I watch a couple movies a year. Miss a lot of “big” ones. Forget most of them within a month.
Not to get all conspiratorial but do we honestly believe Jennings was stumped by this FJ?
Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year. ”
You think he took a dive? (Intentionally got the question wrong, in other words.)
Perhaps. But I doubt it.
His response was “What is Fed Ex?” so he clearly missed the “white collar” hint, at the very least. Maybe he was just tired that day.
Do you honestly think the producers can tell how well a contestant is going to fare in a live match against other contestants, based off of their audition?
Wouldn’t have been a terrible guess, I suppose. Matt guessed Berners-Lee, who is himself a Turing Award recipient.
I’m not saying “I’ll make it a True Daily Double™” is some kind of sacred mantra all contestants must repeat lest they be struck down by the Jeopardy gods. It actually annoys me too when people ham it up too much with that phrase. I just think the contestant should say something that acknowledges they’re betting it all, because that fact is significant to the game (if they get it wrong, they go back to zero) and their score is not displayed on screen when they’re stating their wager. When Matt says “fifty-six hundred,” the host’s saying “all right, a true Daily Double” is the only way I know he’s betting it all. I mean, come on, man. Just say “everything,” or “I’ll bet it all.”
That’s “what’s Biden.” He wouldn’t want to waste any time uttering the word “is.” 
That reminds me, another thing I find annoying about Matt is that he seems to try to be as terse as possible, presumably in an effort to save time, but it winds up backfiring. He always answers in as few words or syllables as possible, always giving only the last name of a person, or the missing word in a phrase rather than the whole phrase. For example, tonight’s “Simon” and “relativity.” A fan of the show should have a sense of when the host is just going to elaborate on the response anyway when you do that. He says “what’s Simon?” And Mayim says “Paul Simon, yes.” If he had just said “what’s [yuck] Paul Simon” to begin with, Mayim probably would have just said “yes” or “correct” and the whole exchange would actually have taken less time.
According to this page, Ken had 86.7%, or 65 of his 75 games, locked.
Yes. Sometimes, when you’re under pressure, once your mind starts going in a certain direction, it can be hard to change directions in a limited time. It happens to the best of us. I could easily see “seasonal” sparking thoughts of the Christmas season, and then being unable to think of any other season within 30 seconds.
Matt lost 8,000 on the first daily double. Didn’t recognize elf cosmetics as eyes,lips, face.
He made the money back on the DJ dB.
He can be beaten. It probably won’t be an exceptional player. Just like it happened to James and Ken.
Sorry, I was speaking in the general sense, if (theoretically) they were concerned about long runs hurting the show. I was not suggesting that they could or would do so to quash Matt specifically.
Personally, I think @Stephe96 is in a distinct minority in feeling that Matt’s run is boring. I certainly don’t think so.
Like the woman from the other night who didn’t know Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I think the guy on the right tonight, Christopher, could have done it with a little luck. At least he seemed to realize he had to go Daily Double-hunting to stop Matt.
That’s my thought. Matt will trip up on something, big time, and an unexceptional contestant will beat him somehow. He tends to be rather conservative in his FJ wagers when he has a clear victory, but a little more of a risk-taker when there is somebody within winning distance.
He showed something interesting tonight (well, he has all along, but it was quite noticeable tonight), which may play into the above: I doubt he knows the question immediately, but by buzzing in before anybody else, he buys himself a little time to think about it, without worrying about anybody else buzzing in. A couple of his questions tonight stood out:
“What’s … [long pause] … Kurtz?”
“What’s … [long pause] … inertia?”
Anybody else noticing this habit of his?
I guess “boring” isn’t quite the correct word, it’s just that the only suspense during Matt’s run is to see if another contestant can get the DD. Once Matt hits them, the game is essentially over.
The great players all do that…Matt just…draws it out.
Anybody remember that Indian-American guy who won a few games last season, who would always (incredibly annoyingly) ring in, and then just stare blankly and silently for 3-4 seconds before responding? Turned out he was rereading the clue.
My first thought just now reading that clue was “Fed Ex.”
Jesus. Before, I dreamed of winning on Jeopardy for fame and fortune. Now I dream of winning on Jeopardy so I can thumb my nose at all the snarky remarks.
So the shows airing this week are the ones immediately after Richards was let go as host, but was still continuing as Executive Producer. His name is still on the credits. I wonder if it was a tense and uncomfortable atmosphere during this time with Richards dumped, but still there playing a huge role as EP. I don’t remember how long it took before he was eventually let go completely. I wonder if it was tough for Mayim during this time, or if things went fairly normal with the elephant in the room.
Think of this amazing run by Matt occurring while all of this was going on. He has played with SIX different guest hosts. Robin Roberts, LeVar Burton, David Faber, Joe Buck, Richards and Mayim Bialik. That is something pretty unprecidented in the past and future history of the show.
I much prefer these shows with Mayim Bialik compared to the ones with Richards last week.
I like Mayim Bialik also, but I did have to smile on Monday. The Green Bay Packers played the Detroit Lions for Monday Night Football, and of course, Aaron Rodgers was quarterbacking the Packers. I heard him calling the signals (“Blue, thirty-three! Blue, thirty-three! Hup!”), and all I could think was, “This guy hosted Jeopardy?” He did a good job, though, at both football and Jeopardy.
I, for one, think Mayim Bialik is doing a fantastic job as host. She’s much more relaxed than she was previously.
(though I still prefer Buzzy)
Way back in the Art Fleming days, my mom was on Jeopardy. She’d led for most of the game, but lost in Final on a movie question. She hadn’t seen or heard of the particular one in question. If they’d asked about movies from the 40s, she’d have probably nailed it. That’s how it goes.
I’d be the same way if faced with questions about current singers/groups and/or their songs or the glut of comic book hero movies. Things that seem to be obvious to some may not even be on the radar of others.
I believe that Matt has talked about this. The pause is part of his strategy. He always takes a moment to go over the answer a couple of times in his head, just to be absolutely sure he’s got it right, doesn’t mis-speak, etc.
Let me clarify: it’s not that they missed one movie question, IIRC they all missed them all. Like the time when they famously had one game with a football category and no one got a single answer. They made a joke out of it.
I’d think the general category of movies is something most people pick up just from osmosis, just from going, so that it wouldn’t be a total stumper. (for the record, I think I only got three that game)
There are a lot of categories I would bomb - modern music, British kings, ancient greek, but usually one of the three knows those to fill in the gaps.