What Happened on Tuesday? Here’s My Best Guess
The website went down at about 7:24 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 13. It was essentially down for most of the next 40 hours. Unfortunately, we could not determine what specifically caused the outage; my best guess is that a WordPress plugin was causing the issue. However, I have moved the website to a new server, where hopefully, any server outages going forward would be incredibly rare.
On Winning
I’ve received some pushback from people regarding my “The point of Jeopardy! is to win” comments on Monday. I stand by my comments. I’ve researched past contestants in newspapers, trying to fill in gaps in the community’s knowledge of early seasons. And one thing I’ve found is that people in these articles are more likely to talk about how many games somebody won on the show instead of how much money somebody won on the show. If you’re a champion, they refer to you as a Jeopardy! champion, or a 2-time champion, not someone who won $20,000 on the show.
I Would Have Added One More Clue to Friday’s Final
The difficulty of Final Jeopardy on Friday has certainly been the subject of the most discussion since the episode aired. Being that one contestant matched my prediction of Lake Champlain, and everyone’s response was well north of the Mason-Dixon Line, it’s clear that the contestants were definitely thinking in the wrong part of the country. I would have reworded the clue as follows: Native Americans called this Southern lake Okwa-ta, or “wide water”; Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville would rename it for a countryman. That one extra clue, “this Southern lake”, would have hopefully pointed the contestants in the right direction to get the Final correct.
Happy Father’s Day!
This article is being published on Father’s Day. I’ve said it many times on this site, and in interviews, that my father’s love of Jeopardy!, and how he would watch the show’s early seasons, is one of the main reasons why I am a Jeopardy! fan myself. So, everyone has my father to blame at this point. Happy Father’s Day, Dad!
Extra $ for Getting Final Jeopardy Correct? It Almost Happened!
Here’s a fun fact that I’m sure not many people knew about Jeopardy!: According to a 1986 article detailing a contestant search in Asheville, North Carolina, from the Anderson (South Carolina) Independent-Mail, Jeopardy! was considering awarding a $1,000 bonus (outside of the confines of the game, I presume) to each player who got Final Jeopardy! correct. (No, I’m not going to link to the article—it contains a quote from Alex Trebek with language that would have been seen as acceptable in 1986 but is horrific to read in 2023.) While the show never implemented the change, it’s an interesting thought that at least would have brought “something to play for” into runaways. What do you think?
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I actually think the “extra money for getting Final correct” would have been a really interesting idea… at least, assuming it was kept to just the outside of the show. If the show attempted to implement it in actual gameplay, it would be extremely clunky at best and game-changing levels of unfair at worst (for example, Troy Meyer would have lost his first game up despite having dominated the game in the first two rounds). It’s similar to an idea I read on Twitter a while ago of allowing all contestants to attempt an answer to a Daily Double – interesting idea in concept, but the actual execution would be a very bad thing.
Huh, that idea about Daily Doubles actually seems like it would take care of a part of standard gameplay that I’m not too keen on. I believe the biggest problem with it is the extra time it would take. Anything else?
Andy – I don’t get why people think winning is not the primary goal of a contestant. I always thought that was self-evident. Win, then maximize your winnings.
Final Jeopary Category :Computers in Cinema . Answer
When asked of its primary goal, this computer succinctly repled ” To win the game”
What is WOPR from “WarGames”?
How about a nice game of chess?
I could see it as an alternate concession to all the fans who think the “losers” should get to keep their accumulated “winnings” rather than just $1,000 and $2,000 (which is not what I think) but I also definitely think an FJ! Bonus should only be added to the “take home pay”, not affecting the comparative winnings that determines the day’s champion.
Actually, I think the bonus should only be $500 to clearly show both whether you came in 2nd or 3rd AND whether or not you got FJ! correct. I have mixed feelings about whether the day’s champion should qualify for the bonus by having gotten FJ! correct, but I mostly lean toward yes.
However, there is already so much social media controversy over many of the FJ! clues as to whether a specific one was too easy or too difficult that I think adding a bonus (in addition to the affect of the category on the betting and the clue on responses), would just increase that controversy. So, overall, I am not for instituting such a bonus.
Also, I always wonder what an eliminated player would have written for FJ! I think having an extra chance for $500 from FJ! (and a third response to be viewed) w/o their response being able to compete for higher than third place would be appealing to viewers. [Also, another reason for a $500 bonus instead of a $1,000 bonus (under my scenario of allowing “$0 players” to be in Final Jeopardy) is to eliminate the chance of someone with a Double Jeopardy final total of zero or less being able to wind up with as much “take home money” as the 2nd place player. Admittedly, that leaves a question as to whether (and how) the now-allowed FJ! response should affect two $0 players, but that would not matter to me. My guess is that it should have no additional affect other than whether they succeed in gaining their $500 bonus.]
I would like to direct fans of this website to listen to the Inside Jeopardy! Podcast hosted by Sarah Whitcomb Foss, Buzzy Cohen, and occasionally featuring Michael Davies. Michael has mentioned TJF on more than one occasion as a source he reads for gauging fan interest on new topics and to take the pulse of loyal fans. Cheers to Andy for providing this wonderful forum.
Andy, about your thoughts on “Southern Lake” for an additional clue, I feel like that would have made it too obvious as the only other Southern lake that would come close to being notably wide is Florida’s Lake Okeechobee which clearly is not a French name. What about “Southern body of water”? If that makes the whole clue too long, what about “estuary” (without Southern) as that is technically what it is (even if its name is ‘Lake’) and thus narrows down the possibilities from the many Northern and Northeastern lakes in the wider French-explored-ruled areas (that would have to be reasoned by players as “estuary or not?”)?
To be honest I don’t think a lot of people who even knew of Lake Pontchartrain would have gotten it because most pictures of it show that big bridge and most mentions of it in the news concern levees holding or breaking or being improved [especially during and after Hurricane Katrina] by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which all can leave the impression that the lake is man-made, so Native Americans wouldn’t have had reason to call it anything but the Mississippi, which, by the way, was the French rendering of its Native American name Misi-ziibi (Great River). In fact, if asking Google something about Lake Pontchartrain, the second suggested question in its “People also ask” section is whether it is man-made.
I think that simply re-naming the category “US Geography” (equating “American” with “US” is questionable practice anyway) would have been sufficient. (That would have eliminated not just Champlain, but also most of the Great Lakes).
I think you are correct about “American” vs U.S.”, but the lands of Minnesota, “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, once belonged to France (so that is a lot of lakes to try to think of a big, French-named one), thus a reason for providing another limiting part of the clue like estuary or Southern.
And yes, absolutely, playing J! is about winning J! If you tell someone you were a contestant, the first question is going to be “Did you win?” (Also, a number of long-term champs started out with very modest first-game winnings)
I’ve enjoyed Jeopardy for decades, though would not have merited being a contestant. Still I do often know answers missed by champions. I think regard for the program qualifies my observation that category concepts and question wording have taken capricious, contrived turns to the detriment of the game.
Of course I miss Alex Trebek, yet this is not criticism of hosts. I submitted this comment today to Jeopardy.com.
I have given the writers the benefit of the doubt as having been overly artful in an attempt to not repeat (at least not outright) a clue from the past, which would be a treasure trove if one were looking for clues but not so much for avoiding re-using one.
They do mine current events a lot for clues — well, current events from 3-12 months earlier than the episode will be aired — but that would not provide enough and would soon signal EXACTLY what needs to be “studied up on”.