JEOPARDY Archives - Page 4 of 20 - Ramblin' with Roger

“I would eventually know everything”

Joni Mitchell and Joe Rogan

Once upon a time, as I’m sure I’ve told you, I thought that, if I kept learning, I would eventually know everything I wanted to know. I read the local newspaper and watched the local and national news, first Huntley/Brinkley on NBC, then Cronkite on CBS.

Mostly, I read reference books. A lot. The Encyclopedia Americana, which my parents bought and probably couldn’t afford, I devoured over maybe three years. There was also an annual, updating the information.

Also, from about when I was nine, and for more than a half-century, I would receive the World Almanac for Christmas, and I would read it. Early on, it was cover to cover, but even after I’d largely mastered the tallest mountains, longest rivers, and whatnot, I would read the Year In Review material of the most important stories. It was largely November to October, actually, for its publishing deadline, but it would always capture the Presidential and Congressional elections.

Of course, information exploded. Three TV networks became 373. They keep discovering more moons in the solar system, and more elements for the Periodic Table. Of course, the Internet. The World Almanac used to have a list of Celebrities and I knew who most of them were. If there’s such a list now, I have no idea how they would limit it.

Joe and Joni

All of this to say that, until a couple of months ago, I had no idea who Joe Rogan was. My daughter tells me that she has been listening to lots of podcasts to understand different points of view. This is like when I would read William F. Buckley or watch George Will on TV. So SHE knew who Joe Rogan was and, in fact, says she recommended him to me – this is possible. But she says I said, and this sounds accurate, that I didn’t have time for more podcasts.

NOW I know who he is. Recently, my daughter asked me if I knew who Joni Mitchell is. Oh dear, I have failed this child. I told her that I’d seen her twice in person and bought four of her CDs in 2021. Obviously, she brought her up over Neil Young (who she also doesn’t know) wanting to be removed from Spotify because of the info about vaccines on Rogan’s platform, and Joni following suit.

Amy

One of the interesting things I learned about Amy Schneider, 40-time JEOPARDY champion, is that she has a younger partner, which is how she knows more current popular culture references.

I’m fascinated how she missed her last Final. COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD: The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous. One of my friends deduced, “I thought about what might precede ‘h’ and could only think of ‘s’. From there, my brain ambled over to Asia and found Bangladesh.”

My process was more mundane. I mentally traveled around the globe for the most populous countries, besides the US (#3). Mexico (#10), Brazil (#6), Nigeria (#7), Indonesia (#4), Japan (actually #11 because of a declining population), China (#1), India (#2). Oh, what’s near India? Pakistan (#5). And Bangladesh (#8). (I forgot Russia, #9.)

I have to conclude that Amy did NOT read the World Almanac every year. But she learned a LOT of other info, mostly of recent vintage, that my brain just doesn’t absorb.

The Amy Schneider JEOPARDY run

The Tournament of Champions will be fascinating

I knew it would happen. Before I had a chance to watch the 41st Amy Schneider match, I got an email from The Hollywood Reporter indicating How ‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Amy Schneider Fared in Her 41st Match. This arrived at 7:34 pm EST. The show airs at 7:30 pm on WTEN in the Albany, NY market. And people on the West Coast were even more peeved.

The actual headline, which I didn’t read until after I actually watched the episode, was even more explicit. “Jeopardy! Champ Amy Schneider’s Win Streak Ends. Chicago librarian Rhone Talsma dethroned Schneider after 40 games on Wednesday’s show.”

I note in the article that audiences seem to like these long runs. “Schneider’s winning streak — along with [Matt] Amodio’s [38 wins] earlier in the season — has been a boon for ratings on Jeopardy!” I’ll admit that I have been watching these shows as soon as they record, in the obviously futile attempt to not find out beforehand. It’s funny. I managed to watch all four NFL playoff games and never knew the score before I started viewing, though I did avoid the email and phone.

Looking back at her run, I had forgotten that, in her initial appearance, Amy was in 2nd place going into Final Jeopardy, but she got it correct and Andrew He, in his 6th game, did not.

Same as it ever was

She played a bunch of lock games, i.e., she couldn’t lose after Double Jeopardy, no matter what she did in the Final. Starting in game 12, she began to make large bets in FJ, $25,000 of her $36,800. I wondered if host Ken Jennings hexed the champion by stating that she “never” missed in the Final. She didn’t get the Final in game 16 and some games thereafter.

Frankly, all of those big wins became boring to me. Jennings reiterated some of Amy’s biographical points. The interview segment wasn’t designed to see the same person 20 or 32 or 38 times. And keeping the secret of the streak must have been tough.

But there were some things that I suppose helped me to find her appealing even after such a long run, some external. For game 20, she wore a sweater in honor of her favorite player, Julia Collins, who had won 20 games. I remember some of the right-wing press mocked Amy’s gender identification, writing that “she” broke Collins’ record.

