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Warning: This page contains spoilers for the April 16, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Places In The American Past) for Wednesday, April 16, 2025 (Season 41, Game 158):
It’s the building where the Stax Records classic “Knock On Wood” was written but it’s remembered for other reasons
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Brenden Monroe, a senior game producer from Seattle, Washington
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Denise LeBlanc-Bock, an architect from Santa Rosa Beach, Florida
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Andrew Hayes, a law student originally from Tupelo, Mississippi (5-day total: $117,804)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Yesterday, Andrew Hayes became a 5-time Jeopardy! champion, automatically qualiifying himself for the Tournament of Champions. Today, he faces off against Seattle’s Brenden Monroe and Florida’s Denise LeBlanc-Bock.
And, at 9:00 (8:00 Central) on ABC and CTV2, semifinal #3 of Celebrity Jeopardy between Mina Kimes, Sean Gunn, and Dave Friedberg will be taking place, with the winner facing off next Wednesday against Robin Thede and W. Kamau Bell.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is the Lorraine Motel?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, was the site where, on April 4, 1968, American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. During segregation, it was an upscale location catering to Black clientele; a number of famous recording artists would stay at the Lorraine when recording at Stax Records in Memphis.
Judging from some of the complaints about this clue online already: is there some sort of major failing of the American education system here when teaching students about the Civil Rights movement? Shouldn’t students know where in Memphis the assassination was? Certainly, most Americans would immediately be able to associate JFK with Dealey Plaza or the Texas School Book Depository. (And I did check J! Archive: the Lorraine Motel has been a bottom-row clue in regular play on a pair of occasions in the past—which means, for anyone who has been studying from J! Archive, this should be in a player’s flashcard deck.)
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Wednesday, April 16, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: The Book Of The Decade; Bite Me; Baseball; Bird Words; Ode On A Grecian; Earn)
Andrew picked up 8 correct responses in the opening segment; his lead would have been even bigger had he gotten the Daily Double correct. After 15 clues, the scores were Andrew $4,000 Denise $1,000 Brenden -$400.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Andrew 8 correct 1 incorrect
Denise 3 correct 1 incorrect
Brenden 1 correct 2 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Brenden fell asleep on his flight over the Rift Valley in Kenya.
Denise owns a fire pit; her children used their old school papers as kindling.
Andrew found an early airing of Jeopardy to give him an advantage on a show-watching date.
Andrew picked up another half-dozen correct responses to continue to lead after 30.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Andrew 14 correct 2 incorrect
Brenden 7 correct 2 incorrect
Denise 5 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Andrew $5,600
Brenden $2,200
Denise $2,000
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Irish First Names; Dual Roles; Geoverlaps; Books & War; Same Vowel Pair Twice; Pimp My Actinide)
Missing DD2 didn’t faze Andrew; he was correct on five $2,000 clues, got $4,000 from DD3, and cruised to a runaway in a round where he had 19 correct responses (and was 1 correct response away from a $30,000 Coryat.)
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Andrew 33 correct 4 incorrect
Brenden 12 correct 3 incorrect
Denise 8 correct 1 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 30 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Andrew $28,800
Brenden $6,600
Denise $5,200
This Final Jeopardy proved to be a Triple Stumper; Andrew’s runaway makes him a 6-day champion.
Tonight’s results:
Denise $5,200 – $1,401 = $3,799 (What is Love U <3 Fam)
Brenden $6,600 – $3,801 = $2,799 (What is ? Hi Zinnia!)
