Unfortunately, some companies' HR departments actively encourage "trivia questions", because they ask interviewers to ask every candidate the same questions so that a "fair" comparison between candidates.
I think you've touched on a crucial point here about making the comparison "fair". In my view, I find the "trivia questions" approach to be an abdication of responsibility for the difficult, nebulous task of assessing a candidate's abilities. It gives you an objective measure by which to compare candidates... even though the measure itself is usually arbitrary and irrelevant.