In the summer of 1990, only
six years after the new version of Jeopardy debuted, Super Jeopardy premiered
on Saturdays nights. The format was unlike anything Jeopardy fans had seen
before. 35 former Jeopardy champions from the previous six seasons (as well as
the top winner from the Art Fleming incarnation) competed in a unique
tournament format. Nine quarterfinals with four players each unfolded over a
series of weeks. All the matches were played for points, not dollars. The
Jeopardy round had 200 to 1000 points apiece, while Double Jeopardy had totals
of 500 to 2500 apiece. After three quarterfinal matches, a semi-final was
played involved the previous three winners, and after twelve weeks the
tournament ended in a one-game final for a quarter of a million dollars, which
was eventually won by Bruce Seymour, a four day winner from 1988.
The original plan was for
this to be a regular event; in the final episode, Alex Trebek implied as much
as he said goodbye. But the ratings were not as high as anticipated (putting
game shows at the center of prime time would not become a ratings success until
Who Wants to be a Millionaire at the end of the decade) and the fans of
the original series didn’t turn out for it. As a result, Super Jeopardy was cancelled and has more
or less been expunged from the record of the show in general: while many of the
competitors in this tournament have appeared in future tournaments of the
original series, their appearances on Super Jeopardy were never
considered ‘canon’ the same way. (Bob Verini, who finished second and received
$100,000, never had his winning on this show added officially to his overall
total. A decade after the fact, Robin Carroll was considered the highest money
winner in Jeopardy history with just under $214,000, even though Bob Verini had
won over $245,000.)
Jeopardy would not attempt
a similar tournament until thirty years later when Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter
and James Holzhauer competed in the Greatest of All Time match up. While
considered an event series, one can’t help but think it was done as much to pay
tribute to the ailing Alex Trebek (who died of cancer that November) then these
three great players. Since Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik took over the job of
hosting in the fall of 2021, there has been a slow but steady movement towards
prime-time tournaments, with a College Championship and Celebrity Tournaments
being held this past fall. And with the continued success of these and the show
in general, the producers began dropping the idea that a ‘masters’ tournament was
being planned.
Earlier this week, the
plans seem to have been finalized. Sometime in 2023 (the date is not yet known)
six of the ‘greatest Jeopardy players’ of all time will face off in what is
billed as ‘a champion league’ style event that Jennings will host. Should it be
successful, there is considerable discussion about making it a regular thing. And
given who has been chosen to participate in the initial tournament, its hard to
argue that there isn’t already anticipation – and a little controversy.
Clearly wanting to start with
the champions freshest in most fans minds, all but one of the participants is
from the last Tournament of Champions. Even if that were a mitigating factor,
it’s pretty clear that three of them would be among the first picks anywhere.
Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider, and Mattea Roach, who punched their tickets on the
greatest of all time list long before the Tournament actually happened.
While some might argue for
the presence of Ryan Long or Jonathan Fisher on this list, given the eventual
results of this fall’s tournament, it’s hard to argue the two other players don’t
deserve it. Andrew He and Sam Buttrey are the two finalists in the hard-fought
battle that Amy Schneider eventually ended up winning. Andrew, as we all remember
kept fighting her clue for clue pretty much from the beginning of the final to
the end, and Sam Buttrey spent the final (and pretty much the whole tournament)
making us marvel as it brilliant play and charming us with his banter with Ken
throughout. Throw in the fact that Andrew crushed Mattea in his semi-final
victory and Sam managed to beat Matt in his, one would be hard pressed to argue
they haven’t earned their play here.
No one questions the
ability of the final participant: James Holzhauer. Both Amy and Matt managed to
pass him in number of games won in their impressive original runs, though
neither came anywhere close to getting past his money won total on the all-time
Jeopardy leader board. (Though let’s not make light of the fact that each
managed to win almost 1.5 million dollars.) With Jennings have retired from
game play after his victory in the Greatest of all Time Tournament, Holzhauer
is the all-time money winner in their original run among active players. He
also managed to win a Tournament of Champions, something Jennings never did. While
some might very well want to see Brad Rutter, still the show’s all-time money
winner (much of it earned in tournaments where he defeated Jennings), few would
argue that Holzhauer shouldn’t be the first one called upon in this tournament.
(Besides, I have a hunch we’ll be seeing Brad soon enough, one way or the
other.)
As you’d expect, not
everybody is thrilled about this first list – including some Jeopardy
champions. Sam Kavanaugh, who ended up winning the 2021 Tournament of Champions,
expressed disappointment about it on Twitter. The general reaction by fans of
this exclusion is less anger than it is sympathy and understanding for the
producers. (Though this wasn’t always expressed kindly; one fan had to mention
that he had to Google Sam in order to remember who he was) The overall reaction
was basically either, Jeopardy needed to go with the most familiar names in its
first one of these events (accurate) and for Sam to cheer up, he’ll be back on
the stage soon enough (likely true)
Some of the participants
themselves are taking this with typical modesty – Matt Amodio’s initial
reaction on Twitter was: “I can’t wait to see who finishes second to James
Holzhauer.” Naturally, another inclined fan said: “I can’t wait to see who
finishes third to Matt Amodio.” This
kind of attitude is not surprising from Jeopardy champions who generally recognize
greatness when they see it and have a history of camaraderie among them. They
will try their hardest to crush each other in gameplay but will usually be
perfectly nice to each other everywhere else.
We still don’t know what
kind of tournament we’re going to end up seeing, or how it will work with six
players, which is an odd number for any Jeopardy tournament. My working theory
is that it will follow a pattern similar to the Jeopardy All-Star Games in
which there will be two initial matches (I don’t know yet how many games will
be in any of the matches) in which the winners will advance to the finals automatically;
there will be a wild-card match among the three high-scorer among non-winner
and then a final match. What I do know is that this is the kind of tournament I
look forward to from Jeopardy on a regular basis and have gotten in some
form every few years for the last twenty-one of them. The fact that we are having
one such tournament in prime-time makes my pleasure all the sweeter as hopefully
a larger audience will get to witness what the rest of America has found over
the last few years. Hell, even if the only people who watch this
tournament are Jeopardy fans, I think this will be a ratings success for
ABC, given that the most recent numbers for the show in the last few weeks have
been between nine and ten million viewers which these days on broadcast TV is
the equivalent of ratings gold.
Hopefully, this will be the
kind of success that leads to this becoming a regular thing for years to come.
It’s not like Jeopardy has a shortage of great players to choose from, even if
you want to limit it to the so-called Super-champions, you could go for a while.
There are alterations of format that could be considered as well: those
involving only Tournament of Champions winners, those involving slightly older
champions playing against each other. My only desire is that even if this kind
of tournament is successful, it will not stop the regular show from doing
similar events in the syndicated version. (Those of you who read my column may
remember my predictions involving what they might do for their fortieth season,
which is now just a few months away. Quite a few people on that list are in the
first set of participants.)
Well, we’ll see how its
planned out and when it’s going to happen, and while we wait, it’s not like
there aren’t more special tournament still ahead. In a few days, I’ll get to
the one that’s fast approaching.
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