OT: Jeopardy! fans
 

Mrs. Q and I have gotten into a habit of watching Jeopardy! more regularly lately, and are getting hooked a bit more than ever before. In part, I think that the new rules (a champion is now allowed to keep playing until he loses, rather than being kicked off with a car and a handshake after five wins) add a little bit of fuel to the show's ongoing storyline.

Does anyone else here watch the show regularly enough to start getting interested in whether a current champion will win again night to night?

The last couple of weeks have seen three pretty good champions -- fairly likeable guys, as nearly as I can tell, which helps from an audience perspective.

I have, from time to time, watched the show regularly enough to develop an interest in the competitors.

Unfortunately, I have not done so recently. I did not know about the new rules -- that is intriguing. Has anyone won more than five consecutive times since the change?

I think a champion about 4-6 weeks ago won six times before being bounced. But with the prize amounts doubled (a few years ago) it's certainly possible to average $20,000 or more per win -- so it can start to add up. Last night, a three-time winner got beat, but he had won over $100,000 in just three games.

I have been watching more lately as well, and that champion you are referring to, QS, lucked into a couple of those wins with good wagering and a correct Final Jeopardy question. But that's how you win, so I guess you can't just chalk it up to luck, but he was second a couple of times going into FJ, which made it surprising that he pulled 3 in a row out.

The thing I've noticed since I've been watching more lately is how there are fewer categories that I can chalk up to "extremely specialized knowledge", and more categories where even the tough answers I feel I should've known. I've missed the last couple of FJ questions, but they were phrased in a way that I don't feel they were "impossible" as some of the questions have been in the past.

I don't know if that "dumbing down" is good or bad, but I am enjoying it more now. So, I guess I am dumb. :)

Damn, QS, was hoping to see you say "I'll be on tonight".:)

Once school wraps up, I'll probably watch it most nights. Over winter break I watched pretty much every night - though I admit the draw for me relates to seeing how many I can get right, more than anything else.

Nice to see they got rid of the five and out rule, too bad we'll never see anyone beat the record of Thom McCann (who won something like 36 straight games of Tic Tac Dough back in the 80's.. winning 7 cars :))

Beat the dragon was clearly rigged.

Can't say I watch regularly, but have happened to be watching the last few nights and must admit that the wife and I were rooting the champ on last night. He seemed like a fairly likable guy. Not the smug know-it-all you usually see, more like a regular guy with a hint of "I can't believe I'm here" in his eyes.

I agree, Butter -- they are definitely moving more and more in the soft direction with their questions. They have always been prone to the clever or hint-laden questions (answers) but I think that's being taken to extreme -- nearly all of the really tough questions these days either include a reference that acts as a big hint, or are in a category that gives you a really good head start.

Nothing will ever top the guy who figured out the pattern on Press Your Luck and kept spinning so long that they had to make the show a two-parter.

The funny thing is, on his very last spin he actually screwed up and mistimed his button-push. He wound up landing on a "safe" square, but he could just as easily have Whammied and lost everything.

Heh. Last night I got all the clues in the "sounds like a Chinese Dynasty" category (with clues like "A famous dynasty, or the part of your face that's under your mouth"). This resulted in my wife's saracastic "gee, you really know a lot about Chinese Dynasties".

...ditto for us. The guy never stopped smiling, and at first I thought it was a little dopey, but after a second night I backed him, and felt he was pretty sincere.

Now we get a ponytailed math professor who is a part time college DJ. We'll see.

Mrs. Q and I rattled off the corrwect responses before hearing the clues. That's a great example of the catgeory giveaway - the questions became totally pointless. ("Astronaut's favorite drink...")

Foods that start with the letter Q.

And it seems they have at least 1 category per round with the quotation mark thing (i.e. "First", where all the questions have "first" in the response). I enjoy the rare category on chemistry or science or sports, but don't at all miss the categories on Victorian England or opera or ancient Greece. I guess it's a trade-off, but I agree that sometimes the hints in some of the harder questions are a little too obvious.

The hints are probably more obvious than the past. I remember a final jeopardy from a couple of weeks ago that had a Greek name and said he was the first to head this organization from 1894-1896. Combining the Greek name and the dates, I figured it out but had never heard of the person.

I don't find myself rooting for someone, but like to test myself.

