Finally, it happened. Today, Tuesday, November 30, 2004, Ken made some bad bets and gave the wrong answer to the final and critical clue on Jeopardy. He will not be coming back for the next show.
Maybe he’ll keep his day job after all.
I’ll get and post some details from the tape, but I thought I’d start this thread first. What a shock!
Good job giving away spoilers in the thread title.
[QUOTE=Musicat]
Maybe he’ll keep his day job after all.
[QUOTE]
He won a little over 2.5 million. He doesn’t have to keep his day job if he really doesn’t want to.
It would be a little difficult to start a thread otherwise, eh? What should I title it, “Ken Jennings does something”? 
Details:
Going in to this show, Ken’s 74th, he had $2,520,700. He was faced with David Hawkins and Nancy Zerg. With a negative total, David was eliminated before Final J.
Going into Final J, Ken’s total was 14,400 and Nancy’s 10,000. The Final Jeopardy clue in the category “Business and Industry” was: “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white collar employees work only 4 months a year.”
Nancy’s answer:What is H & R Block?
Ken’s answer:What is FedEx?
Nancy bet 4401 (although 1 dollar would have worked) and Ken bet 5601. The final dollar total was then 14,401 for Nancy and 8,700 for Ken. Ken then leaves the entire game with $2,529,400.
Actually, that question came up in the interview. He said he would keep it anyway (assuming he didn’t lose, I guess) since he “liked the people he worked with.”
Sorry if my post came off a bit too snarky. Maybe you could ask a passing mod to retitle this to something like “Somebody lost!” 
They Killed Kenny!
Should I say how long Nancy lasts?
And yes I do know.
Nah.
Let’s just say she doesn’t give Ken’s record a run at all.
Terminus Est: I assumed that the show had aired everywhere by the time I saw it, as I tape-delay the local 3:30PM show until dinner time for myself. But now that I think about it, the west coast might not have seen it; I know some left coast stations air Jeopardy in prime time instead of the afternoon. And there has been a thread with the revealing info going around here since yesterday, so I doubt if Ken’s defeat is much of a mystery anymore. Nevertheless, the details are still hidden in spoilers.
Anyway, Nancy’s hot. 
At least compared to Ken.
How about “Tonight’s Episode of Jeopardy”?
:rolleyes:
Cut him some slack. It’s been all over the net, the news and radio stations all day.
Who is the Nance Zerg?
She’ll the question to a trivia answer soon.
It would be kinda hard to discuss tonight’s episode unless we put every post in spoilers, wouldn’t it? Anyhoo…it’s a moot point. Someone spilled the beans yesterday in another thread.
Loved everybody’s reaction: her hands to her face as she realized that she’d beaten him, the big gasp from the audience, and Ken giving her a big hug and congratulating her. He’s a class act.
I heard he’s going to be on Letterman tonight.
The question he lost was so easy that I would not be surprised to find that he took a dive.
According to Wikipedia, this was Ken’s 75th show (he won 74). Also according to Wikipedia, this was the only record he did not break. Ian Lygo appeared on, and won, 75 consecutive episodes of the British game show “100%” in 1998. He does have the record for consecutive syndicated game show appearances and wins (previously held by Thom McKee, of Tic Tac Dough fame).
$14,400
- 5,601
$ 8,799
Also, Wikipedia says that he ended with a total of $2,522,700, since the second place contestant only wins $2,000 regardless of their actual total at the end of the game.
And he didn’t bet enough to win if Nancy had bet all of hers. I think Ken was just caught in a bad-hair day, and made the best of it.
Thanks for correcting my math, Garfield226. I scribbled the notes on a napkin where zeros look a lot like 9’s, and vice-versa. :smack:
Ken Nancy
$14,400 $10,000
+ 5,601 +10,000
$20,001 $20,000
Just ain’t your day for the math there, is it? 
He changed his mind. It was reported on the radio yesterday that he had quit his job.