NBC Developing Sitcom Inspired by Bar Trivia Games

Combine Friends and Cheers, then sprinkle Hollywood Game Night on top and you've got the idea behind Pub Quiz, a new comedy in the works at NBC.

Jonathan Prince (American Dreams) is writing the script and executive producing with Chris Moynihan (Man Up). Pub Quiz (which is a working title) centers on a group of twentysomething friends who team up once a week to compete in their neighborhood pub quiz.

The show, which has been given a script order at NBC, is inspired by a surge in popularity among millennials for bar trivia. At many bars and pubs around the country, trivia has taken on a serious competitive vibe as teams (usually sporting cheeky or ironic names) challenge each other for drinks, food or even just bragging rights. According to the Los Angeles Times, the popularity of the game Trivial Pursuit in the 1980s led to a pub quiz phenomenon in the U.K., which then spread to the East Coast and arrived in Southern California around six years ago.

Similarly, FXX's The League used the rise of fantasy football — another growing trend — as the foundation for a show about a group of friends.

Moynihan and Prince, who both started out as actors before moving into producing, are creating Pub Quiz through Universal TV. Moynihan is also developing (with Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner) another comedy for NBC, the hotel-based Hospitality, which would air live every week.

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