Mutant Trivial Pursuit

No, this has nothing to do with X2: X-Men United.

Back in my college days (1984-1990, including grad school), Trivial Pursuit was in high flower.  The original Genus Edition had been out for a while and we were just starting to see all the various sub-editions (Silver Screen, etc.), plus all the card sets put out by other companies which could be used with the game (I remember a religious one, and I know there were others).

My college crew had been playing Trivial Pursuit for a few years, and by then, most of us had gone through the entire original card set: mostly legally, although some people had just sat down to read every question/answer pair in the set.  So the game itself was getting a little boring.  Until we came up with our own spin on the game: Mutant Trivial Pursuit!

Here are the rules:

• Everyone takes a stack of cards (50 or 100, maybe; it doesn’t really matter).
• Choose one person to be the first reader.
• The reader chooses a question from his or her top card and reads it aloud.
• Everyone else chooses the “best” (funniest, usually) answer from their top card.
• The reader (or group consensus) chooses the “winner” from the answers provided, and that person becomes the next reader.

A guideline for choosing what question to use:

• Avoid questions whose correct answer is a number; many cards will have no adequate answer.

Some guidelines for choosing what answer to use:

• A truly correct answer (it happens) always wins.
• Answers involving dead presidents or sex are good choices.
• Answers which are numbers don’t usually work.

Some of our best mutant question/answer pairs:

• What do you throw into a boxing ring to stop the fight?
  — John F. Kennedy.  (Guaranteed to work, no?)
• What is receding from the Earth at a foot per year?
  — A brassiere.
• What is the symbol for the zodiac sign Gemini?
  — Testicles.  (Twins, eh?)

(You can also reverse the game, of course, and read an answer, with the other players offering the best question.  That’s Mutant Jeopardy!, though.)

Note that there is no score kept and no overall winner (although you certainly could score based on how many rounds each person won).  The point is to have an hour or so of offbeat hilarity.