacious longshoreman character, played by Sven Jorgenson, in that one episode of The Honeymooners from 1956?

We got no response but an uneasy silence from that query, but the two humor honchos did open up about what’s bringing this Hardass Trivia show to our pandemic screens:

Austin Chronicle: What brought the two of y'all together to present this wacky online show?

Mike D’Alonzo: Before COVID, Jeremy and I used to go to trivia contests once every couple of weeks or so. And it got us to thinking about a comedy show that was basically bar trivia, but with an element of variety show to it as well. And then we thought it would be amazing if it was really, really hard, and very specific. I had something like Remote Control in mind, from back in my teenage years. We’re also always low-key working on something together, and we were writing a play we now can't do during the pandemic, so we thought there was a chance we'd be able to at least give this a try and see how it worked. And I'd been teaching at Fallout, and really wanted to do something there, so we reached out – and they were super awesome about giving us a slot.

Jeremy Sweetlamb: Yeah, Mike and I have always been trivia buffs, going back about 20 or so years when we were roommates. Recently, we've been going to pub trivia, but the comedy is either pretty hack or downright offensive. So, with COVID shutting things down and with us having some extra time on our hands back in June, we created the show – really for ourselves – that fixed all the things that annoyed us about pub trivia nights.

Austin Chronicle: Pub trivia nights can be … annoying?

Sweetlamb: They take three hours, cheating seems to be rampant, the questions are either too easy or not funny enough to be entertaining, etc., etc.

Austin Chronicle: So you figured, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild it, make it better than it was.”

D’Alonzo: “We have the technology.”

[Note: We’re riffing on this. Duh. #insdou]

Sweetlamb: We take a lot of our ethos from Weakest Link and Big Fat Quiz in the UK. We try to get contestants who are funny, from a diverse background, and have some kind of specific expertise they can wow people with.

D’Alonzo: Jeremy and I are both extra competitive, and we love weird and random factoids. Speaking for myself, I've always really loved the ethic of game shows, especially ones with a little improv in them, like Hollywood Squares or Match Game, and I loved the idea of us hosting something like this and turning it on its ear a little.

Austin Chronicle: Any chance you'll keep doing this show – maybe occasionally, at least – once the 'ronas are thwarted and life returns to relatively normal? I mean, assuming the lack of a Trump re-election and/or the eruption of various civil wars?

D’Alonzo: Oh, yeah! We always wanted to do this in person, and, now that we know how the show works, we're definitely going to do it in person.

Sweetlamb: If we’re not in the streets with slingshots due to political unrest, or cowering in our homes wearing masks and eating ramen again, then we’ll try to produce something live and in person and just as much fun – only funner.

D’Alonzo: It would be a perfect, like, midnight show at a festival or something. There would be much more live interactivity and some more schtick, but the questions would be just as hard. We’re dying to do this live.