Happy New Year, everyone! Come back tonight (yes, Saturday) for some exciting news to ring in the new year that you won’t want to miss. (The news, not the year.)
Here are the contestants from yesterday’s episode (And for what it’s worth, I had this entry scheduled to publish automatically this evening and it did not. Now I feel a little better.):
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| Ellen Kimmel |
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| Lyn Thomas |
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| Allysen Meijer |
The episode started off with a bang (well, a crash) when I dropped one of three remotes I was trying to manipulate at my mom and dad’s today. Of course it fell apart and it made a sound almost like glass breaking, causing my sister “Peaches” to ask what it was. Before I knew it we were at the first commercial break, and I still didn’t have the battery cover back on because I was trying to watch the show at the same time. Thank God I was still able to record it on the VCR.
Peaches got a few triple-stumpers today. The first was in Counting Down to “Midnight.” This was the clue: “It’s the ‘swift’ ’80s band that gave us ‘Come On Eileen.'”* However, when we watched the clue again later so I could write it down, Mr. Trebek had an “s” on the end, and she objected. She told me to look it up, and it seems like Mr. Trebek was right. So I don’t know if they would’ve accepted her response!
She also got one in Element-ary School, as did my dad, who is a chemistry teacher and by that time joined the game. Here it is: “Of 75, 90, or 105, the closest to the number of elements that occur naturally on Earth.”*
Finally, Peaches got a triple-stumper in Words in European Countries. The clues were like this: Mr. Trebek indicates a word that will be found within the country’s name, also indicated in the clue. Here’s an example from the show, although it’s not exact. (My family’s watching “Law and Order” and I already interrupted them to write down one the category for this clue!): “An ache in Pamplona.” So the correct answer they were going for was “pain” (which is in the word “Spain”). Here’s the triple-stumper my sister got: “Intense enthusiasm in Bucharest.”*
Ellen found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round in A Year Ending in Zero. She had 3200, Allysen had 1600, and Lyn had 800. Ellen wagered 2000 on this clue: “Lord Roberts commands British troops in Africa during the Boer War.”* She got it right.
Lyn found the Daily Double in the Double Jeopardy round, in Lost. She had 4200, Ellen had 5200, and Allysen had 7000. Lyn wagered 1300 on this clue: “Completes the Gertrude Stein quote about post-WWI young people: ‘You are all a’ this 2-word phrase.”* She got it right. Then she had to be cued to make the next selection. Like yesterday, Ellen was sssslllllooooowwww to select, but Lyn was too this time! In fact there were two clues left at the end of the Double Jeopardy round, and I’m pretty sure one was a Daily Double. I don’t care how you feel about the categories. Just select.
The Final Jeopardy category today was Political Terms. Ellen had 7200 going in, Allysen had 10200, and Lyn had 7100. This was the final clue: “A 1912 speech said the Bull Moose Party ‘comes from’ these; ‘it has grown from the soil of…people’s hard necessities.”* Ellen and Allysen got it wrong, while Lyn got it right. Allysen wagered 4201, enough to lose to Lyn even if she hadn’t wagered anything. (She wagered 6000.) So we will see Lyn back on Monday. I have to say I wish Allysen had won today. She seemed bright, she selected quickly, and she seemed to be looking for the Daily Double (as opposed to Ellen) when time was short at the end thanks to her two opponents. It’s kinda too bad.
*Dexys Midnight Runners, 90, mania, 1900, lost generation, grass roots