Over the next few months, I’m going to go back into the vault and put recaps forth for each of Ken Jennings’ games from his original run on Jeopardy!
This is Game 1:
Today’s contestants:
Julia Lazarus, a fundraiser from New York, NY |
Ken Jennings, a software engineer from Salt Lake City, UT |
Jerry Harvey, a freelance educator originally from California, Missouri (2-day total: $70,002) |
Jeopardy! round categories: BIOGRAPHY SUBTITLES, LET’S CLEAN UP, PARDON ME, QUOTABLE RECENT MOVIES, PLAY TIME, “EPI”SODES
Ken Jennings’ first correct response: “EPI”SODES $400: A short section at the end of a book (What is an epilogue?)
Jerry found the first Daily Double (BIOGRAPHY SUBTITLES $800). Julia had yet to ring in, Ken had $2,600, and Jerry $1,800. As if he knew what he was up against, he went for the True Daily Double, but was not correct. (An entrepreneur: “Bargain Billionaire”). Jerry went for Woolworth instead of Sam Walton.
After the Jeopardy! round, Ken had $8,000, Julia $4,800, and Jerry $1,800. Ken went 3/5 in LET’S CLEAN UP, PARDON ME, and “EPI”SODES, and 4/5 in QUOTABLE RECENT MOVIES.
Double Jeopardy! round categories: “H” NAMES, ACTRESSES & PLAYWRIGHTS, VOCABULARY, SENATORIAL SUCCESSORS, COUNTRY TIME, LEMON AID
The Daily Doubles in this round went to Ken and Julia. Ken picked up $2,000 (VOCABULARY $1600: Prefab metal sheets used to print newspapers gave us this term for standard wording, as in contracts – what is boilerplate?), while Julia got herself back into the game with her $5,000 bet (ACTRESSES & PLAYWRIGHTS $1200: Chapter one of her life with Neil Simon began in 1973, when she was cast in his play “The Good Doctor” – who is Marsha Mason?)
After 18 clues in the round, though, Ken held a $23,600-$12,200-$1,400 lead. But Julia stormed back, aided by Ken only getting one of the final 12 clues correct (he also took 3 late negs) to make the game very close! Ken’s only 12 correct in Double Jeopardy turns out to be equal second-worst in any Double Jeopardy round during his run.
Ken went 4/5 in “H” NAMES and VOCABULARY. Jerry went 3/5 in COUNTRY TIME, and Julia went 3/5 in LEMON AID.
The game is obviously very much up for grabs going into Final Jeopardy!
Scores going into Final Jeopardy:
Ken $20,000
Julia $18,600
Jerry $7,400
Final Jeopardy! category: THE 2000 OLYMPICS
Final Jeopardy! clue: She’s the first female track & field athlete to win medals in 5 different events at a single Olympics
Who is Marion Jones? (Julia was writing down Gail)
Jerry 7400 + 1 = 7401
Julia 18600 – 3799 = 14801
Ken 20000 + 17201 + 37201
Ken is obviously very lucky that Marion Jones was the only famous Olympic athlete named Jones! Also, it was very curious that Marion Jones got caught up in all sorts of PED issues a few years after this final!
For the record: the events were the 100m (gold), 200m (gold), 4x400m relay (gold), 4x100m relay (bronze), and long jump (bronze), since vacated
And there we have it: Ken Jennings, off and running!
Ken’s stats, through 1 game:
28 correct
3 incorrect
1/1 on Daily Doubles
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
47.37% first in on buzzer
(contestant photo credit: j-archive.com)
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