The one in the OP is a bad example, but sometimes Jeopardy does have very easy clues that contestants inexplicably get wrong.
Two examples:
On October 30, 2008 Playbill changed its logo colour to green for a special edition marking this show’s 5th anniversary on Broadway.
Because of the requirements in pumping blood to its brain, it has the highest blood pressure of any living animal.
Neither of these actually require you to know the answer beforehand. The clues themselves basically give you the answers.
Yet contestants missed both. Perhaps they have too much knowledge, so they don’t notice “gimme” clues like these? If you don’t know much, you choose the obvious (and correct) answer in these cases, but if you know more it isn’t as easy.
I saw 2. and did get “giraffe” but I just had to google to see what 1. was all about because Broadway isn’t something I pay close attention to. The only thing I could think of was green -> money -> Rent but 2003 is too late for that.
I don’t have the faintest idea of the first question (and not the remotest idea of how I could figure it out), and would guess ‘man’ or ‘giraffe’ for the second, depending on whether I thought size of brain relative to body size, or elevation of brain relative to body was the more important factor. In short, I would almost certainly miss both questions, and like most people on the Dope, I have a pretty good assortment of useless knowledge parked in my brain.
Jayjay and I were at the same audition in D.C. in May, though we didn’t know it at the time. I’m still waiting for the phone call, and I think he is too.
I play trivia every Tuesday night to keep up my chops, but haven’t been studying like I should. What I should be doing is memorizing world capitals, cabinet members, major rivers and mountains, and NASA missions.
OK, I Googled to get (1). It’s not something I ever would have thought of. I guess I had a vague idea that it was a musical, but I don’t think that’s a gimme to anyone who doesn’t pay some attention to Broadway.
I just googled it to, and I would be surprised if it’s a gimme even to people who do follow Broadway but don’t read Playbill. Hell, I’ve even read the book the musical is based on; still none the wiser.
I read everything I could get my hands on in the 36 years between when I played and when I started reading. I didn’t do much in the couple of months between when I found out I was going to be on and the taping date, other than make sure there was always an almanac handy in the can for easy access.
Everyone has their own subset of knowledge, and often find it hard to envision how anyone else could not know the same things. This is often referred to as “The Curse of Knowledge”.
Ha! My first thought on reading the question. I should be on Jeopardy.*
or, possibly, I’m more into the theatre than I, myself ever knew. Crap, I hope I’m not gay, that’s gonna really piss off my gay friends, not mention my wife. Think, damn you, think, do you know any other musicals? Wait, um, the Wizard of Oz!, with, with Judy Garland - oh crap, maybe I am gay.
I missed the question in the OP on two points, because I guessed Sudan, which is apparently neither an OPEC nor a Commonwealth nation. I knew giraffe, and missed Wicked (but should have gotten that one).
When I lived in Africa, we ran into an officer of the Nigerian Police who were part of the UN military contingent. The guy was a stereotypical Brit solder, very cool. So I wish my final Jep question had been this easy. As for oil, when you live in California you see the effect of every bit of protest/ rebel action in the Nigerian oil fields at the pump.
I didn’t get the musical either. If Finian’s Rainbow had been revived 6 years earlier that would have been a good answer.