Todd

Blah. I made it pretty far in the Jeopardy tryouts at one point during HS. But I missed the cut for TV though. Fun stuff all the same.

Tom from a few months ago is my hero. Not only did he win 6 times, he set it up one time where he and another person would tie in final jeopardy, allowing both to win and keep the money and come back the next day. The next time, if they had both gotten it right, they would have stayed as well. I'm looking forward to the TOC.

Unfortunately, this quarter of school I have classes that interfere with jeopardy twice a week. It comes on at 3:30 here, and we have a group of people who usually watch it.

Man, I really disliked the smiley guy, it just got on my nerves.

Maybe its just me, but the questions have seemed easier the past few months, especially final jeopardy.

and why do I still see the secnd place people make the incorrect bet so much, when if they just bet correctly, they'd win?

Used to watch it pretty regularly, was very upset when they moved it out of the pre-primetime to the afternoon. Can never see it now.

I used to watch it twice a day, every day (reruns on at 12:30 pm that my geeky mom and I would tape) plus the nightly one in the evening in high school/early college. I stopped watching it for lots of reasons:

1) it comes on only in the afternoon where I live now
2) they've seriously dumbed it down in the last few years
3) the fact that almost every Daily Double is a video question now with some random people asking the question with no need of the visual aid annoys me
4) I don't want to humiliate Passacaglia by kicking his ass at it when we keep score together

"What is a quice?"

SI

I used to watch it.. but as they dumbed down the questions it got a lot less interesting; at least to me.

I probably would watch it, but it comes on too early for me to remember to watch it.

i'll take "the rapist" for $200 Alex.

It comes on at 4:30pm here in New Orleans, so I don't get to see it at all, since I'm working at that time. I did see the guy who allowed the previous second-place player to tie him. It must've been Lundi Gras or something, because I was home early. Anyway, I doubt I'd mind the questions being dumbed down some. It's not that I found all the questions too hard for me. I thought it was challenging before, and I knew some of the answers, so I never felt stupid. I just wouldn't have a problem with them making the questions more, erm, accessible.

Anyway, it doesn't matter what I think, since I never see the show anymore. Don't mind me. Just passing through.

And he was in that white navy uniform of his every single night of it. A remarkable run.

If Jeopardy would have had these rules back in the 80's, Chuck Forrest might have made a million dollars. Though I don't think he's that bad off today...

I get to see bits and pieces of it. It comes on at 7:30, right after Wheel of Fortune, which is my 5 year old's favorite non-Disney/cartoon show. Then we read to her and she goes to bed about 7:45, so I only get to see the first round, if that. The intellectual whiplash of those two shows being back-to-back is almost too much to bear, though. Sometimes I get dizzy.

As for the "dumbing down" of the questions/answers on Jeopardy, I prefer to believe that I'm getting smarter. :)

That's my point. Hence the "intellectual whiplash."

Whoops - misread that sentence.:)

F*cking elitist!

And last night, we saw yet another case of a smart person making a dimwitted double jeopardy wager.

Scenario: She's in 3rd place with $6000, about halfway through the second round. Other players have something like $12,600 and $11,000 or so -- for practical purposes that's about right. This is I think, the last DJ chance in the game.

She is clearly not the best player of the three - and has litle chance to make a big move on them in the last 12-15 categories. This is her chance to make a move. She bets $2,000.

I can't defend this decision. If she misses it, she's down to $4,000 -- where she is obviously out of real contention, and will just be hanging around for a chance to sneak through on a stumper. If she bets the full $6,000 - she gets right into the middle of things. I think it's a no-brainer, she had to bet it all.

Turns out, she got her just reward -- she got the DJ questin right, did fairly well down the stretch, and ended up exacyly $4,000 short of the leader at the end, and they both got the FJ question correct. Had she played this well, she would have been a returning co-champion... but instead, she got a consolation prize and a boot in the ass.

I know it's easy for me to bet with other people's money... but in a lot of cases, I think people make indefensibly conservative decisions with the DJ opportunitites -- seemingly worried more about not embarassing themselves than getting a chance to win.

Alas.

QS: Just curious, have you ever thought about trying to get on Jeopardy?

I'll likely be at the contestant search in Washington, DC this June. It's totally my cup of tea, but for some reason I have never tried out before.

