Warning: This page contains spoilers for the September 9, 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 Classic Rock & Classic Films) for Tuesday, September 9, 2025 (Season 42, Game 2):
In 1976 Groucho Marx sent this band a telegram congratulating them on their “sage choice” in album titles
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Ian Morrison, an airline ramp agent originally from Aurora, Colorado
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Stacy Shelly, an attorney from Rockford, Illinois
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Jonathan Hugendubler, an adjunct profesor & trivia host from Baltimore, Maryland (2-day total: $63,601)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Jonathan Hugendubler came alive during yesterday’s Double Jeopardy round, parlaying a five-figure True Daily Double into a $40,000 payday. Today, he faces off against Illinois’s Stacy Shelley and Colorado’s Ian Morrison.
On Substack yesterday afternoon, Michael Davies and Sarah Foss mentioned that they had made adjustments to the show’s editing to put more focus on the game board and the scores, better detailing the game situation. And you know what? It felt natural and it didn’t feel forced. But it was really easy for me to follow along as the game situation evolved during yesterday’s episode. I really enjoyed it!
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: Who is Queen?
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.)
Due to the fact that Queen’s 1975 and 1976 albums A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races matched the titles of Marx Brothers films of the 1930s, Groucho Marx sent a congratulatory telegram to Queen, which led to a friendship between Groucho and the band. In fact, when Queen was touring in 1977, they met Groucho in March of that year in Los Angeles, where Groucho was presented with a gold record by the band.
While I certainly had no difficulty with this clue at home, this is definitely a Final Jeopardy clue that will see older viewers both complain that the clue was too easy and complain online about any contestant who gets it incorrect. I would like to say, though, that the easiest trivia questions are ones that you know the answer to, and it’s easier to know the answer to things when you’ve personally experienced them—and many younger people don’t have the same experiences as you.
We have many new offerings at The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store! Here are our current featured items, including our new Masters Season 3 Player List T-shirt:
Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Tuesday, September 9, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Accidents Will Happen; Parenting Tips From The Victorian Era; Rivers In History; Body Parts Everywhere; Fictional Characters; Canadian Girlfriends)
Jonathan got off to a hot start, but fell back to $0 after a missed Daily Double. After that, Stacy picked up 4 correct to lead at the commercial break. After 15 clues, the scores were Stacy $2,600 Jonathan $1,800 Ian $1,600.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Stacy 4 correct 0 incorrect
Jonathan 5 correct 2 incorrect
Ian 3 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Ian was brought on stage at a Blue Man Group concert.
Stacy is a weightlifter.
Jonathan is a “bit of an amateur MacGyver”.
Though his score was kept down slightly by incorrect responses, Jonathan had another 5 correct after the break to hold a small lead after 30 clues.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Jonathan 10 correct 3 incorrect
Ian 8 correct 1 incorrect
Stacy 6 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Jonathan $4,000
Ian $3,200
Stacy $2,800
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: 18th Century Notables; New Yorkers Head South; Gods’ LinkedIn; I’m Getting Crafty In My Old Age; “J” Words; Similar Country Names)
This was a round of two halves; Jonathan had a great first 10 clues and had a big lead; he was close to silent over the last 20 clues, though. Stacy and Ian both had great second halves of the round, with both avoiding a runaway and Ian getting $3,000 from DD3.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Jonathan 19 correct 4 incorrect
Ian 20 correct 3 incorrect
Stacy 14 correct 2 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 0 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Jonathan $21,200
Ian $14,600
Stacy $10,800
Only one of our three players was correct in Final—and we have a new champion in Ian! He’ll be back tomorrow to defend his title.
