I’ve never watched Jeopardy particularly religiously, as I know some Dopers do. What are some of the most unusual or unexpected things you’ve ever seen on the show?
For example, has a “runaway” contestant (a contestant who had more than twice as much money as his nearest competitor) ever wagered enough in Final Jeopardy to jeopardize his/her guaranteed win?
I don’t think so, although I do remember the final of a tournament (Teen, I think) where somebody lost because he miscalculated what he needed to bet on the second Final Jeopardy to guarantee the win if he got it right (which, IIRC, he did).
The most “unusual” events I remember were (a) a contestant fainted in the middle of writing down his Final Jeopardy answer, and (b) another’s pen stopped working (or so he claimed); when this happens, you write down your response on a sheet of paper, but apparently he didn’t realize this, so he was allowed to write it down after the time expired and won - but somebody thought, “What if he claimed this on purpose because he didn’t figure out the correct response in time to write it down normally?,” so they invited the player who came in second back for the next show as well, and he ended up winning.
Well, it sort of happened once…
Stephen King did something similar during Celebrity Week. He entered Final Jeopardy with a commanding lead and needed to bet something like $3001 to guarantee a win; he answered correctly, but didn’t bet nearly enough and lost.
On the the Art Flemming Jeopardy!, between segments, one of the main advertisers was for a classical music collection.
It was presented by John Williams (a famous actor who you might have seen in “To Catch A Thief” with Cary Grant). Now, its not odd to see an actor selling things on TV;
what was odd was that every few months they’d change the commercial to boost the price…
and because they wouldn’t pay to get John Williams to do it, they’d dub over his voice.
At first it seemed like they were trying to get a voice actor to try to be professional about it, but by the end, it sounded more like some bored and irritated Brooklyn Cabbie.
Here’s the only version that I could find on YouTube. which was when they were still trying to stay classy. I couldn’t find one with the cabbie-voice.
I remember those commercials and the Polovtsian Dances. They ran for years, they must have changed that ending a hundred times, with new phone numbers and addresses in addition to the price. I wonder how many of those they ever sold.
I remember seeing one of the cards get stuck on the board in the Art Fleming version. I don’t remember specific cases but dumb betting has happened a lot over the years.
Betting an amount other than the strategic one isn’t necessarily dumb. Every contestant has some categories that they know they’ll be able to get right, and if you bet less than the maximum on such a question, you’re just leaving money on the table.
There was one kid in the college or teen tournament who we think made a mistake in his math, and he gave a funny answer like “I just won $75K” or somesuch, but it was mathematically possible for him to loose. Fortunately, he didn’t. That would have been embarrassing!
One of the weirdest was that woman with the goat that died after eating cement, and Alex making a joke about it, and the woman getting all (mock?) upset.
Are you sure? I haven’t researched it, but I don’t remember it that way. IIRC, he could not have lost with the bet he made.
Sometimes the writers are wrong. One I remember had a rhyming question accepted of “what is a sole mole role” for the answer of “the only rodent’s part in a play” or similar.
Moles are NOT rodents!!! Vole would have worked there.
Alex also mispronounces things from time to time. One I remember is diatom. He pronounced it die atom.
Sure? No. And I can’t remember which tournament to go look it up. We could have made our own math mistake, 'tis possible.
I think it was a two day final, maybe that is the confusion.
I seem to remember some tournament, or perhaps just one of those guys who just win repeatedly, where the leader in Final Jeopardy bet his whole bank, even he was way ahead of nearest competitor. The guy was on a roll and it seemed like he couldn’t get one wrong. Anyway, if had missed it, he would have lost, even if all the others missed theirs, too. He got it right.
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I’ll repeat the dumb betting that I saw once.
In double jeopardy, one contestant make a daily double bet of something like $1501. That player ended up with a $1 lead going into final jeopardy. The board looked something like:
$8801
$8800
$3000
Everyone got the final jeopardy wrong. First bet $8800, second bet everything, and for some bizarre reason third bet everything. So the winner had $1.
One of the stupidest bets that I’ve seen on the show. And that’s saying something, as there are tons of stupid bets on that show.
Here it is
He could not have lost with a $0 betIf I ever make it onto the show and the final category is
… I am betting every penny. The likelihood of me getting it wrong is a million to one. As a Canadian and an obsessive baseball fan, the clues they have in such categories are child’s play to me.
If it’s about paintings or classical music… well, I pray I have a huge lead, let’s put it that way.
I have, however, seen people make mathematical errors of absolutely stunning stupidity in Final, sometimes bets that literally appear to serve no purpose at all no matter how you analyze it. I guess there’s a lot of pressure at that moment, and just because you’re good at trivia doesn’t mean game theory is your thing.
That’s the one! But, I’m not sure how you are drawing your conclusion. By my math, it was even a lot worse than I remembered.
Contestant #1 has 19,000 from his first day, and if he has bet all of his second day amount (14,400) and been correct, his two-day total would have been 19000+28800=47,800, far in excess of contestant #3’s 40,000 two-day total.
Or, alternately, what mistake am I making?
I suck at math
So did Leonard!
Upon further study, I see that contestant #1 (Niali) bet enough to win if he got the correct answer and if either Leonard got it wrong or bet nothing. The latter half of which came true.