Former host at The Current Sean McPherson launches new trivia podcast

NINA MOINI: We are going to finish out the week here on Minnesota Now with some fun. We have a voice you may be familiar with who's going to join the show. It's Sean McPherson, who was a host at our sister station, The Current, of course. Hosted a show with me during the height of the 2020 winter pandemic called The Warming House. That was a journey. It was a lot of fun. Now host of Jazz 88 and the co-owner of the bar trivia empire, Trivia Mafia. And Trivia Mafia is out with a new podcast co-hosted by Sean. It's called No Brains, No Lightbulbs. Thank you for joining me in the studio, Sean.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Nina, it's great to be here. And as you mentioned, we've made a lot of radio together, but this is the first time we've broadcast from the same room because of all the COVID controls.

NINA MOINI: I know.

SEAN MCPHERSON: You were over there across the hall.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, we had to do the show in two separate studios. We had to plan it all out over Zoom. It was a moment in time, for sure.

So I wonder if a lot of people may not know that if you go to bar trivia in the Twin Cities, it's likely probably that it's hosted by your company, Sean, Trivia Mafia. And I can't believe it's been around now for 18 years. You are a man of many talents, but I'm curious to what made you want to start this Trivia Mafia?

SEAN MCPHERSON: I loved trivia personally. I loved playing trivia, and I had ran trivia a couple times just for fun with friends. And you know me, Nina, I'm a very social person.

NINA MOINI: You are.

SEAN MCPHERSON: I'm a person who likes to create reasons to get together and to hang out. So it seemed perfect. And the trivia night we started at was at the 331 Club. And I told the bartender, hey, I'd like to do some trivia here on Sunday nights. And then a person who at the time I did not know, Chuck Terhark, told the owner the same thing and they said, why don't we just sort of force them together?

So me and Chuck got put together to start this company, and we did it because we wanted to have fun things to do at night in bars that wasn't just seeing bands and seeing DJs. So it was a personal desire and it's grown into a really big thing. But it starts from that seed of just loving trivia and loving hanging out with people.

NINA MOINI: And as you know, I don't love trivia. It gives me deep anxiety. I feel like I just can't. I don't know why. But I love the way that you do it. So everything you do is inclusive and fun and makes everybody feel at home. So even folks who don't love trivia, just know that if you go and you hang out at a Trivia Mafia night at any of these area bars, it's going to be a lot of fun.

So you decided to tack one more thing onto your schedule-- you're not busy enough-- and you started this podcast. So where did the idea come from for No Brains, No Lightbulbs.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Well, Chuck and I ran this trivia night for a long time, but at some point we had enough kids, enough day jobs, and enough busyness that the idea of actually being out at a bar ourselves every single Sunday night wasn't going to work. And a lot of times you find that those people that you worked with, suddenly when you stop working with them still, you miss it. I'm not very involved day to day with Trivia Mafia, and we would stay and text and talk.

But then we said, how could we still hang out and have that chemistry and get to do something we love, but actually still have it be built around trivia? We're both voracious fans of podcasts, so we believe in the experience and we thought, we have something to offer. We also found, Nina, that when you hit Saturdays, as a podcast listener, you can be dry. I can go, I'm out, I don't have-- what am I listening to on the weekend? I don't want more hard news. I want something with a little levity.

So we thought, let's make a trivia podcast. Let's drop it on Saturday mornings, at a time when both of our feeds were personally dry, and have an opportunity to rekindle that hosting friendliness that Chuck and I had and pull out some fun trivia and bring in some fun guests.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And like Saturday mornings are a time where some people like to do brain teasers, or maybe you're doing the crossword. So this kind of falls in that category too. You can kind of challenge yourself. So what could people expect when they listen? What's the format?

SEAN MCPHERSON: The format is a little bit of trivia up top that Chuck runs for me, usually just an archived round. And again, you're right, Nina, trivia can be a real sort of elitist, I'm smarter than you type of vibe. And that's a bad competition with me because I'm smarter than no one. So Chuck will hit me with a little bit of trivia, and then we bring in a guest. We have had a lot of trivia hosts, trivia editors on there, and also just some other radio broadcasters, et cetera.

