KNOW BUDDIES

Next up as emcee is Klein, a stand-up comic who lards his game with questions about (surprise) stand-up comics, as well as Broadway musicals. "Everyone hates my games," he grumbles afterward. "Mine are too eclectic for them. All they want to do is talk about television." The exception to the pro-TV crowd is Whelan, who, upon noticing that Fahrni's TV is beaming an episode of the Scott Baio series Charles in Charge at them, points his finger and shouts, "That's the reason we're losing. Turn that off."

The buzzer system stays on, however. It stays on through the afternoon. It stays on through the evening. It stays on through fifteen separate matches until 1:15 a.m., when the last eight players finally give up and return to a world that doesn't care that Chuck Woolery was the original host of Wheel of Fortune. Even Young Leonard Fahrni is bleary-eyed, but he can't hide the exhilaration the Basement Bowl produces in him.

"It's spring," he says. "People are supposed to be answering trivia questions.