One night I did a bunch of research into what's involved in getting on the show, etc., and basically, here's out it goes (if you're interested):

1. Take a written test (for you, in Washington, I suppose), where they ask 25 (?) difficult ($800-$1000 level) questions in various categories. You need to get 20 right to hang around.

2. Later that day, if you got enough right, you go into a TV practice game, with a fake set and everything. They'll have you write down five interesting things about yourself, and after a practice Single Jeopardy, Alex or more likely some standin will ask you about one of those things you wrote down. You won't know which one he's going to choose, and you won't know exactly how he'll ask his question. You make a little pseudo-conversation with him, just like on the real show. Then you finish off the game, etc. What the producers are looking for here are people who can handle the TV aspect. From what I can tell, you sound like a perfect fit for them, but who knows.

3. I _think_ they tell you if you "pass" the TV test, and they say they may or may not call you in a month or two. From what I could tell, it was totally random whether or not they actually call you after that one-to-two month period - how well you performed on the tests had no bearing.

4. If you get that call in a month or two, you are DEFINITELY on the show (presuming you make the time and money committments) - you fly yourself out to California on whatever date they tell you, and pay for your own hotel, and then they'll film 5 shows per day. Sometimes it works out that you have to stay an extra day because of carryover champions. But as long as you get that phone call, they guarantee you'll be on the show.

All this comes from, again, being VERY bored one night and reading up on everything for four or five hours.:)

Good luck, and keep us updated Quik!

"And our Final Jeopardy category for tonight is... fractions!"

I'll take the rapists for $1000

Do you have a link for details?

Jeopardy just lost all interest to me when Turd Ferguson quit being invited back.

Samdari,

I think you can find info at www.jeopardy.com

Boo-yah!!! You're in the zone man...

The most ridiculous thing in Jeopardy is when Alex asks these boring ass contestants when what they do in their spare time...
Alex: So Marie, I understand you have a very interesting hobby, can you tell us what it is?
Marie: I recently got into sand scripting and I'm going to write a book on the history of Mickey Mouse watches.

Except I misspelt quince. :(

SI

From what I remember of the test, it's more like 50 questions. You get something like 8 seconds per question. I've taken the test twice, and passed once.


Well, they might do this in Culver City, but not on the searches. You do write down the interesing things, but you do so before the test and hang onto it. If you pass the written portion of the test, you hand this in. They will call three contestents up at a time, give them buzzers and you'll play for a few questions. The questions were presented via projector hooked up to a computer running some crude software. A question will be read, and then a yellow border will light up around the projected question to indicate that you can signal in. Timing here is pretty tricky. You also tell a little about yourself like you would on the show. I'm not sure what kind of analysis they do here.


Regarding 3), I don't remember them really telling me anything as to if there was any "passing" of the fake game. You go into the pool of contestants, where I think maybe 1 of 10 people is actually called for the show. There was a good number of months where they could call, basically the entire filming season. You would be notified a month in advance if you are chosen to appear, and then you are responsible for a) getting to California and b) making and paying for accomodations.

There was much discussion about this when Subby's wife appeared on the show, if someone can dig the link up somewhere.

I signed up and am hoping to get an interview for the college edition. There are interviews in Chicago in June...hopefully they are in early June so I can still be here at school when they are going on.

Damn you, Fozzie! This was driving me crazy so I had to look it up -- Thom McCann is the crappy place in the mall that sells women's shoes; Thom McKee was the Tic Tac Dough champion. :)

The guy was on 46 episodes and won $312,700 and eight Buicks. Oddly, he continued to hold the record for most money won on a game show until The first $500,000 winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I do like shows where they don't force the champion into retirement. That was a feature of Jack Barry and Dan Enright shows, which unfortunately leads to the speculation that shows where the champ always returns might be "manipulated" to keep popular champions on the show longer. I have no doubt Jeopardy! is on the up and up, but there are some others in the past you just don't know about.

Well, my post had some element of truth in every part of it.:)

Monster buzzsaw champion up trying to win for an 11th time tonight... he has already won $340,000 or so. Watching now...

$340,000?!?!?! On Jeopardy?! Jebus, but times have changed.

Yup. They doubles the the value of each question and they no longer make a champ retire after one week. But still, $340,000 is a huge accomplishment...

