I mentioned
in my introduction to the series that often when former champions return to the
show, the writers like to torture them. Let me rephrase (though not in the form
of a question.)
I imagine
that the thought process every time a Tournament of Champions is
approaching by the writers is something
along the lines of this:
“Ok. These
people are good and have already proved themselves. We would be remiss if we
just let them waltz to the money. Besides they’ve already shown how good they
are against ordinary clues. We have to challenge them.”
And I
imagine the champions have to know going in this will be the case. They’ve
already had to go through another series of cram sessions to prepare again and
this time they have to work on categories that they were weak on before on the
very real possibility that they will come up again. If the stakes are for
$100,000 (or $250,000) we have to be prepared for that.
And that is
for a Tournament of Champions. When it comes to Tournaments where the grand
prize is a million dollars (or even half a million as the Jeopardy Masters is),
the writers will no doubt up their game still further. It has certainly been
the case for myself in the five super tournaments I have watched in the last
twenty years. No matter how much more knowledge I had gleaned in the
intervening years, no matter how well I knew the show, somehow the writers
found a way to prove how lacking I could be – and why the champions had been so
good in the first place.
There are
countless ways the writers have proven this ability over the past twenty years
but I think the most effective way to do so would be to use one of the examples
that is quintessentially Jeopardy: the categories that use wordplay and by
extension how they are modified.
Let’s start
with a category that is so prototypically Jeopardy you might very well have forgotten that it
was a Wheel of Fortune category first: BEFORE & AFTER. Indeed, the
Jeopardy category was actually done as a tribute to Wheel of Fortune when Pat
Sajak guest hosted on April Fools Day and Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of
Fortune.
The writers
took the category and then ran with it to the point it was regular. By the time
of the Million Dollar Masters, it was practically a given that it was going to
show up, which it did in the third quarterfinal match. Here is a sample clue:
“Walt
Whitman poem about the group that sang: ‘Love Will Keep Us Together.”
“What is O
Captain My Captain and Tenille?”
These kinds
of responses will almost always illicit laughter and that was the case here.
But because this was a Million Dollar Tournament waiting in first semi-final
was BEFORE, DURING & AFTER.
We’d already
seen this tried out in the 2001 Tournament of Champions to what was somewhat
messy success. And Alex was pretty sure no one was going to pick it right away.
It turned out to be the second category picked in Double Jeopardy.
Let me give
you the kind of clue they were giving out for $1600:
“A 19th
century Sioux leader who damages porcelain as a labor union representative.”
When Bob
Harris rang in, he had to sound it out:
“What is
Sitting Bull in a China Shop steward?”
Initially
these clues were getting laughter. By this time every time a contestant came up
with a correct response, they were getting huge amounts of applause.
In 2005, we
got a different variation on this clue in the semi-finals of the Ultimate
Tournament of Champions: SECRETARIES OF STATE BEFORE & AFTER. Here’s the
$1200 clue: “Clinton’s first Secretary of State who went ‘Sailing’ to No. 1 on
the pop charts in 1980.” “Who is Warren Christopher Cross?”
There was
also another category they were fond of that came up: QUASI-RELATED PAIRS. For
the uninitiated, these are two separate clues where the references don’t make
sense but together they form a famous pair. This actually came up a couple of
times in the Tournament so let me give you some examples:
“Presbyterian
Protestant reformer & the author of Leviathan.”
Who are
Calvin & Hobbes?
“One kestrel
and one yeti.”
“What are a
falcon and a snowman?”
Here’s a
couple from that same category in the quarterfinals.
“Scalds and
footballer Marcus.”
“Who are
Burns and Allen?”
“Skullcap
and Mr. Rhodes.”
“What are
Beany and Cecil?” (Ask your grandparents, kids.)
And I would
be remiss if I didn’t mention this one. Ever since it debuted in the early
seasons all Jeopardy champions loathe SPELLING categories. Understandably, this
is a tough game as it is: the last thing you want to do is lose money because
you got a letter wrong. Once prominent in regular play and tournaments, it’s
appearance has become rarer. But in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, they
brought it back…with a twist.
BRITISH
SPELLING BEE. As Alex put it: “You have to spell your response…the way the
British do.” A variation on this category came up recently but I’ll give you
some highlights.
“The
equivalent of our own Donald Rumsfeld, the UK’s Geoffrey Hoon is the minister
of this.”
What is
D-E-F-E-N-C-E?
Lovely Rita
of Liverpool knows this unit of measure is 39.37 inches.
“What is
M-E-T-R-E?”
To their
credit none of the three champions misspelled a word. That didn’t mean they
resented its existence any less.
I will move
now to the Battle of the Decades where we got more of the same. There was
actually a 2-LETTER SPELLING category but in all cases the contestants often
forgot they had to spell and in several cases, they were not easy two letter
words. Here are a couple that Tournament veteran Frank Spangenberg got right:
“A British
interjection, or a genre of skinhead rock.”
