Just as 300 wins in a baseball career, a 300 game in bowling, or a 300-touchdown game for a running back is considered the mark of excellence, so too is "300" a level sought by all in Trivia. 300 points, that is!
The following is a list of all teams known to have scored 300 points in a contest. Do note the following, though:
The contests of the 1970s did not feature 10-point Hour Boni or 25-point Supers, nor did they include many Actions, any Ultras, or other pointage potentials. A total sweep of bonuses then would have netted 6 Hour Bonuses' points worth of credit by today's standards--- or less than half what an equivalent faultless performance would earn today. Therefore, even the absolutely greatest teams of that era had no shot of crossing the 300 plateau. Many (if not most) contests didn't even feature three hundred points of trivia in total. Some hypothetical scores of perfection were 281, 281 and 294 points in three separate winter contests that we know of (1973, 1978 and 1976). Extrapolating from the top teams' performances, however, there are several who would have easily qualified. The 245 of yesteryear is the 330 of today. The team that came the closest to hitting 300 points in Trivia's first decade and a half was probably Carter House in December, 1974. (Carter House would change its name to "House of Gee" before running its contest.) When BOMO scored a hefty 286 in Spring 1976, some players wondered on-air whether that might be the all-time record. The consensus was that no, House of Gee was still on top. A 290+ score for Carter/House of Gee in 1974 may well be equivalent to 370, a quarter of a century later. And you can look below to see where a 370 total leaves you.
Four teams alone notched 300 points in the 12/96 We Make Holes in Teeth contest. This is surely because of Teeth's "Mega Bonus," a 25-point concoction that boosted scores. Add that to their above-average 104 questions, and 55-60 points appear that hadn't been available in the previous two contests. (Still, three of the four teams had LOTS of breathing room, and would've had less gaudy 300+ scores in a typical 94-or-so-question contest.)
The high scores for the December 1986 teams can largely be explained by the 15-point Hour Bonuses and the 35-point Super Boni used by the host Giant Pygmies of Beckles that semester. Take away the extra 60 points, and We Start Bombing and Twice the Caffeine would settle nicely somewhere near 315 or 320. And yet, that contest only had 4 Actions, so they also COULD have topped 380. Aren't numbers fun? It's pretty clear that they and Gentle Tongue-Tongue are among the top squads ever... but probably not by this much of a margin.
And if you're really into blind adulation of numbers for their own sake, then do not neglect the May 1983 contest run by Smedley Terrace. Thanks to the experimental "video game scoring" system that semester, the top score in the history of Williams Trivia is actually Phasers on Stun's, with a whopping 292,000 points! In fact, the team Tiny Open-Faced Sandwiches finished a distant 12th that semester-- yet scored 109,631 more points than any of the teams listed below!
All teams listed below won the contest unless noted.
| 369 | We Start Bombing in Five Minutes (12/86) |
| 368 | All the Sugar, Twice the Caffeine (12/86 -- second place) |
| 365 | Gentle Tongue-Tongue He Weeps..... (12/96) |
| 358 | Anything Other Than Itself (12/86 -- third place) |
| 355 | Bob Ross 3: Pimpbot 2000 (12/96 -- second place) |
| 354 | Many Shrubs and Zulus Knew What It Was Like..... (12/96 -- third place) |
| 340 | Joanie Loves Trotsky (5/02) |
| 326 | Oxygen is for Losers (5/90) |
| 326 | I've Got Ives in My Pants (12/98) |
| 324 | Chicago 60609 (5/84) |
| 321 | Phasers On Stun: The Next Generation (5/91) |
| 320 | Mortal Wombat (1/04) |
| 320 | Gratuitous Use of the Word "Belgium" (5/05) |
| 320 | I'm Oxford Dot Com (1/08) |
| 316 | The Funk of 40,000 Years (5/00) |
| 316 | Round Up the Usual Suspects (5/84 -- second place) |
| 315 | Can't....Do....Plaid (thud) (12/94) |
| 314 | Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards (5/90 -- second place) |
| 314 | Culminating in a Spectacular Final Battle... (5/02 -- second place) |
| 314 | The Purpose of the Military.... (5/93) |
| 314 | I Say It's Duck Season, and I Say "Fire!" (5/01) |
| 313 | At 200 Miles Per Hour, There is No Diplomatic Immunity (5/98) |
| 312 | Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With (1/93) |
| 311 | We Have a Pregnant Geologist, And We're Not Afraid to Use Her (5/00 -- second place) |
| 309 | Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius (5/85) |
| 309 | Harry "Snapper" Organs (5/89) |
| 309/305 | Play to Win and I'll Kill You (12/91 -- second place) |
| 308 | Neutered Vampires Who Cheat at Kitten Poker (12/01) |
| 307 | Mark Taylor Has Only One Ass... (5/98-- second place) |
| 306 | Phasers on Stun (5/90 -- second place) |
| 306 | Cthulhu Matata (5/97) |
| 306 | Not Everybody Keeps Their Genitals in the Same Place (12/91) |
| 306 | Holy Sack and the Resident Vomit Specialists (12/00) |
| 306 | There Can Be No Dialogue with Fungus (5/89 -- second place) |
| 304 | Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil Mutant Hellbound Zombified Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Living Dead Part IV (1/03) |
| 304 | Human Hindenbergs (1/04) |
| 304 | Worker and Parasite (5/04) |
| 303 | Elvis Needs Boats! (5/95) |
| 303 | Dude, Being a Pilgrim Totally Sucks Ass! (5/98-- third place) |
| 302 | I Don't Have to Answer That Question! (5/87) |
| 302 | The Challenge of Mr. Sparkle (5/97 -- second place) |
| 301 | A Judo A Chop Chop Chop (12/87) |
| 300 | The Penultimate Supper (12/96 -- fourth place) |
| 300 | Make Way for Ducklings, Motherfucker (12/99) |
| (Honorable Mention....) | |
| 299 | Lick My Love Pump (12/87-- second place) |