Jeopardy Super-Champions Have An Exhibition Game. Everybody - On Stage and Off - Has Fun

 

Watching last night’s unprecedented match, I was reminded of how Drew Carey would open Whose Line is it Anyway for more than decade: ‘the games are all made up and the points don’t matter.” I’ve been watching Jeopardy for thirty years, and I’ve never seen a game where the latter was so apparent.

In order to warm up Mattea Roach, Amy Schneider, and Matt Amodio – three of the greatest champions in Jeopardy history – the producers decided to give them a warmup game. The closest equivalent to it I can muster is it had the atmosphere of a Celebrity Jeopardy match but the caliber of clues that you’d find a Tournament of Champions. Which didn’t mean the writers weren’t in their own ways having as much  fun as the contestants.

From the beginning it was crystal clear that while these three extraordinary players weren’t taking the game seriously, the same competitive nature was there all the same. You got a distinct sense of gamesmanship between all three players throughout the entire night. I have no doubt that while this game may have not officially counted for anything, all three players were trying to get the measure of one another in case they should face off in next week’s final. This added to a special kind of mockery all the way through. In the category HITS OF 2002, Mattea responded to a clue involving Pink’s ‘Get The Party Started’, by saying ‘One of my favorites when I was four.” Laughter followed. A little later on in a reference to Eminem’s Lose Yourself, Amy followed the response by saying: “One of my favorites when I was 27,” which got laughter and applause.

There was mockery and self-reference throughout the game. One of the categories in the Jeopardy round was YOU SIT ON IT, and some of the clues responses were ‘bum, booty, moons, and buns.” There was a category that dealt with ELECTION DAY which was yesterday and in a more sober note REMEMBERING ALEX TREBEK, who passed away two years ago today. That said, there seemed to be mockery there to when they revealed a secret: “Alex breakfast of choice was a Diet Coke and Snickers; after a doctor’s lecture, Diet Pepsi, and this ‘gimmer a break’ candy bar. When Amy acknowledged it was a Kit Kat, Ken told us that was the ‘breakfast of champions’.

There was even more mockery in the traditional category NUMBER, PLEASE. Four of the responses were 40, 23, 38 and 74. Ken then made the point clear what those numbers referenced…except that he made that point before the last category was revealed. When he realized what he’d done, he cursed and the technicians bleeped it out. (That said, the last clue was for $200 and I’m pretty sure all three of the contestants could have gotten it anyway.) For the record, all of these numbers referred to the number of games won by all four players on the stage. Ken modestly saying: “74 which is much bigger than all of them.” The last clue referred to infinity. Whatever

There was a lack of seriousness throughout, and everybody bet everything on the Daily Doubles in both rounds each time mocking it. Matt said: “I’d like to wager 1200 of whatever were playing for.” Mattea said “2800 magic beans.” That said everybody was just as determined to win as we usually see and we saw just as clearly that even the best Jeopardy players can make obvious mistake.

In the Double Jeopardy category RHYMES WITH A SNOW WHITE DWARF, Matt had a lot of trouble figuring out which dwarf was being referred to: he thought a clue referring to an attractive and fashionably dressed person was ‘tony’, not snappy. He thought a sentimental film was sappy, not weepy, and perhaps most unforgivable, thought a passel of puffin or pigeons was a covey not a flock. (You could give him credit for the first two anyway.) Nor did the writers mince on some of the categories in Double Jeopardy. One was titled HOPE YOU READ MIDDLEMARCH, something I’m pretty sure even the best Jeopardy players try to avoid, and WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE THE TREATY OF PARIS (as you might not know there have been a lot of famous treaties signed there, including the one that ended the American Revolution. There was even a category I’d never seen: WRONG BUT EXCELLENT. As Ken summed up: “These are clues about incorrect response that Jeopardy players have given in the past that are so hard (read obscure) that we never would have gone for them in reality.)

To give perhaps the best example of this (and one that I actually remember coming up in play) here’s the $1600 clue: “We were going for Hippocrates and a contestant came up with this 5-letter ancient who greatly influenced medieval medicine.” Matt knew the correct answer: “Who is Galen?”

Now let me tell why I remember that particular answer. This clue came up in a special Jeopardy tournament involving an even more obscure person. The category was called THANK YOU, DR. PARE. Apparently he was a revolutionary barber surgeon and among one of the things he did, well, let me give you the clue that involved Galen and Hippocrates being confused.

“Pare rejected such methods of this ancient physician as dropping the patient off a roof.” The italics are there because Alex, usually stoic, couldn’t stop from giggling when he read this response. Neither could the audience for understandable reasons. When one of the contestants came up with Hippocrates Alex who rarely editorialized said: “He was a lot funnier than Galen.” I advise you to go to YouTube and look for the Ultimate Tournament of Champions Quarterfinal. Last I checked it was still up there. Trust me when you finish with the category, you’ll agree with Alex as to why we should thank Dr. Pare. And now back to the actual game in question.

Thanks to running the category POTPOURRI, Mattea managed to walk away with a runaway with $17,600 to Amy’s $7400 and Matt’s $3600.  Even if you want to argue the contestants weren’t taking this game as seriously as they should have, they all gave their best efforts especially when it came to a very difficult Final Jeopardy clue.

The category was CHEMICAL ELEMENT NAMES. “The three elements whose names begin with two vowels are iodine & these 2, one synthetic and one natural.” All three players knew at least one of the two elements, which for the record are in the bottom two rows of the periodic table. Only Mattea could come up with both of them: “What are einsteinium  and europium?” Amy could only come up with europium, Matt einsteinium.  Mattea took the exhibition game.

Was this a true measure of the three players? For the record, they were basically even on correct responses: Mattea and Matt each got eighteen right, while Amy got five. But there were also a lot of mistakes made, Matt made ten, Amy made five and Mattea made three. That’s a pretty high number for three of the greatest players of all time: Matt in particular never made that many on his worse day. That said, a lot of these clues were tougher than usual and it is hard to know just how hard they were really trying. I don’t think it is a true measure of how any of the three will perform in their individual semi-final games. Was this a true  preview of next week’s final? I’ll summarize everything for you this Friday as they go in against their individual matches: Amy on Wednesday, Matt tomorrow, and Mattea Friday. And remember what I keep telling you: anything can happen in a Tournament of Champions – and it usually does.