This guy is gonna bankrupt my show!
Posted on 07/07/2004 4:13:17 PM PDT by ecurbh
~snip~
But the real TV story this week has to be the undisputed 25-game reign of Jeopardy! supercontestant Ken Jennings. As of yesterday, the 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City had won a total of $788,960, beating the previous record-holder, Tom Walsh, by a margin of over $600,000. Granted, this unprecedented victory streak was also made possible by this season's change in Jeopardy! rules—the term limits have been lifted, as it were, so that the run of a winning contestants may continue indefinitely, instead of being stopped after five consecutive games. But Ken is no mere beneficiary of this loophole in Jeopardy! bylaws; self-deprecating and sweet, the blond, elfin Jennings has host Alex Trebek wrapped around his fast-on-the-buzzer finger. (One evening, the bemused host opened with, "Welcome to the Alex and Ken show," and David Letterman has an ongoing gag in which he speculates that a lovestruck Trebek is helping Jennings cheat.) KenJen has turned the Culver City set into his own private fiefdom.
Watching Ken Jennings play is like witnessing any great athlete in top form: He's the Michael Jordan of trivia, the Seabiscuit of geekdom. Note his systematic habit of moving down the categories vertically, one by one, rather than skipping around the board. His nearly preternatural ability to land on the hidden Daily Doubles. His obscure betting tactics, which, as near as I can divine, are inspired by an obsessive-compulsive need to end each day's winnings with a round figure. His habit of adding some thematic je ne sais quoi to his answers (which, this being Jeopardy!, are of course phrased as questions.) If the topic is a foreign country, he'll answer in that country's accent, and in answer to one clue about hip-hop music, the ultra-white Ken memorably responded, "What is rap, yo?" Like a hot-dogging ball player insisting on his special end-zone touchdown dance, Jennings will no doubt take heat from some viewers for these stylistic quirks, but what the hell? It's show business, of a sort, and KenJen's antics have once again made Jeopardy!—which I hadn't watched regularly since matching wits with my Dad in high school—required viewing.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
NVM...got my answer from the Slate column.
Huh?
(joke)
I agree with you. The end of the 5 wins and your out rule has ruined things. If a champion was on 5 days I couldn't wait for them to leave. This guy is torture to watch day after day and I have stopped watching for the most part.
Your nose is growing :o)
I just have to say this: Don't take it seriously, its just cheesy, and quite stupid, BYU, Utah type dry humor that many simply did not get.
>>I'm glad I'm not the only one. We're watching Jeopardy every night now, just so we won't miss it when he finally loses.<<
Based on what I am reading in this thread, he's not going to lose - ever. Has anyone even come close to beating him?
If he falls on his face one week and loses, it will strongly support the idea that this is rigged. Same is true if he is gunned down in his driveway. 8^>
That's because they are too stupid to know that they can't succeed! 8^>
Thanks for posting this. I tried out for Jeopardy two years ago and made it to the final list of show candidates - but I never got a call. My guess is that I didn't put enough "interesting tidbits" about my life on the Contestant Information Card.
The "How to win on the buzzer" information is 100% correct - it's all in the timing. If you buzz in just as the question is finished being read, you'll be too early and get locked out for a bit... you need to wait just a little bit until the assistant producer pushes the button after the question is read.
The process for picking contestants is facinating... if you make it on the show, you MUST know your stuff. The first thing you do is take a test of about 50 questions (read by Don Pardo on a videotape) and write down the answers (and no, they don't have to be in the form of a question). This was the MOST difficult test I've ever taken in my life - the questions are MUCH harder than the ones you see on the show - and you must know a lot about History, Literature, Pop Culture, Science, and Geography to pass. You get about 5 seconds to write your answer before you hear the next question. You need to get 35 out of 50 to advance - which weeds out about 80% of the potential contestants.
Then the divide the remaining contestants into groups of 3 and you play a mock game... this is where I figured out the buzzer technique. The winners of each of the mock games goes into the contestant pool - and I believe this is where the Contestent Information Card comes into play (they also take a photo of you, so this may have counted against me too!).
I was on Jeopardy about ten years ago. IIRC I lost to a guy in his last of five straight wins. You'd be surprised how important buzzer skill is. The day I was there (they tape five shows a day) all contestants knew many of the answers, so speed is everything.
It wasn't until I watched the show on TV that I realized he was always holding the buzzer behind his back. I don't know whether that helped, but I remember being frustrated because he was so fast.
Fascinating information, thanks! I have often toyed with the idea of trying out.
Go do it! It was fun and you meet the most fascinating people!
If you decide to do it, make sure you're familiar with the plot lines of the major Shakespeare works, the Old Testiment, the names of the leaders of foriegn countries, and make sure you remember that Rita Moreno was the first female to win an Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy.
Heh, thanks. I've never been very familiar with Shakespeare (other than Hamlet), so I better start there.
This guy is gonna bankrupt my show!
cool..I'm gonna watch tonight.
How did he do? I missed the show.
Someone told me that they did an internet search and Ken had won 48 straight shows before they stopped taping for the summer.
He won again tonight... another $40,000 even. Total up to $868k and change.
Do you know who won when they had Peggy Noonan and Al Franken and all on? How'd they all do?
Dan
No idea... I didn't watch the celebrity tourney.
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