I was watching Celebrity Jeopardy the other day. It was the real thing, not the SNL skit, but what happened on the show was almost as funny as what usually transpires in the SNL version.
The players were: Seth Green, and two semi-obscure celebrities whose names I can’t recall. Seth was winning by a comfortable margin entering final jeopardy. Here’s what happened:
Obscure celebrity guy writes “I don’t know” or something like that, wagers ALL of his money. Drops down to $0.
Obscure celebrity woman either does the same as the guy before her or simly gets it wrong. She wagers all of her money except for one dollar. She drops down to $1.
Seth Green writes some sort of comical answer, clearly knows he is incorrect, and still wagers all of his money. Drops down to $0.
So the woman won with a grand total of $1. It looked like Alex Trebek was trying really hard not to laugh at them. I was just stunned by their collective stupidity
Anyway, why do Jeopardy players insist on wagering large sums of money when they know that their answers are wrong? It’s not just celebrities who do it, either. I constantly see regular non-celebrity players who lose everything even though they know full well that their answer is wrong.
Is there some aspect of the game I’m missing? Do you have to write down your wager before you see the question? Or do a lot of these people simply not understand the wisdom of holding onto their money when they don’t know the answer?
Its been a long time since I have seen Jeopardy![sup]TM[/sup], but IIRC, they wager prior seeing the final answer(question). So they can’t know whether or not the know the question (answer). Then when they are embarassed they right something flip.
To my knowledge, contestants place their wagers BEFORE they see the question. By the time they realize that they don’t know the answer, it’s too late…
A variant question is: Why doesn’t the leader bet to “not lose” every time (i.e., bet only enough to beat the next closest player assuming that player bet everything). That way, if everybody loses, the leader still has the maximum amount remaining…
I’m under the impression that this is the case(catogory given ->wager made-> answer given-> write down your question) which is what is done with the daily doubles as well.
As a long-time Jeopardy viewer (who here remembers Art Fleming?) I can confirm that the wager for Final Jeopardy must be placed before the players know the question. They have to base their wager on how well they think they know the category.
Leading players often do this–if they have at least double the money of the second player. The leader is rarely that far out in front.
[QUOTE
**Is there some aspect of the game I’m missing? Do you have to write down your wager before you see the question? **[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. The Final Jeopardy Category is given and they cut to commercial. During the commercial, the contestants write down their wagers. When they come back, Alex gives the “answer”, “My Little Teapot” plays as the contestants write down their “questions”. They bet on the category, not the question.
Also remember Celebrity Jeopardy is played for charity. Charities are give $10,000 (I think) or the players score, whichever is greater. I’m assumining Seth didn’t know jack about the category, but did know that his score was less that $10,000. There is no reason not to blow his score then.
I see others have beat me to it, but I will post this anyway.
-Beeblebrox
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
Also, you were watching celebrity Jeopardy where the contestants aren’t as smart as the regular contestants. In the regular format the leader rairly wagers all his money just enough that he can win by a dollar if he is correct. This way he minimizes the amount he loses if he is wrong. Seth Green probably never thought about doing this.
Yeah, the woman who won with $1 still won $10,000 for her charity, so it wasn’t a complete disgrace.
Thanks to everyone for clarifying the rules for me, I guess the fact that the wager is below the answer led me to believe that they wrote the answer first.
Last time I watched Celebrity Jeopardy, two of the contestants were Yasmine Bleeth and Bob Costas (I don’t remember who the third was).
Of course I was rooting for my man Bob Costas, one of the most intelligent men on television (I know, faint praise; but he really is smart; “Later with Bob Costas” demonstrated this.) and was dismissive of Yasmine’s chances, assuming her to be simply a pneumatic-craniumed Baywatch babe.
But…
Yasmine wiped the floor with Bob and the other guy! She won the day. The questions for Celebrity Jeopardy are a little easier than on the standard show, of course, but Yasmine even knew some things I didn’t. I was mightily impressed with her and very disappointed in Bob, who didn’t seem to know his ass from his elbow that day.
Since then I’ve allowed myself to lust after Yasmine.
The celebs are guarranteed a certain amount of money for their charity, based on how they finish (1st gets the most, etc.). However, since the first place winner gets to give all his winnings to his charity, I’d have to guess that Seth was either very confident & was trying to double his money, or didn’t care and was being a jack-ass.
Contestants must place their bets based solely on the category. They don’t get to see the answer until after they bet. It’s pretty common to see players assuming they’ll do well based on the category, only to get slammed by an obscure answer (“This famous historical person liked chocolate and had webbed feet.”).
Regardless of the above, I have noticed that most of the celebs that play seem to have the intelligence of an amoeba. Even the ones on “Rock and Roll Jeopardy” (like Moon Zappa) appear to have suffered some sort of debilitating brain damage before coming on stage.
I meant to write “I’m a Little Teapot”. I won’t disagree with you that it’s actually called “The Thinking Song”, but if I owned the copyright to “I’m a Little Teapot”, I would have sued.
So that makes threee semi-obscure celebrity contestants on Jeopardy. Seth? Brandy? and Steve?
All the “real celebrities” are going to Who wants to be a Millionaire. You are guarenteed 32 million without having to answer a quetion (the panel of other celebs help you).
IIRC, Yasmine Bleeth is a championship calibre poker player, and is also pretty decent at a bridge game. She’s bilingual. She’s a very bright lady, despite the bimbo roles. Makes you wonder why she can’t get a job in a decent movie - she can’t be any worse an actress than Estella Warren.
MY favourite Celebrity Jeopardy! moment was the night Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf was pitted against two actors I don’t remember. God only knows what they were thinking when they let him on the show, but this is an educated, well-read man against two nitwits. Lord, it was ugly; it was as if Lennox Lewis was boxing Emmanuel Lewis.
Early in Double Jeopardy he’d hit $20,000 and the other contestants looked as if they’d been run over by a train. Schwartzkopf, who is not a sadist, stopped trying at that point out of sheer mercy.
