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Jeopardy! G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time)
Jan. 14th, 2020 10:58 pmI'll take "Words and Phrases" for $600, Alex.
A: "Rotten" term for key details revealed about a TV show before you've seen it.
Q: What are "spoilers"?
Just finished watching the 4-night Jeopardy! tournament, featuring the three biggest winners in the show's history. The entire family played along, and it was genuinely thrilling to see how we stacked up against such a ridiculously high level of competition. I got 30% of the clues... maybe. I was pretty good with the arts, but sat back in awe as the contestants blazed through categories that would have made college professors look baffled.
Of the three, all time money winner Brad Rutter seemed overmatched. He was slow on the buzzer, and consistently crapped out whenever he hit Daily Doubles. In Match #2, he ended up in the negative and had to watch, embarrassed, as his opponents went onto Final Jeopardy.
So it boiled down to a two-man competition between James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings. Holzhauer, the professional gambler. seemed most at ease in the high pressure environment, playing mind games with Jennings, and bringing back his "pushing in my chips" signature move when going all in on a Daily Double. But Jennings, even though he was clearly nervous, had a narrow edge in breadth of knowledge, and hit Daily Doubles at key points in the competition. (He had the unnerving habit of looking baffled for a long, long moment before coming up with the right answer.) Jennings also got the biggest laughs in the contest. (After his opponents gave joke responses in a Final Jeopardy round, Jennings deadpanned that he'd like to do five minutes on airline food before giving his answer....,)
In the end, Jennings won matches #1, 3 and 4 to take the million dollar prize and the GOAT trophy. He won the title on this question:
Category: Shakespearean Dramas
Answer: This character has the most speeches (272) for any non-title character in a Shakespeare play.
Do you know who it is? (Ah ah! No cheating with the internet!)
*****************
The competition was exciting, but there's another reason why this tournament was special. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek is fighting pancreatic cancer and may be at end of his run. Trebek has hosted since 1984, and his perfectly modulated voice, his calm demeanor and his sly sense of humor have made him the class act in the often undignified world of game shows. Trebek has become a revered media celebrity in his own right, guest starring on The X-files and honored with a parody on Saturday Night Live, where Will Ferrell's Trebek would vainly try to convince Darrell Hammond's cantankerous Sean Connery to play some semblance of the game.
Jennings may have won the trophy, but the Greatest of All Time could also refer to the host.
A: "Rotten" term for key details revealed about a TV show before you've seen it.
Q: What are "spoilers"?
Just finished watching the 4-night Jeopardy! tournament, featuring the three biggest winners in the show's history. The entire family played along, and it was genuinely thrilling to see how we stacked up against such a ridiculously high level of competition. I got 30% of the clues... maybe. I was pretty good with the arts, but sat back in awe as the contestants blazed through categories that would have made college professors look baffled.
Of the three, all time money winner Brad Rutter seemed overmatched. He was slow on the buzzer, and consistently crapped out whenever he hit Daily Doubles. In Match #2, he ended up in the negative and had to watch, embarrassed, as his opponents went onto Final Jeopardy.
So it boiled down to a two-man competition between James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings. Holzhauer, the professional gambler. seemed most at ease in the high pressure environment, playing mind games with Jennings, and bringing back his "pushing in my chips" signature move when going all in on a Daily Double. But Jennings, even though he was clearly nervous, had a narrow edge in breadth of knowledge, and hit Daily Doubles at key points in the competition. (He had the unnerving habit of looking baffled for a long, long moment before coming up with the right answer.) Jennings also got the biggest laughs in the contest. (After his opponents gave joke responses in a Final Jeopardy round, Jennings deadpanned that he'd like to do five minutes on airline food before giving his answer....,)
In the end, Jennings won matches #1, 3 and 4 to take the million dollar prize and the GOAT trophy. He won the title on this question:
Category: Shakespearean Dramas
Answer: This character has the most speeches (272) for any non-title character in a Shakespeare play.
Do you know who it is? (Ah ah! No cheating with the internet!)
*****************
The competition was exciting, but there's another reason why this tournament was special. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek is fighting pancreatic cancer and may be at end of his run. Trebek has hosted since 1984, and his perfectly modulated voice, his calm demeanor and his sly sense of humor have made him the class act in the often undignified world of game shows. Trebek has become a revered media celebrity in his own right, guest starring on The X-files and honored with a parody on Saturday Night Live, where Will Ferrell's Trebek would vainly try to convince Darrell Hammond's cantankerous Sean Connery to play some semblance of the game.
Jennings may have won the trophy, but the Greatest of All Time could also refer to the host.
