I know that I’ve complained a lot about these reruns of the Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational. I was surprised, then, by how irritated I was when a phone call I made during a commercial break yesterday lasted 13 minutes, 10 minutes longer than I thought it would take. I couldn’t watch the whole show at that time, then, and it bothered me! Today is the last day of the Invitational (and the summer hiatus!), and Season 27 begins Monday. Meg Miller is the returning champion. Ooh, I am so excited!
On this, Day Two of the Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational, I was pleased when Cheech found the Daily Double with about a minute left in the Jeopardy round. At that time, he was leading with 4600, while Michael had 1600 and Jane had 2200. Unfortunately, Cheech lost 2000 on it in Brands That Sound Like Verbs: “This 6-letter telecom company sounds fleet of foot.”
Cheech lost his slim lead in the Double Jeopardy round. At Final Jeopardy on Day Two, Michael had 12100, Cheech had 6000, and Jane had 10000. Their totals from Day One were 31600 (Michael), 6600 (Cheech), and 29000 (Jane). If I were Michael, I’d have wagered 5301. That is the minimum he would need to beat Jane if she did all she could and doubled her score to 20000 on Day Two. She would have 49000 for the two days. If Michael wagered 5301 and answered correctly, he would have 17401. Add that to 31600, and he’d have 49001. (Make sense?)
As it were, Michael wagered (and lost) 8000 on this clue in Middle East Countries: “In 1949, this kingdom dropped the word ‘trans’ from the beginning of its name.” Jane, too, missed this one, and lost 9999. Cheech had the pleasure of being the only one to answer this one correctly, and he doubled his score that day to 12000. (Did you guys know this one?) That makes the totals of the two days…Michael 35700, Cheech 18600, and Jane 29001. Michael wins! And as predicted, screams rang out from the audience. And most importantly, he won 1 million dollars for his charity, the International Myeloma Foundation.
Congratulations to gillianwallis, who by entering the Summer Hiatus Challenge on the Jeopardy! message boards has won a copy of Chuck Forrest’s Secrets of the Jeopardy! Champions. The last clues of the Challenge are posted now. After this week’s scores are determined, a “Tournament of Champions” week will begin for the high scorers for each week (plus three wild cards with high scores for the tournament), past champions of the challenge, the high scoring “kid/teen/college” player, high scorer who has never appeared on Jeopardy!, and high-scoring rookie. (Phew!) I’ve been following several recent Jeopardy! champs throughout the challenge, and all of them are rookies! Through week 4 (if I’m reading it right), mrbungle (Ryan Chaffee) is the highest-scorer of the champs I’m following.
*Sprint, Jordan