Does anybody know someone who works on the Jeopardy staff that comes up with the categories and answers?
I watch the show daily – in stretches – and am always intrigued by how clever the categories are. Sometimes there’s a theme so all six tie together. But, as often as not, they’re just six odd groupings of things that five answers (questions) can be provided for.
Let’s come up with some doozies.
Tom & Jerry
Doorways
False Gods
Pink things
Nasty tasting vegetables
Hits of 1953
If you don’t want to add to the list of categories, how about coming up with five answers for one category already given.
I never saw a single episode even though I did know it was on. Could you give a few examples?
It may have been on some sketch doing a takeoff on one of those Gillion-dollar-pyramid things where one player gives words and the other tries to guess the category being cited from. The first player gives things like: tomato, Einstein, sonatas, caravans, or the like, and the category turns out to be Things In The Universe.
The first one that comes to mind is “Pass the Duchess on the Left-Hand Side”, a play on this song title. The question (there was only one question for each category) was something like “From 1919 to 1964, Charlotte was Grand Duchess of which small European country?”
Luxembourg
This article mentions a few more of the punning designations.
Excellent information, Sternvogel, and particularly remarkable in that just this past week we were discussing Jimmy Kimmel and his pre-late-night-talk-show-hosting gigs, and all I could recall was The Man Show with Adam Corolla – another of those shows I never really watched. Someone else mentioned his Ben Stein connection and I was amazed.
It would appear that I would have had zero chances on Ben Stein. I hit about 50-60% on most Jeopardy! episodes. I keep trying to beat the one time I was able to guess the Final Jeopardy question after hearing nothing more than the category. It was Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. My wife was sure I had cheated, but it was just dumb luck.
Occasionally (rarely), I can guess the final jeopardy question just from the category. I have done it amongst buddies and they think that I cheated as well.