Frank: “What
is O-I?
And for
$2000:
“Scrabble
players loooove this basaltic lava.”
Frank: “What
is AA?” (And we do actually.)
Some clues
involving wordplay are odder than you’d think. In the first game we got in the
Jeopardy round VALLEY GIRL SPEAK. Chuck Forrest did very well in this category:
For $400:
“6-letter word for what you did when you fed the furnace.”
“What is
stoked?”
$600: “Adjective
for old, twisted hands or knotty wood.”
“What is
gnarly?”
For $800:
“Adjective applied to differently abled 14th century conqueror
Timur.”
“What is
lame?”
And no Chuck
did not do an accent.
Competitors
from the 1990s had to deal with another odd category: MAKE A FAMOUS PHRASE. All
of which were odd:
“A fighter
pilot with at least five kills who’s carrying heavy debts.”
Shane
Whitlock knew it was: “What is an ace in the hole?”
But the one
that impressed everyone for $2000:
“Result when
a player at each poker table has raised an opponent one fowl.
No one could
come up with it.
Alex:
“You’re gonna love it. What is “there’s a chicken in every pot?”
Bob Harris
actually applauded the writers for that one.
The
contestants in the 2000s had to deal with a category that requires some
explanation. For years on the show there had been categories which were
variations on RHYME TIME in which you had to give two words that rhymed however
odd. Around the time of the Battle of The Decades they came up with a variation
they would roll out for Tournaments like this: TRIPLE RHYME TIME. And to
show you how diabolical the writers could be, here’s the $1600 clue:
“Vestments
of Thumper, the new head of the monastery.”
Stephanie
Jass, a seven day champion rang in with: “What is a rabbit abbot…cabot?”
Incorrect.
Roger Craig
rang in, paused and said: “What is skunk monk…” I assume he was coming up with
trunk but that would have been wrong. It was actually rabbit abbot habit.
This category has plagued Jeopardy champions ever since as we’ll see.
There were a
couple of other categories that demonstrated the cleverness of the writers
which I’ll hit on a little later but the one that was the most intriguing in
this tournament came in the quarterfinals. WHEEL OF JEOPARDY! In it they
arranged the correct response as a puzzle on the board of the show and then
gave a clue to take the contestant the rest of the way.
Dan Pawson 9
Game winner and the winner of the 2009 Tournament of Champions did very well in
this category. Here’s the $1200:
“A
friendship is born of common discomfort:
M _ _ _ _ _
__V__
___P__Y
“What is
misery loves company?” At home, I could not solve any of the puzzles.
In the
All-Star Tournament, which featured a newer breed of players, the writers chose
to do some variations on their word play with broader themes. In the Jeopardy
round of the first match, they gave us ‘B’ORDER COUNTRIES, which combined
geography as well as the alphabet. Alex Jacob, six game winner as well as the
winner of the 2015 Tournament of Champions, did very well here:
$800:
“Paraguay. These two.” “What are Bolivia and Brazil?
$1000:
“India: Burma and these other two.” “What are Bangladesh and Bhutan?”
Brad Rutter,
who had been dominating these tournaments since the Ultimate Tournament of
Champions, faced a lot of problems with Alex. His luck got no better when he
was facing off against him in the next game, though Brad did do well in a
different kind of wordplay category: THAT’S A MOUTHFUL!
$1600: “On
May 23, 1618 3 guys were tossed out of a castle’s windows in what is known as
this, sparking a Bohemian revolt.” Brad knew it was the defenestration of
Prague.
$2000:
“Horace’s phrase for ‘words a foot and a half long’ gave us this adjective
meaning “given to using long words.” Brad knew it was sesquipedalian. I mention
these two clues because the Double Jeopardy round was one of the worst Brad had
played in a very long time – and it almost cost his team the game.
In the
Jeopardy round of the Wild Card game Alex, Pam Mueller and Roger Craig had to
deal with a real mix of wordplay: “FROM THE ‘PEN’ OF WEBSTER’S THIRD”:
$800:
“Prudent only in small matters.” Pam knew it was pennywise.
$1000: “The
shaded region surrounding the dark central portion of a sunspot.”
Alex knew it
was the penumbra.
Strangely
enough BEFORE & AFTER didn’t show up in any form in either the All-Star
Games or The Battle of the Decades.
This brings
us to the Jeopardy Masters where a new generation of Jeopardy super champions
had to meet were about to come head to head with these kinds of categories. An
idea of what was in store came in the Jeopardy round of the quarterfinal with a
new kind of word play category SPOONERISM PAIRS.
For those
who might not know, spoonerism are a term from an English professor named
Spooner who had a habit of inverting the first letters of words that to give
them different meanings. Indeed there was a clue on this in Jeopardy
tournaments before: “A well-boiled icicle’ instead of a well-oiled bicycle’ and
a scoop of boy trouts rather than a troop of boy scouts.