Andrew $28,800 – $8,800 = $20,000 (What is Ford’s Theatre?) (6-day total: $137,804)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) BIRD WORDS $800 (clue #7)
Andrew 1800 -1800 (Denise -800 Brenden 400)
2) GEOVERLAPS $1600 (clue #3)
Andrew 8000 -2000 (Denise 2000 Brenden 2200)
3) IRISH FIRST NAMES $1200 (clue #19, $6400 left on board)
Andrew 21200 +4000 (Denise 3600 Brenden 7000)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -106
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Andrew 4 5 5 4*
Denise 4
Brenden 3 1
DJ! Round:
Andrew 3 4* 5† 4 5 5 4 4 5 5 4 3 3*
Denise 3 3
Brenden 2 3 4 5
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Andrew 4.24
Denise 3.33
Brenden 3.00
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 30 (0.22 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Andrew $29,800 Coryat, 33 correct, 4 incorrect, 57.89% in first on buzzer (33/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Denise $5,200 Coryat, 8 correct, 1 incorrect, 15.79% in first on buzzer (9/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
Brenden $6,600 Coryat, 12 correct, 3 incorrect, 21.05% in first on buzzer (12/57), 3/3 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $41,600
Lach Trash: $5,200 (on 5 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $7,200
Lead Changes: 3
Times Tied: 1
Player Statistics:
Andrew Hayes, career statistics:
142 correct, 18 incorrect
9/10 on rebound attempts (on 26 rebound opportunities)
38.60% in first on buzzer (132/342)
7/12 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $14,200)
4/6 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $18,967
Denise LeBlanc-Bock, career statistics:
8 correct, 2 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
15.79% in first on buzzer (9/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $5,200
Brenden Monroe, career statistics:
12 correct, 4 incorrect
3/3 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
21.05% in first on buzzer (12/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $6,600
Andrew Hayes, to win:
7 games: 59.494%
8: 35.395%
9: 21.058%
10: 12.528%
11: 7.454%
Avg. streak: 7.469 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- In hindsight, it makes sense that one might confuse “Grouse” with “Quail”.
- Due to today’s runaway, no wagering suggestions need to be posted.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
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The miss for me was not knowing Stax Records was in Memphis. Without that information, you’re flying blind for the rest of the clue, there’s not any other handholds to take you there besides “something else happened at this place”.
Whereas, knowing that Stax was in Memphis was the reason why I was able to get it. Knowing that one piece of trivia is probably the key to getting this FJ.
Didn’t get this FJ, even though I was familiar with the Lorraine Motel. I think that the clue should have mentioned Memphis. That would have been helpful, without being a complete giveaway.
I was on the right track – I went with the Texas School Book Depository. Wrong assassination. If I’d known where Stax was located, maybe I would’ve gotten this one correct, especially since the anniversary of the MLK assassination just happened this month.
The Lorraine Motel/National Civil Rights Museum was an entire category on a Season 20 episode. I was there 🙂
https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3247
I’d classify today’s FJ as very tricky. If you don’t know this piece of trivia cold, the path to unravel the clue is pretty daunting for 30 seconds.
It first requires you to know enough about Stax Records to pin down the city it was based out of. You then have to take a leap and assume that the song was likely written somewhere nearby (rather than, say, on the dock of a bay in California, like another Stax hit). If you get that far, you then have to run through locations in the area that Jeopardy might conceivably ask about. Then, if you recall that MLK was assassinated in Memphis, you still have to remember the name of the building.
It appears that neither Stax nor the Lorraine Motel are in my study deck of responses that have appeared more than three times (tens of thousands of clues, so not a small sample size). Stax turns up nothing in the deck. A search for “Lorraine” turns up “Alsace”, “Hansberry”, “Sun Maid”, “Quiche”, and “Bracco”. As you note, the two previous times Lorraine Motel has appeared as a response, it was as a bottom row clue. So those are two pretty tough clues to unravel from very different categories, especially with no other hints to work with. (Perhaps it would have helped to have noted that “Knock on Wood” was a southern R&B hit, or that the other events that took place at the location were tragic.)
I guess the difficulty of any FJ depends on what your strengths are–there are probably a thousand Memphis-area granddads logging onto Facebook as I type to complain about how easy this clue was–but it certainly felt a lot trickier than yesterday’s clue, which basically asked for the nickname of a long-enduring city that an ancient Roman would have written about.
Probably the best known, and certainly the best charting, version of the song was a disco cover by Amii Stewart, released in 1979, so pegging it as a “Southern R&B” hit may have been ruled out due to the disco cover. It’s certainly the version that was playing in my mind as I read the clue and started solving. Certainly this is a more challenging FJ, but probably not to the level of a ToC FJ clue.
I think this analysis is absolutely correct. It’s a tough clue that wouldn’t have been out of place in Masters. That said, tough clues have their place in regular play as well. No complaints from me about this one.
“Judging from some of the complaints about this clue online already: is there some sort of major failing of the American education system here when teaching students about the Civil Rights movement?”
Short answer, yes. Martin Luther King Day in many states had to be adopted at political gunpoint. I remember the NFL and the Reagan administration forcing Arizona to adopt it. And in my home state of (regular) Virginia, the legislators made it Lee-Jackson-King Day just to spite black people. MLK didn’t get the day to himself until I was in college.