I think I saw that guy last week -- he had 18,800, and 2nd place had 4,200, and 3rd place had 1,800, if I recall. A Cliff Clavin moment. He played it safe, and bid 6,200, got the question right (Fictional Characters: Charles Dickens was originally going to name this character "Little Fred") and ended up with $25,000.

He's a monster. Very collected.

We need some "closers" to knock him off.

I don't know if this is good or bad for the show, honestly...

What's his personality like?

You're joking, right? Personality?

He's a geeky, unassuming white guy, a software engineer -- about what you'd expect, I suppose. (Same demographic as many FOFCers, I guess)

The blind guy was pretty interesting... as was that guy who won 5 times in a row (under the old rules), and on his last day graciously let the 2nd place finisher tie for the victory so he got the money. He was a great guy, and wasn't the "geeky white software engineer". Remember who I'm talking about (approximately 6 or 7 years ago)?

Eddie Timanus was the blind champion. And I do remember the 5th day tie, that was indeed classy.

This is reminding me of the guy on Tic Tac Dough (Thom McKee - thanks google) who won 38 times, amassing over $300k in 1980.

I was going to post about this a couple of days ago, but forgot. Did he win tonight - I had to work late and missed it? What's the record since they went to this format, anyway? I think the unlimited winning is great, for the record.

The guy won in another romp, and now easily holds the record -- 11 wins, and some $370,000.

The woman in third place wrote, for her Final Jeopardy answer, "Whatever Ken said" - which earned a good laugh.

I'm glad you posted that. I remember that from when I was a kid. We watched that every day to see if he would keep winning. I've tried to convince my family that a guy won forever on that show, but nobody else seemed to remember it. They had almost convinced me that I was making it up. Thanks for the proof. Wasn't he in the Air Force or something like that? I could be wrong on that one, but I do remember that guy winning a ton of money. $300,000 dollars on a game show in 1980 is pretty impressive.

I'm sure your family will be bowled over by your "proof" here:

"Yeah, this guy 'cuervo' said so on the internet."

Lock.

There's a regular over at the OOTP boards that will be on the show 6/22 that has given some information about Mr. Ken Jennings. If that board was up, I would link to the thread.

Guess I don't need to bother watching any more, then.

Skeptic.

(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...22&btnG=Search)

I didn't mean to suggest that it didn't happen. I just thought it was amusing that "some guys said so" instantly became "proof." Nothing against that guy, of course.

You mean you don't believe everything that you hear second-hand on the internet (from someone else who believed something he read on the internet)? I'm shocked!

(I've considered using "because Fritz said so" at home...)

The way he's playing right now, it practically isn't fair. They need to handicap him like 10 grand in the hole to start so the other players will have a chance. He's averaging $30,000+ per game right now and (in the episodes I've seen) puts the game away late in the first round or early second and thus is never in a position to be caught during Final Jeopardy. My wife wonders if the limitless wins truly are limitless or whether there is a cap that he bumps against at some point, such as the end of a season of taping, when they do a ToC.

One of the shows - Monday's maybe? - he won $50K. I say good for him.

EDIT - took out some comments that someone who hasn't already read the last few posts shouldn't worry about. :)

Yeah, I apologize for that. I didn't think about it.

Editing it out now.

Fixed mine as well...

The fact that somebody that is completely independent of me remembered the same details that I did and actually had a name to go with it might not be considered proof, but I would think that would be a strange coincidence. Plus, my family is pretty easy to convince, they're not the brightest. :D

I Garfunkled your mother :D

This herb can be used on chicken

I was flipping through channels when I went past Jeopardy and remembered this thread. It was the first time watching the guy and man, he really is incredible. I'll watch tomorrow if I remember.

Still going. Won his 15th straight last night.

Yeah, I meant to post about that here. The since-purged info above about his winning streak ending was apparently wrong. He's up to 15 days and $486K. I guess my interest is piqued enough that I might go searching for the thread over at OOTP. I saw it last night - I guess that was him?

I meant to bump this, too.

I guess what happened was the OOTP person was a contestant on one of the shows last week - and was there for the five episodes taped together that day. That way, he would have seen up through Ken's 13th win. Saying (paraphrasing here) "he goes on to be a 13-time champion" might have been a slightly confusing way of saying "I can verify that he wins at least 13 times, since I saw him win his 13th."