Matt Amodio,
Amy Schneider and Andrew He got a hit what they were in for when Andrew picked
the 1000 point clue in that category:
“Contesting
with a prevaricator and igniting a blaze.”
No one could
come up with: “What are fighting a liar and lighting a fire?” This category
gave a lot of trouble to the contestants even on the 200 point clue.
“A grand
overall scheme and a stucco guy.” Amy blundered it before Matt came up with:
“What is a master plan and a plaster man?”
In the
interest of ‘fair play’, the writers gave Sam Buttrey, Mattea Roach and James
Holzhauer another wordplay category that seems to come up only in these kinds
of tournaments: BUILD YOUR OWN SPY NOVEL TITLES. Mattea and James had little
problem with them:
1600 points:
“The + a city in southern Afghanistan home to Ahmad Shah’s tomb + a chess
opening involving a sacrifice:
Mattea:
“What is The Kandahar Gambit?”
2000: “The +
the last name of Lincoln’s Secretary of War + a disaster (originally a type of
bottle)
James: “What
is The Stanton Fiasco?
For the
record these clues are tough when they come in easier versions; in this
tournament, they were nearly impossible. I honestly don’t know how Mattea and
James figured most of them out.
A few games
later, Sam, Amy and James had to deal with DON’T CONFUSE THE TWO. We’ve gotten
variations on these before, where the contestant usually had to just come up
with one suggestion. This time the writers were asking for, well, maybe this
will help:
1200 points:
“Language or jargon used by lawyers & a language used or people of Sri
Lanka.” James: “What are legalese and Sinhalese?”
1600: “A
mineral of which ruby is a type and a difficult problem or puzzle.” Sam: “What
are corundum and conundrum?”
In James
next game, against Matt and Mattea, we got 2-LETTER RESPONSES. Spelling was not
involved, but it did not make it easier.
2000:
“Signifying negation or absence, it’s the response to the famous koan: “Does a
dog have Buddha nature?” No one knew the answer was mu.
The 800
point clue was a source of amusement: “A 1979 paper by Sandra Schecter argued
that this interjection is a central part of Canadian identity.” James rang in
ahead of Mattea (a resident of Toronto: “What is eh?”
James had
one of his finest hours on the Masters in a later appearance against Matt and
Amy. The category was ENDS IN A DOUBLE VOWEL. He managed to run the category
and a lot of those clues, which is a limited category to begin with, were not
easy:
1600: Woody
growth of the Phyllostachys genus. Somehow James got this reference to bamboo.
2000 was
even more obscure: “Marking the transition to the sacred, it’s the gate of a
Shinto shrine.” James knew it was a torii.
In the last
quarterfinal match Matt Amodio ran into a Daily Double in a category called
FAMOUS NAME OVERLAPS: “The 3-named British P.M from 1916 to 1922 and the
3-named American scientist granted a 1925 patent for cosmetics made from
peanuts.” “What are David Lloyd George Washington Carver?” I don’t know Matt
managed to get all the names in one breath but it earned him 5000 points and
cemented a runaway for him.
In the
semi-finals the new guard had to deal with such problems as TRIPLE RHYME TIME
and BEFORE, DURING & AFTER. This newer guard had more trouble dealing with
them then their predecessors, even James Holzhauer who’d had experience with
these categories before, struggled. But a different kind of trouble came in THE
2 SAME-SPELLED WORDS. Ken reminded them they needed to say both pronunciations.
Mattea did
well in this category, getting three clues correct. The 1000 point should so
the reasoning
“To propel a
boat & to have a quarrel.” “What are row (ROE) and roe (r-OW)
When Mattea,
Matt and James faced off in the finals, even the word play was getting tougher.
Mattea found a Daily Double in Double Jeopardy of Game 1 in 3 ‘SY’LLABLE
WORDS.” In a distant third, Mattea bet the 7200 points they had:
“A lack of
blood flow to the brain & a drop in blood pressure cause this, the medical
term for fainting.” Mattea knew it was syncope, doubled their score and would
be in a position to challenge James going forward.
The final
game had the mother of all variations of a Jeopardy standard. CROSSWORD CLUES
has come up in some form in almost Jeopardy tournament and I’d thought I’d seen
every variation. But in Double Jeopardy we got one I did not think possible
CROSSWORD
CLUE ‘AE. I don’t know how many words you think belong with these two vowels
(if you could think of any) but, well:
2000 Points:
Norse deity group (5 letters) James thought it was the Aemir, when it
apparently was the Aesir.
James got
redemption for 1600: “Windy type of harp” 7 letters.” What is aeolian?” No I
hadn’t heard of either of these terms; I’m not sure I’d ever even seen them in
Jeopardy before.
It takes a
special kind of talent to come up with these kinds of clues and it takes a
special kind of contest to know how to answer them. Both writers and players
have more than been able to meet the challenges.
This
concludes this part of the tribute to the Jeopardy writers. I may very well
revisit the subject as we get closer to the Tournament of Champions and the
writers remind us of the ways they have fun.
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