Today was a surreal day for me–Alex was on autotune, Paul finally went down, and I actually knew the final answer–knew it cold!
When I came home today I was horrified to discover that Jeanie had escaped from the bike lock chained to the tree outside my door. It seems my tenure on TheJeopardyFan.com has come near to an end. Perhaps it is for the best–my neighbors were gossiping and Jeanie although making the best of the Canadian summer was not happy with PB&J sandwiches served on paper plates. I hope I’ll be able to keep Jeanie away from a computer (and the RCMP) long enough to finish my two week stint.
Today Paul was back for game six–yes game six, like Electric Six (warning: glowing crotches)–Jeanie is going to kill me!
Taking on sixth dan Jeopardy! master Paul was Joey Generoux, a biochemist from San Diego (I’ll be there in two weeks by the way) and Sharyle Doherty a Canadian program executive from Davie, Florida. Now it is usually my custom to cheer for Canadians but Sharyle is living in Florida and we Canadians are a petty (and cold) lot so I’m going to withhold my Canuck love for the emigre and cheer for the champ. As an aside, I used to work for a Cheryl Doherty and I had to take a close look to make sure that the CEO of Calgary’s Boys and Girls Clubs wasn’t the contestant.
Jeopardy round one had the fun categories of Literary Tales [yeah!], Alex Meets Auto-Tune [weird but fun], Mattel-ica [fun], Great B-ginnings [broad category], and It’s in Argentina [not Evita Peron she’s buried in France]. Auto-Tune involved listening to well known songs presented atonally by Alex with the voice synth device made famous by artists like T-Pain (warning: censored version but still objectionable)–Jeanie is really going to kill me!
Here is the $1000 clue, “…The pipes, the pipes are calling from glen to glen, & down the mountain side”*. It seems harder when listening to the auto-tune than reading it. Mattel-ica had this clue with an alliterative answer that I was blissfully ignorant of, “Let’s play house” & “Please change my dress” were 2 of the 11 phrases said by this talkative doll introduced in 1959*. Finally I was surprised with this clue from Bread, This unleavened bread is eaten (but not always enjoyed) during Passover*. I like Matzoh bread but then again I also like Russian Bread with the bitter caraway seeds–my friends growing up were all Russian Jew refugees.
After the commercial break Joey had $4,200 to Paul’s paltry $1,800 and Sharyle’s disastrous -$200. I thought Joey was going to trounce Paul but things got interesting in Double Jeopardy. Categories included Presidential Middle Initials [know your presidents yet again], That Film’s a Disaster [B film queries], It’s All Sciencey & Stuff, Businesswomen [I failed this category miserably], Unique World Architecture [loved it], It’s In Argentina [not a typo a repeat category from the first round but with a twist–the answer has letters of Argentina in it]. The architecture questions were very interesting but the clues were ridiculously easy like, An 80-foot-high aquarium pillar is in the lobby of the Domaquare Building in this German capital*. Unless you haven’t read a paper in a while and guessed Bonn how is this a challenge let alone an architecture clue? Presidential middle initials was tough with just a letter to go on and because of it not all the clues were chosen. The one that really stumped me was, E*.
At the end of Double Jeopardy the scores were $11,000 for Paul, $16,200 for Joey, and $2,000 for Sharyle. All three were in the running for Final Jeopardy and the clue was a stumper for all but Joey, The signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 took place exactly 5 years after the related death of this man*. Joey usurped Paul and went home with 22Gs.
As a self-important side note I think it is scary that the direct cause of the first world war and the indirect cause of WWII seemed to be a stumper for both the Canadian and American contestant. As a strange macabre piece of trivia the assassination of person was the first political killing caught on film–sorry, I’ll show glowing crotches and vulgar affectations of rap personas but not death–besides Jeanie would kill me!
Danny Boy, Chatty Cathy, Matzoh, Berlin, James Earl Carter, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.