My Random Thought Of the Day: What if the highest score on Jeopardy is negative?

General Questions
#1

Sometimes random thoughts pop into my head as I’m doing things throughout the day. Today, my dad was watching Jeopardy and there’s this guy who’s been on for a while and who’s won over a million. Which got me thinking: what if everyone on a certain episode of Jeopardy (let’s call it the Idiot Edition) all had negative scores? Out of scores of -300, -400, and -500, would the person with
-300 “win”? And if they did, would they have to pay the studio :smiley: ?

Well, that was my RToTD. Clearly me thinking too much is dangerous…

#2

No,. they wouldn’t have to pay, but if all three were negative there would be no Final Jeopardy. I saw that occur at least once in the Art Fleming era.

#3

Well, the Jeopardy rules say that you can’t participate in Final Jeopardy with a negative score.

However, it’s never occurred (to my knowledge) that more than ONE player had a negative score, so I doubt that contingency plans for such a situation exist.

#4

D’oh! I forgot about the Art Fleming era. I wonder if the rules changed when they brought it back with Trebek, though.

#5

Not that rule.

#6

If two people have a negative score at the end of Double Jeopardy, then the third player, with the positive score, automatically wins, and is allowed to bet up to x-1 dollars in Final Jeopardy, where x is the amount the player has going in.

I have seen triple negatives at the end of Double Jeopardy once. Alex Trebeck took a glove out of his pocket, and slapped the three with the glove Moe Howard-style.

#7

I’ll have Anal Bum Covers for $1000.

#8

You wrote, “Who is Buck Futter?” I don’t get it.

#9

I haven’t watched the show in years but my college roommates and I used to be avid watched in the late 80’s. I saw a show where two out of the three had negative scores. The one guy left got to do Final Jeopardy alone. No, he didn’t bet everything.

Haj

#10

Catagory 3: a petit’ dejuneur. thats about french things, so lets just skip it.

Burt Reynolds: yeah, i’ll take ape tit for 400.

Trebeck:its not ape tit, its a petit… oh nevermind.

#11

I’ve never seen an episode in which 3 contestants had negative scores, but I HAVE seen an episode in which one contestant had zero and the other two had negative scores.

No, the guy with zero didn’t win. They brought in 3 new contestants the next day.

#12

So, did they not play Final Jeopardy? Did they just repeat the clip about what departing contestants win three or four times?

#13

Nope, they didn’t get to play Final Jeopardy.