In any event, he rolls on. I'm TiVo-ing tonight's episode, and have to confess that my interest has been piqued by this roll. He's a very deserving champ, but now I'm rooting against him.

He was on last night, actually. That's why I was confused. I think the answer to the confusion, as I read through the long thread over there quickly, is that the guy was called in as an alternate last week, saw him win #13, but didn't get on, then made it on for last night's show, which was the guy's 15th win.

I never said he lost at 13. I said he made it to 13. I'm sure the words could be read either way though, but I edited them out.

As I stared at the screen that showed his winnings at $486K, the first thought in my head was, "Think about how much more work this guy has had to do for $500K than a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Thirteen episodes vs. what, 20 minutes, basically?

Yeah, but think about odds, too. He's been buzzsawing people in Jeopardy becuase there just haven't been many in his league. But in WWTBAM, one freakish pop culture question and he's home with $32K or only $1K (like who the @#$# knows what the first tv dinner was).

SI

True. He can afford to miss a few and still win. Still, for that much work, he should be a millionaire by now.

Its like a week of real time. I'd do it for as little as $200,000

It's still mentally challenging, and it's 15 separate contests with new competitors. I'd take my chances on Millionaire any day of the week.

I'd be content to play trivia games for an entire year for $50K ;)

SI

This is turning into a real life version of David Foster Wallace's story "Little Expressionless Animals."

I feel sorry for those two women on there tonight.... He got off to a fast start.

EDIT - SPOILER!!! For those on the West Coast or who haven't seen it.



That was embarrassing. Sally Jane Goodall looked like she would be overmatched by an ape, though. That ending shot of her with her hands on her hips, short skirt, and knee-high boots didn't do much for my initial impression, either.

SPOILER!!!

He's pretty good all right, but not invincible for sure. The Final Jeopardy question wasn't *that* hard, yet he was thinking of a duo who did something rather than dying on the same day. I never know when it's okay to post this kind of thing, because it hasn't played on the West Coast yet, and it comes on in OKC at 4:00 Central.

Yeah, that was a question I knew the answer to, but didn't realize it until it just came to me about halfway through the answer period.

I knew that right away because it's one of the greatest coincidences in American History.

Monroe also died on July 4.

more SPOILER...



He was in a little bit of trouble... he didn't cinch the runaway until the second-to-last question (the Double Jeopardy), and ended up missing the final question while the second place person got it. Had the last couple of questions gone differently, he could have lost tonight...

*sigh*

As far as Jeopardy! contestants go, Sally Jane and the "glamour shots" look might have been the sluttiest I've ever seen.

I was waiting for her to start twirling her hair, talk on the phone, and chew gum with her mouth open to complete the picture.

I wonder how much of an advantage he has using the buzzer. It seems to me most contestants know the answers most of the time, but it's all about who buzzes in first. Since he's been doing it everyday for a couple weeks now, I'd think that would give him an even bigger advantage in buzzing in first. Of course, something that could derail him is someone hitting one or two of the double jeopardy questions and getting them right and catching up with him. Most of the shows I've seen, he's the one who gets the double jeopardy questions. If someone else gets lucky and hits them, they could take him down.

At this point, someone could beat him in the final jeopardy round if they could just get more than halfway to his score, since he's probably so rusty in having to figure out the proper amount to bet, he might screw up. I can't recall the last time I saw him go into final jeopardy where he didn't have it already won (save a Cliff Clavin-type meltdown).

From a CNN article about Ken Jennings:

Ken Jennings was seen on his 16th straight "Jeopardy!" episode Wednesday, winning once again to bring his total winnings to $512,959.

The 30-year-old software engineer broke the "Jeopardy!" record early in his run. Tom Walsh, of Washington, D.C., held the previous mark, earning $184,900 in seven days on the show in January.

Then along came Jennings, who is no stranger to the world of quick quiz. He was a member of Brigham Young University's successful College Bowl team in the 1990s. Jennings also edits literature and mythology questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournament.

My daughter had gymnastics last night and I missed the show. What happened?

just preventing a gymnastic like quad-dola.

Thanks. Sometimes I need to be saved from myself.

I saw some Russian dude try a quad dola back in the 2000 Games...damned near killed himself.