I almost missed this cause I had something to do after work. But it had been a miserable day at work, I left late and without eating all day, and it was pouring rain, so I canceled.
It was a GREAT final show of the season. Alex said the first three plays before saying “Richard III,” leading Ken to say “You’re killing me, Alex.”
I did answer Hamlet and Macbeth, remembering that someone’s ghost had told Macbeth not to do something. Not bad for a high school dropout!
Since Ken is a tithing Mormon, the church will get 10% of his winnings. They must be doing a Happy Dance!
Yes. I think it’s been mentioned either in this thread or a similar one, but it’s a quiz show technique to buzz in if you’re reasonably sure you know the answer, even if your brain hasn’t caught up to it yet.
I know this is probably crazy, but I swear it seems like yesterday’s show was set up just for Ken. I mean, I’m not saying that there was anything unfair or anything like that, but… It was the season-ender and all the category titles of Double Jeopardy were take-offs on movies and movie names. Ken is famous for having 2,000 favorite movies. Plus, he is an English major and a prodigious reader. So, Shakespeare for Final Jeopardy? Again, I’m not complaining. I think it was a great tribute to a great player.
Oh, and I almost forgot. He knew that Charlotte’s women’s NBA team is the Sting. How on earth does an egghead Mormon from the other side of the country know these kinds of things?
You know, I was about to pooh-pooh the notion of material being written for Ken’s benefit, but then it occurred to me that until this long run came along, the writers never had the opportunity to “get to know” the contestants. The clues and questions are presumably written well in advance of the tapings, and by law and practice, the material for any given show is (supposedly) randomly selected from among many game sets to avoid any possible collusion or cheating.
As long as no contestant stuck around for more than seven shows (the pre-Ken record), the writers couldn’t possibly know when writing any category which contestant would get it. But the longer Ken kept winning, the more likely it became that a question written today would be seen by Ken in a taping three weeks from now.
So the question becomes, how far in advance is material written? If the writers are just now writing the next season’s answers and questions, they will obviously know that Ken is going to get some of them. Even if they are trying to avoid “helping” him, they might unconsciously choose subjects they know he’s good at. Or maybe they’d be inclined to try to take him down?
The best solution would be to write a whole season’s material before the first show of the season is taped, and I suspect that that’s what they do. But that doesn’t solve the current problem of a champion who crosses seasons.
Interesting. Of course, for all they know, Ken will lose the first show of the season. The real solution is probably just to continue writing material that is basically the same as the material they’ve always used. Ken’s knowledge is so wide-ranging that they would have to go out of their way to write material that would hurt his chances. And that wouldn’t be fair to the other contestants, either.
BTW, I’ve been wondering for a while: do Mormons tithe on the gross or the net? I hope for his sake it’s the net.
According to tvgameshows.net, Ken has made Final Jeopardy mathematically inconsequential in 33 of his 38 games, including the last 18 games. Pretty amazing.
I haven’t been able to watch the reign of King Ken on television, but I have been keeping up with this thread to see just how far the sucker’s gone. I followed the link to the ESPN article, and two things leaped out at me:
Damn! He looks way younger that I imagined. Kinda cute, too, contrary to what I’ve heard. [I’d never seen a picture of him before]
Trivial question: does Ken write his name differently each day, or is it that same all-lowercase serifed engravement every night? I’d never noticed, before, whether or not return champions re-wrote their name tag every day because none of them stayed around long enough for it to occur to me.
BTW, given the normal lead time of taping Jeopardy! episodes — anywhere from two to five months ahead of time — most if not all of the September shows have already been taped.
Though this has already been answered, I’d like to note that his fifth appearance had him both below double his nearest competitor AND he got FJ wrong!
Fortunately for him, and Jeopardy’s ratings, the opponent in question got it wrong too. But that particular combination of factors has never happened again so far; he’s always either been out of reach, or he’s gotten FJ right.
It’s going to be a long six weeks. See you guys on the other side. And thanks for being patient at the beginning when things didn’t materialize on the announced date. I was starting to wonder whether people might think I’d made up the whole announcement. Would the last one to leave please turn out the lights? And when Ken starts back up, would whoever sees it first open a new thread? Goodnight, David. Goodnight, Chet.
Not quite independent. Tithes are considered a kind of charitable donation under Federal Income Tax law, and you’re allowed to deduct (from your Taxable Income) up to 10% of your gross income in charitable donations.
