The weeknight pub quiz is a terrific way to shake off the workplace blues while feeding your brain and drowning your liver. With a bold twist on your run of the mill trivia night, “The Big Quiz Thing” brought a gigantic live quiz show pairing everything you love about answering fun and challenging questions with a little bit of comedy and a good deal of pageantry. On Tuesday night, the Highline Ballroom would play host to the live show which would also be a preview of the TV version, premiering on the NYC Life network this coming Sunday.

Shortly after 7:30pm, Quizmaster Noah Tarnow and sidekick EdP took to the stage to welcome the sold out crowd of quiz fiends. And since the show packs so much entertainment into one punch, Tarnow introduced local comedy theater troupe the “New York Neo-Futurists” to kick off the evening with some laugh inducing antics. The long running group puts on hilarious one act plays which on this evening included two people dramatically making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as well as a collective haiku about living in Chelsea. The performance piece got the night off to a great start paving the way for the co-hosts’ return to the stage to commence with the quiz.

With a ton of one-liners, we were off and running. For this celebratory evening, all of the questions were New York City based. As Tarnow delivered the questions which ranged from easy to increasingly difficult, the packed house filled up by eager teams, each conversed and jotted down their answers. In a humorous turn, the host surprised the audience by letting us know that wrong answers have a place in the game. Enter “Smart Ass Points” a chance for teams to provide a spectacularly incorrect answer. If this answer pleases the judges, points are still awarded to the team. One occasion where these points came in handy involved a posed question asking- “Who are the Republican candidates running for the New York City Mayoral race?” A team that obviously didn’t know and decided to write in the funny answer, “My mom, please vote!”- to the delight of the judges and the crowd on hand.

When it came time to watch the preview of the TV version of “The Big Quiz Thing” we were blown away by its production value and the entertaining nature of the game. We will definitely be catching the premiere when it airs this Sunday on the NYC Life Network and we wholehearted recommend it to all our readers. But in the end, nothing beats gathering a group of friends, some drinks and checking out the show live. Any questions?

- Jay Rubin