Tonight’s results:
Stacy $10,800 – $2,401 = $8,399 (Who is Led)
Ian $14,600 + $7,409 = $22,009 (Who is Queen?) (1-day total: $22,009)
Jonathan $21,200 – $8,001 = $13,199 (Who is Pink Floyd Led Zeppelin?)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) FICTIONAL CHARACTERS $600 (clue #4)
Jonathan 1600 -1600 (Stacy 0 Ian 0)
2) 18th CENTURY NOTABLES $800 (clue #10)
Jonathan 15200 +5200 (Stacy 1600 Ian 3200)
3) I’M GETTING CRAFTY IN MY OLD AGE $2000 (clue #18, $11200 left on board)
Ian 5600 +3000 (Jonathan 19600 Stacy 7600)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -12
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Jonathan 3 4 5 3*
Stacy
Ian
DJ! Round:
Jonathan 3 4 3 4 3 5 2* 4
Stacy 3 4 3 2 5 1 2
Ian 5 4 5*
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Ian 4.67
Jonathan 3.58
Stacy 2.86
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 0 (0.00 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Ian $13,600 Coryat, 20 correct, 3 incorrect, 31.58% in first on buzzer (18/57), 4/4 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
Jonathan $18,400 Coryat, 19 correct, 4 incorrect, 35.09% in first on buzzer (20/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
Stacy $10,800 Coryat, 14 correct, 2 incorrect, 26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $42,800
Lach Trash: $5,000 (on 6 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $6,200
Lead Changes: 4
Times Tied: 4
Player Statistics:
Jonathan Hugendubler, career statistics:
55 correct, 10 incorrect
6/6 on rebound attempts (on 15 rebound opportunities)
29.24% in first on buzzer (50/171)
5/6 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $23,600)
2/3 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $15,933
Stacy Shelly, career statistics:
14 correct, 3 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $10,800
Ian Morrison, career statistics:
21 correct, 3 incorrect
4/4 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
31.58% in first on buzzer (18/57)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $3,000)
1/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $13,600
Ian Morrison, to win:
2 games: 51.916%
3: 26.953%
4: 13.993%
5: 7.264%
6: 3.771%
Avg. streak: 2.080 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Jonathan $21,200 Ian $14,600 Stacy $10,800)
Jonathan: Standard cover bet is $8,001. (Actual bet: $8,001)
Stacy: While you need to bet at least $2,401 to pass Jonathan, it’s probably worth betting at least $5,202, just in case Ian makes a small bet himself; that $5,202 covers his entire low range. (Actual bet: $2,401)
Ian: You can’t both cover Stacy and win a Triple Stumper. Because Stacy has to be correct to win, it’s probably worth making a cover bet of $7,001 here. (Actual bet: $7,409)
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I’m not good with album titles. I’ve seen both those movies but did not know that Queen had albums by those names. Oh, well, so much for my perfect record for the season.
In the moment, the album names wouldn’t come to me. I guessed “The Ramones” simply because it seemed the most unlikely, and thus good trivia fodder, but couldn’t think of an album with a Marx Brothers film name, so I wasn’t expecting to get it right. When I saw the correct response was Queen, only then did “A Night At The Opera” come to mind and I groaned at my completely failing to remember the name of one of the greatest albums of the 70s.
I may be a Queen fan, but I did not get this response correct. This FJ clue gave no hint at all, and I am 70…something that I could have personally experienced but was not aware of.
Just want to say a huge L to Hulu for only putting the first 12 episodes of James Holzhauers run to stream where Peacock has his entire run along with Emma’s and the ToC both James and Emma were in. Not sure if Hulu is just slow adding the rest or if there is more to it. At least both services have Ken’s whole run on it
The FJ response came to me immediately. All of the categories were great today. I really like the show’s editing also.
I’m an older viewer with a definite lack of knowledge of rock music of almost any decade. I didn’t get it.
I’m 81 and I got it immediately. Still love rock!
As Andy indicated, those of us who lived through it found this final particularly easy. Still, I couldn’t fault any youngsters who missed it considering they never got to experience these things in real time. This is really one of those finals that’s going to differentiate between generations, in my opinion. As it has been said, experience is the best teacher.
Thanks for the comment, Robert! I’m proud of myself that I (as someone who turned 18 just a few days ago) got as far as “non-American rock band that rose to prominence in the 1970s”, even if my guess was wrong (AC/DC), but this is one of those Finals where rote memorization won’t be nearly as helpful as living through the event yourself… which I did not 🙂
Just curious: how did you determine from this clue that it had to be a non-American band?
I didn’t figure that out from the clue; my comment about that was supposed to be a “hey, at least my incorrect guess shared this attribute with the correct answer”, but I can understand how it would be misconstrued like that!
Hey, I had never known that AC/DC wasn’t an American band!
I almost immediately thought it had to do with an album titled “A Night At The Opera” but could not recall what band did that one. I had definitely heard of that album somehow, but was never into Queen except their very top hits which I did not need to associate with albums. My faves were Led Zepplin and The Allman Brothers, with The Beatles next, then The Grateful Dead.
I should have added that “A Night At The Opera” was what came to my mind from the category before the clue was presented, so I essentially had more than 30 seconds to come up with the band name, but I doubt I’d ever really “known” who, though surely I saw it at some point in a Columbia Records Club catalog.
I guessed Foreigner. And when I saw Queen, I believe that I should have gotten it. That’s 2 in 2 days that I’ve missed, but could have had. Oh well.
Nice comeback win tonight by Ian, over a pretty formidable champ. I think we’ll see Jonathan in Champions Wildcard.
On to tomorrow to see if Ian can get win #2.
I don’t know if I count as an “older” viewer, as both of those albums came out before I was born. I wouldn’t have thought all the contestants would get it, but I figured it out in about two seconds.