And Amy was robbed at gunpoint over New Year’s weekend in Oakland, CA. She was shaken though otherwise fine, but she had to replace her ID, credit cards, and phone.

I got these right!

Still, the only sport for me watching the games was when Amy would get FJ wrong and I got it right. You can find the answers here.
Game 18: INTERNATIONAL LANDMARKS – In December 2020 an international agreement added nearly 3 feet to this; one surveyor lost half a toe in the effort
#23: MUSIC LEGENDS – Of their July 1957 first meeting at a church fair, one of this pair recalled: “I was a fat schoolboy and… he was drunk”
#29: 19th CENTURY NOTABLES – On his deathbed in France in 1890, he told his brother, “The sadness will last forever”
#33: CEMETERIES AND MEMORIALS – 60,000 are at rest in a National Memorial Cemetery opened in 1949 in the crater of an extinct volcano in this state
#36: FILMS OF THE 2000s – One of the screenwriters of this 2001 film described it as “‘Clueless’ meets ‘The Paper Chase”‘

The last game (so far)

The key to Game 41 was that Rhone Talsma, a LIBRARIAN, thank you, from Chicago, IL had to hit the second Daily Double in the DJ round. He had to bet a lot, and in fact, bet all $7800 and got it right. This was gutsy, especially since he wagered it all in the first round’s DD and lost $1400. This latter wager got his score well above half of Amy’s, where he was at the end of the round. $27,600 for Amy, $17,600 for Rhone, and $3,200 for Janice Hawthorne Timm.

As noted, he had to get FJ correct and Amy had to miss it. COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD: The only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous. I figured it out myself at the last second.

But Amy will be OK. She’ll be in the next Tournament of Champions against Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher (11 wins, including dethroning Amodio), Tyler Rhode (5 wins), Andrew He (5 wins, beaten by Amy), Sam Buttrey (the inaugural Professors Tournament winner), and others. And she’s signed with CAA.

Ellen Green and my JEOPARDY quest

archive.org

My sister Leslie is friends with Ellen Green out in SoCal. Best I can tell, she’s no relation to us. But she has been on JEOPARDY. In her appearance on Show #4074 – Thursday, April 25, 2002, she started strong but ended up in third place. But it’s cool to even get to the stage.

This fall, I got to meet Ellen during my weekly Zoom meeting with my sisters. She seems very nice. Subsequently, Leslie sent me a link to Ellen’s appearance, which is housed on archive.org.

In fact, there are several dozen Jeopardy episodes there, some going back to 1984 when Alex Trebek first started hosting the show. They tend to be items likely originally recorded on VHS tape from the local affiliate as opposed to a pristine copy put out by the Jeopardy folks. Some include the ads, which are entertaining on their own. There is even something labeled as Islamic Jeopardy.

Can I find either of my episodes? Well, not so far. I found specific references to my one win, on services such as Yideo.com and Trakt.TV. Oddly, I did find a sparse reference to Roger O. Green on IMDB, which made me laugh.

Looking through YouTube, I had little expectation of finding anything. Their copyright police are quite vigilant. But I did come across the credit roll for 11/10/1998, my second and final appearance.

DIY

So it gets me wondering. Can I upload the episodes to Archive.org? I have a VHS tape of the shows. It also contains some behind-the-curtain footage. Don’t ask how I got it. Now, this tape has been kindly transferred to a DVD. But can that be uploaded? I have no idea since I own no computer that has a drive where the shiny disc used to go. Any insights would be appreciated.

Incidentally, my sister also has ANOTHER friend who was on Jeopardy, Jim, who was a four-day champion in 1989 and got to the Tournament of Champions. Ellen and Jim recently met, and as Leslie reported, they were “like 2 peas in a pod…could not get a word in edgewise, but it was ok.” Jeopardy folks are like that.

October rambling: Mental Misfires

tarot cards

Halloween not Xmas

Why Is Pentagon Spending Rising When “We Can’t Afford” Everything Else?

What to Make of the Pandora Papers?

Naming Climate Villains As the World Burns and Indigenous People With Disabilities Are on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis

Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff; and Trump’s Cryptic Comment From 2017 May Have Foreshadowed His Coup Attempt; and [SATIRE] Trump to Skip 2024 Campaign and Go Straight to Claiming He Won

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Taiwan and Misinformation; related to the latter

Don’t believe corporate America’s labor shortage. This is an unofficial general strike.

Did Texas Legislators Read the “Founding” Documents? and Reading While Texan

What did Thomas Jefferson Buy in October 1803?

North Carolina lieutenant governor calls transgender movement ‘demonic’

Christian Academies: Training the Next Generation of Rightwing White Nationalists? and ‘Great replacement’ belief correlates with Christian nationalist views

What Conservatives Tell Themselves About Critical Race Theory

It’s a camera shutter. It’s not a detonator

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist.