And we bring people on. We ask them a couple campfire questions, where it's just sort of stuff you might ask, not trivia questions, just like, would you rather give up dessert or breakfast, things like that. And then we hit the harder stuff. They've picked out two categories that they're somewhat willing to answer trivia questions about. We hit them with those two categories. They give us a fact, and then we close it up with a little bit of banter between Chuck and I, and then a little bit of rapid fire trivia from me to Chuck.

And really, we're trying to make it like a trivia night. Because Nina, at a trivia night, you don't just sit and talk about who the 14th president was. You talk about how your week was. You talk about what the questions make you think about, so we're trying to bring that into a podcast experience.

NINA MOINI: Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's like a gathering. It's more than that.

So how many episodes are out? How can people listen? Give us the details there.

SEAN MCPHERSON: We have released eight episodes. We release our ninth episode on Saturday. And just this morning, I recorded our 11th episode. So we're filling in the bank so that we don't have to record something on every single holiday that happens. And we have a dedicated website, nobrainsnolightbulbs.com. But frankly, that website will just go, why don't you go to where you get your podcasts? So if you search No Brains, No Lightbulbs on wherever you get your podcasts, as we like to say in the podcast business, you'll be able to find us.

NINA MOINI: So when you're doing 18 years of trivia and then you're doing the podcast, how are you picking which topics to explore?

SEAN MCPHERSON: I think in some ways it is ever refreshing, because the answers to some things legitimately change. Just, for example, for a long time we both thought it would be settled fact that Grover Cleveland was the only president who would have non-consecutive terms. And suddenly you go, that's not the case. Now, Donald Trump has non-consecutive terms.

NINA MOINI: Oh, sure.

SEAN MCPHERSON: So there is truly some evolution of the answers. On top of that, the world has changed. I mean, the world has changed a tremendous amount in these 18 years. So there's questions that we asked that we would just have no business asking in 2025 that felt fine to ask in 2011.

And then frankly, I don't keep great records, so I'm sure I just write the same questions again. But they're interesting to me or you find a new angle. And the writer changes, the facts change, and the experience of what--

NINA MOINI: It's the vibes.

SEAN MCPHERSON: The vibes change.

NINA MOINI: The vibes change. So I do have a trivia question for you. I decided to take on the power role here. So OK. One of the first uses of the word trivia was by the Roman Empire. It was another name for a goddess. What was this goddess's name?

Do you need me to do the question again?

SEAN MCPHERSON: No. I think I'm ready. Roman, did you say, or Greek? Roman?

NINA MOINI: Roman Empire.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Minerva?

NINA MOINI: No.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Athena?

NINA MOINI: No, Miner-- sorry, it's Hecate.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Oh, right.

NINA MOINI: Hecate. So I got that one for you.

SEAN MCPHERSON: That's a heck a trivia question.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, I know. You know, Sean, and I told everybody, I go, I'm not going to do 10 minutes of talking about how much I love Sean McPherson, but I would be--

SEAN MCPHERSON: Just 7 and 1/2.

NINA MOINI: --remiss to say that I just think you're such a great member of the community here in the Twin Cities and beyond. When we did that show together, The Warming House, it was just, it was such an interesting time and it was such a difficult time. But we kind of brought laughter and we brought news and we brought trivia. It's actually a lot of the things that we love to connect with people on here now during Minnesota Now.

So just want to thank you again and wish you all the success. I hope that everybody gets to have not only a colleague, but a friend like Sean McPherson in their life. I really do. Thank you for coming by Minnesota Now.

SEAN MCPHERSON: Oh. Well, the feeling is mutual on all that. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. And congratulations to you on the show.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Wow, it's been almost a year. Will have been a year in November. But my first co-host, my best co-host, Sean McPherson, ladies and gentlemen. He is the co-owner of Trivia Mafia and co-host of the new trivia podcast, No Brains, No Lightbulbs.

That is it for Minnesota Now this week. We'll be back with you Monday at noon. I'm Nina Moini. Thank you so much for listening.

And we have covered a lot of ground the past couple of weeks. There's been some difficult news. We've had some moments of laughter, like we just had. Happy to do it. As always, if you miss anything that you hear now on Minnesota Now, you can go to mprnews.org and search for Minnesota Now. Or you can find our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

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