This Trivia Team's Seinfeld Knowledge Is Kind of Loony

Seinfeld superfandom, it turns out, can look a lot like homework—if your homework is knowing Jerry's fake door-lock brand (Clapco D-29) on command. The Wall Street Journal's Mark Maurer drops in on "Venetian Blinds," a five-person trivia team of mostly 37-year-old New Yorkers who have turned their devotion to the 1990s sitcom into a string of victories on an increasingly intense Seinfeld quiz circuit, winning prizes that include a 6-foot Festivus pole. They say they don't have photographic memories, yet recently aced a 100-question "IQ test" built over months from thousands of paused frames.

Their method is simple but extreme: they more or less don't watch anything else. One teammate falls asleep to episodes; another pipes the show's audio into workouts and showers; a third promises he knows "almost every line." They meet at Manhattan bars for contests run by Trivia AD, which says tens of thousands have tested their knowledge of the "show about nothing" since 2008. Along the way, the group has collected memorabilia, inside jokes, and even a few life lessons from George, Elaine, Jerry, and Kramer. For the full portrait of these Seinfeld die-hards, read the piece in the Journal.