Over the next 2 ¹/2 hours, quiz master Ed Stacy will put this gathering of Wednesday-night regulars through the paces by asking them to answer a bevy of questions about historical figures, movie stars, musicians, athletes, events and songs. Many of the questions will test the crowd's mastery of arcane bits of information. Others will appear to be common knowledge.

Welcome to trivia night in Campbell, with questions like which Scottish pop band was famous for its tartan pants and had a hit with "Bye Bye Baby" in 1974? (Bay City Rollers). Who walked out of Capt. Scott's tent with the words, "I am just going outside now, and may be some time?"( Captain Oates). Which five heavyweight boxers defeated Muhammed Ali during his professional career? (Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Michael Spinx, Larry Holmes, and Trevor Berbick).

Some of the groups will sail through this test of knowledge looking like geniuses by racking up points for each question they correctly answer. Other groups, those with not-so-impressive scores, will appear to be out of touch with pop culture. Whatever the score each group end up with, however, the competition starts with a question almost everyone can answer: "Are we ready for trivia night?"

The scene is repeated every Wednesday night at Katie Bloom's in downtown Campbell, where a relatively recent Old World tradition can be found right here in the Orchard City.

Pub quizzes are games in which various teams play against one another by answering trivia questions. The practice is widely believed to have started in Britain in the 1940s, when television sets were not yet popular in homes, but widely available in pubs.

According to Brainstormer Pub Quiz, a San Francisco­based company that has distributed pub-quiz question packs to trivia-night organizers since 1996, bar patrons would watch game shows on pub TV sets and call out answers to the shows' questions. The interest in these quiz shows prompted pub owners to host their own "live" quiz shows as regular events. The tradition grew beyond Britain, and trivia nights can now be found all over the United States and many countries around the world.

Although each pub can have a different structure to its games, the game at Katie Bloom's consists of five rounds, each with a different theme.

One round, for example, may have to do with movies, while another may have to do with Country music. Questions can also be asked on general-knowledge topics, geography, sports, history or whatever. One round also includes identifying people or things in photographs or pictures.

"The only rule is to keep your answers to yourself. It's a written test," Stacy says. "But if you're going to yell something, make sure it's funny."

For the first four rounds, teams are awarded one point for each question they answer correctly. For the fifth and final round, the points are doubled. The team with the highest number of points by the end of Round 5 wins the game.

The team that gets the most points will have $50 taken off of their bar tab. Second place gets $25 off. And third place gets $15 off.

The prizes are relatively modest, but some groups there do go to great lengths to come out winners. The Danger Dogs, for example, which has been coming to trivia night at Katie Bloom's since it started four years ago, tries to constitute its group with members who bring different strengths to the team.

"Everyone has their specialty," says Jef Tyler, a Danger Dogs member. "Everyone has different useless knowledge."

The group philosophy is that a team should be no larger than six or seven people. Any more than that and second guessing and arguing become problems.

Tyler adds that there should only be enough people, so that if you win first place, everyone gets a free beer and can tip. After that, and the group's too big.

The team Festivus for the Rest of Us shares the Danger Dogs' strategy of recruiting people with differing strengths and knowledge. The group usually is made up of Julia Trossen, team leader Jim Parker, and two or three other people from their triathlon group, Tribe, who they can convince to come.

On one Wednesday night, Monika Burt joins the group bringing her specialized knowledge of science and biology, while Ed Cavlin, is the murderers and movies expert. Laura Patton deals in prime numbers and the Midwest. Kevin Farley knows his sports, music and history. And Trossen comes with an understanding of romantic literature, entertainment and popular culture, while Parker brings his skills as a generalist and master of random knowledge to the table.

This group, however, takes preparation for the game one step further.

Every night before the trivia night, Parker sends quizzes to the members of the group via e-mail. The rule is that whomever gets them right, gets a free beer from Parker.

Winning makes all this preparation worth it, says one member.

"When you win the fifth round, there's nothing like it," Cavlin says.

For the group That Bastard Gary, team recruiting is a much more informal affair.

The team is named after Gary Goodman, the leader of the group, who six months before began grabbing his friends and coworkers to come with him to trivia night.

The problem was, says his teammate Jason Keleher, Goodman never showed up on time. "And while we were waiting for him," Keleher adds. "We took to muttering under their breath, 'That bastard Gary.'"

On a particular Wednesday night Goodman and Keleher are the only ones among their regular group who showed up, but they are far from being a two-man team.

Although both of them have Ph.D.s in chemistry, they insist that their education plays a small part in their fortunes on trivia nights.

"Education has absolutely no correlation to this," Keleher says. "You've got to watch a lot of TV and a lot of the History Channel. We suck at this."

Because they can't know everything, they rope in people near them and ask them if they know the answers to questions that are stumping them.

"We work our charm a lot," Goodman says. "We just have to work the charm."

During the game, the men enlist the help of a nearby couple at the bar, but the couple doesn't seem to be doing them much good. While looking at the collection of faces on the sheet of paper, the woman, who goes by the name of Ginger, starts to exclaim: "That's Bono! That's not Mickey Rourke! Jesus! And that ain't J. Lo, either. But then again, we can only see her face and not her behind, so we can't really tell, can we?"

Turns out Ginger is correct about Mickey Rourke but it wasn't Jennifer Lopez, but Mya.

Whether they get the answers right or wrong, Stacy says, the dynamic between relative strangers helping each other is exactly what he loves about hosting the pub quiz. Although the spirit of competition is in the air, winning isn't the main point of the game.

"The amazing thing about trivia night is people get together," Stacy says. "You can come in here, and you can talk to people."

Katie Bloom's Irish pub is located in historic downtown at 369 E. Campbell Ave. near the corner of E. Campbell and Central avenues. Trivia night happens every Wednesday starting at 7:30 p.m. The pub fills up early. For more information call 408.379.9687.