Try to imagine if Canada was half-racist, and that half refused to acknowledge they’d ever been wrong about anything.
But more to the point, we weren’t taught Dealey Plaza or the Depository in school when I went. (I was taught Ford’s Theater, but that’s because I’m in the DC suburbs.) Further, no one taught us what event McKinley was shot at. It’s interesting, but is it vital to learn in school?
To answer your question, yes, these events are vital to learn in school. It is our country’s history.
I would say it’s vital to be taught that MLK was assassinated, and perhaps that it happened in Memphis. Not so vital to know it was at the Lorraine Motel.
Thank you, Mark. Trump admin. wants to eliminate black history altogether.
I agree with you even though I did know where.
With the level of residential school denial in Canada, I am sure that Andy can imagine that clearly.
MLK holiday has been an official federal holiday here in CA since 1986…but in 1985, on the day of my father’s burial, the holiday was then “unofficial” we did not get police escort to the cemetery, nor get a 21 gun salute for my father. The 21 gun salute was from a reel-to-reel tape recorder 5 days after my father passed away, and a day after the Super Bowl at Stanford U. But each year thereafter, there were train rides to SF or to San Jose to take part in MLK celebrations.
So I have reasons to remember the unofficial holiday of MLK in the beginning.
I thought I was the only one still using a reel to reel tape recorder in 1985. As for unofficial MLK holidays, we always got off of school on January 15th growing up (I started kindergarten in 1971) – his actual birthday.
I’ll add my two cents- I don’t think it’s so much Americans not knowing where MLK was assassinated (although certainly that is something that we are not taught as thoroughly as we should be) as much as it is the roundabout way you have to get to the hint.
I have never heard of the song “Knock on Wood”, so I wouldn’t even have a starting point from that part. The next clue wouldn’t help me narrow it down because “it’s remembered for other reasons” could apply to a myriad of places in the United States. Even if you assume that it is hinting at a tragedy- there’s Ford’s Theater (as was guessed), the MGM Grand where the Vegas shooting happened, etc. I don’t think it is an unfair clue, it just requires you to know the song and who recorded it to take the optimal path to the answer- and most people don’t have that knowledge.
I didn’t know the song or who wrote it or who recorded it or who covered it, but I did know Stax Records was in Memphis [as was Sun Records] and assumed that the point of having said Stax (and not just the name of the song) was meant to point at Memphis [even if technically a Stax song COULD have been written anywhere]. And I knew about MLK’s assassination occurring at the Lorraine Motel, but I was thrown by the “remembered for other reasons” <– PLURAL. It seemed to me that the Lorraine Motel is only remembered for that ONE fact, so I guessed The Peabody Hotel. I now know that hotel was closed for renovation from 1975 to 1981, so was not available when that song was written.
Oh, also, afterward I realized that “remembered for other reasons” was probably used in a different context than the “well-known for multiple reasons” that I was thinking during only 30 seconds.
As a fan of 1960s R&B, I knew Stax Records was in Memphis and was able to figure out the correct response.
There are many, many problems and shortcomings with the state of education in the United States. Not knowing that MLK was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel is not one of them. Not knowing who Rev. King was, what he stood for, and why he was killed would be a true indictment of American education.
I agree. There is also the risk that getting into exactly where will lead to discussions of by whom and whether James Earl Ray REALLY did it or not and did he act alone. High School students don’t have enough instruction time for teachers to risk falling into that rabbit hole when the IMPORTANT THINGS were, as you said, “who Rev. King was, what he stood for, and why he was killed”. And maybe the fact that studies since then seem to clearly indicate that MLK actually EXPECTED to be assassinated [just a matter of when, not if] and the fact that he continued with his mission anyway makes him even more admirable.
BTW, I know my children studied it in school because that day my daughter came home crying. Some people nowadays claim that’s a reason NOT to teach such as that, but I totally disagree. It was current events when I had been in school and my daughter was still young enough that I hadn’t realized she didn’t know about it yet.
There was no mention of anything related to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. when I was in school nor had anyone in my school been aware of the Lorraine Motel at that time. Basically, this was because that event had not yet happened when I was in school. My teachers would have had to have been from the future in order to teach about this. 🙂
Surprised nobody added “no offense” when calling a Bite Me clue.
Also surprised that ‘Geoverlaps’ contained a DD since it is a category composed of invented words, not factual data.
Hey, Abe, when you think about it, all words are invented. 🙂