What We Lose When We Lose Local News

How a newspaper’s collapse makes people feel: less connected, more alone.

Bez, the final frontier

DNA testing privacy resource

Diet soda may prompt food cravings, especially in women and people with obesity

MMP 25: New Zealand’s proportional representation officially became the way New Zealand was governed.

Hank Green: A Tool With No Blood On It

But wait! There’s more!

Kelly has even MORE links!

Loopy or Stringy: What would Einstein Say?

The nearly forgotten mystical artist who still foretells fates – Pamela Colman Smith might be history’s greatest victim of copyright injustice

The first major city in the United States passes a dark-sky ordinance

A lovely Shari Lewis story

Betty Lynn, the actress best known for her portrayal of Thelma Lou, Barney Fife’s sweetheart on The Andy Griffith Show, has died

Book review: Why We Swim

The Mental Misfires of Matt Amodio

Meet the Two Women Who Give Prescription Drugs Their Generic Names

Bell peppers are mangoes

Now I Know: A Great Example of Quiche Thinking and The Non-Profit That Gives Drivers Sticker Shock and The Accidental Pet Feeding Hero of 2016 and The Toddler Truce and The Great Tattoo Cover Up

When you have “tall ZOOM energy” and show up to the office for the first time, it can get awkward.

Winnie-the-Pooh BEFORE Winnie the Pooh

MUSIC

The Bard by Jean Sibelius

Coverville 1375: The Paul Simon Cover Story III and 1376: The Snoop Dogg Cover Story

Lazy Sunday Afternoon – MonaLisa Twins

Farewell, Paddy Moloney and Late Night with The Chieftains and Earl Scruggs

A Song For You – Donny Hathaway

Celtic Rock – Donovan

Paul McCartney: on writing Eleanor Rigby and Band On The Run BBC Documentary

Matt Amodio, JEOPARDY champion

Over $1.5 million

Unsurprisingly, quite a few people have asked me how I felt about Matt Amodio as a JEOPARDY champion who won more money than all but two contestants. I think of the topic in two related, but separate ways.

The guy: I have no special feelings about him. According to my daughter’s Twitter feed, some folks are annoyed because he ALWAYS responds, “What’s…” Not “What is…” or “Who is…” or “Where is…” It is efficient, and always using the contraction saves him a fraction of a second…

…to figure out the answer. He now seems to ring in if he thinks he’ll come up with the correct question in the allotted time. In most cases, this works.

He only gives the minimum information required. This usually means giving the last name only in name categories. Occasionally, there were times when I thought the host might have sought more clarification, but that’s on the show, not him.

Like many recent champions, he started on the row of the highest value clues and works up the board. When he got the Daily Double in the first round, he usually bet it all. But, usually with a commanding lead by the beginning of the Double JEOPARDY round, his wagers tended to be more conservative, if betting $6,000 when one has a $15,000 lead is conservative.

He wasn’t as bold as 32-game winner James Holzhauer, who’s now third in the number of regular-season wins, but second in regular-season cash, barely less than Ken Jennings, who had won 74 regular-season games. James threw shade at Matt because the new guy hadn’t won as much per game as James had, which made Matt a bit sympathetic to me.. That’s because James has the 10 highest single-game winnings. No one has the per-game average of the gambler from Las Vegas.

The larger problem

It wasn’t until September 2003 when JEOPARDY changed a major rule. Prior to that, once you were a five-day champion, you had to stop. But you were almost certainly going to appear in the Tournament of Champions, comprised of those five-day winners and a few four-day contestants.

The rule change tipped the ToC on its head. When Ken Jennings won 74 regular-season games, his ToC had a three-day winner. So the rule change has made stars of people such as Amodio and 32-game winner James Holzhauer. And I gather there are people who appreciate their excellent play.

But when these people dominate so that Final JEOPARDY, and heck, the second half of Double JEOPARDY, doesn’t matter – it’s a lock game – the joy of watching it diminishes terribly for me. It’s boring TV, like a 43-12 football game.

As a matter of protest, I always root against the defending champion once they’ve won five games. Part of the problem is the way I watch the program. I might watch a week at a time. But I can’t now because either I’ll hear no J news, which means Matt Amodio won again [snore], or I’ll hear the rumors as I did when Jennings and Holzhauer finally lost.

I’m reminded of an episode of MASH when the camp was always getting for dinner “A river of liver and an ocean of fish.” Hawkeye Pierce jumped onto a table, leading the chant, “We want something else.” On JEOPARDY, I wanted someone else, somebody who’s waited their whole life to get on the show and might have a fighting chance of coming home victorious.

And finally, after 38 Amodio wins, relief.