Welcome back to my weekly Mailbag column! As always, if you have a question that you’d like me to answer, email me at mailbag@thejeopardyfan.com and I’ll answer it in the column!
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Where Did The Text On Video Clues Go?
Joey writes,
Why has text captioning been removed from video clues? I can’t think of any reason for that feature to be taken away, other than simply not wanting to put the work to edit text into a few video clues.
On Friday’s show, Hans Zimmer read a few clues in the Movie Scores category. Hans Zimmer is a perfectly clear English speaker, but he still has a thick accent, and when he was reading quickly and off a prompter, it was not easy to parse the content of the clues he read. I still remember many years ago when there was a category read by a pharmaceutical executive which was seemingly recorded over Zoom with low-quality audio, and that was extremely difficult to parse. This is bad for the home viewer, and I can only imagine how difficult it is for the contestants in the studio.
This could also be an accessibility issue: a video clue without text captioning would give contestants (and players at home) who struggle with auditory processing a distinct disadvantage. A prominent US senator has brought this issue into the minds of more people recently, and I do not see any reason why Jeopardy could not bring back this feature that had been a part of the show for decades.
After researching when the change was made, I get to trot out a refrain here that I haven’t had a chance to use in a while: Blame Mike Richards.
This was a change made in the summer of 2020; Jimmy Kimmel’s clue on May 28, 2020 (the last celebrity clue of Season 36) had the clue text on screen, while categories from the start of Season 37 onwards do not, when Mike Richards became Executive Producer.
Why was the change made? I presume the show felt it sufficient to include the text in the closed captions instead. I certainly agree with you that it makes things much easier for the home viewer to always have the clue text on the screen. (And I’m sure that Mark over at J! Archive, who inputs the new games every day, would 100% agree with this assessment as well.)
As far as I’ve always been informed, though, the clue text appears in its normal location on the board when a celebrity is presenting a clue, so a contestant with auditory processing issues isn’t at a disadvantage on-set in that respect. However, I agree with you that the home viewer experience in that respect has worsened since Mike Richards made that change, and it’s a change that I’d like to see reverted back to how it was in the Harry Friedman era.
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Why Do Some Weeks Have More Questions Than Others?
This one’s an editorial note, where I explain why I answer 2 or 3 questions some weeks and 1 in others.
Honestly, it all has to do with how well I feel I have been able to research an answer! Sometimes, I get questions that I feel I can answer quickly. Other times, I really want to do a deeper dive and really get into the weeds. I do have a few questions that I’m still working on answers to that I’m sure you’ll see here in the Mailbag over the next few weeks!
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Televisions that I have had in the past made it really easy to turn on and off closed captions “on whim” you might say, but the one I have now (2019 model) is time-consuming to do so at all. It seems Mike Richards doesn’t understand the difference between “deaf”, “hearing impaired”, and difficulty in understanding people with an accent. Could one even say that Jeopardy! would be discriminating against those with speech impediments if they are never used to deliver video clues?