‘Jeopardy!’ Contestants Speak Out After ‘Worst Final Question Ever’
Spoiler Alert
[The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for the Tuesday, June 24, episode of Jeopardy!]
Jeopardy! fans were left scratching their heads after the final question. Contestants also spoke out about their answers, as it was another Triple Stumper.
Emily Croke, from Denver, Colorado, returned for her second game on Tuesday, June 24. She played against Nicholas Moline, from Mooresville, Indiana, and Micah Fritz, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Croke won $13,201 during her first game, in which she had a connection to the final clue.
The game did not start off well for any of the contestants, as the first three clues were triple stumpers. Fritz, a teacher, finally answered the fourth clue right, putting $800 in his bank. He then selected the next clue, which turned out to be the Daily Double. In “Scammers,” he wagered up to the allotted $1,000. The clue read, “After prison, this man, whose last name is synonymous with a type of scam, was said to have become a business manager for Mussolini.” “Who is John Fishing?” Fritz threw out there after not knowing the answer. He lost $1,000, dropping down to -$200. The correct response was Ponzi.
The rest of the round did not go too well. By the first commercial break, Croke, a stay-at-home mom, had -$200. Moline, an attorney, had $200. Fritz still led with $400.
Although the totals weren’t any better by the end of the round, everyone was at least out of the red and into the thousands. Fritz had $2,200. Moline had $1,600. Croke moved up to second with $1,800.
In Double Jeopardy, the contestants had a lot fewer Triple Stumpers and built their banks up more. Croke found the first DD of the round. She had the lead with $5,400 and wagered $5,000. In “Words about Nerds,” the clue read, “A hyperintelligent nemesis of Superman in comic books likely gave us this portmanteau word for someone who’s crazy smart.” Croke shook her head and answered, “What is a supergenius? I don’t know.” She was wrong and dropped down to $400. The correct answer was a brainiac.
By the second DD, Croke moved into second place, but it was Fritz who found the clue. He was in first place with $7,000 and wagered $3,000 in “Colorful Geography.” “Amid a real estate boom in the 1950s, an Australian tourist destination called the South Coast was rechristened this” was the clue. He answered correctly with The Gold Coast and improved to $10,000.
By the end of the second round, Fritz had a huge lead with $15,200. Croke was in second with $6,800. Moline had $1,600. The category for Final Jeopardy was “Websites.”
The clue was a Triple Stumper. It read, “A 2006 WSJ article described this website as having ‘row after row of blue…hyperlinks & nary another color or graphic in sight.'” The correct answer was Craigslist.
Moline answered, “What is Google?” He wagered $0, so he left with $1,600. Croke answered, “What is Reddit?” She wagered $0 as well, leaving her with $6,800. Fritz’s response was “What is Wikipedia?” He only wagered $1,000, leaving with $14,200. Fritz was the night’s winner and would return for game two on Wednesday.
Both Croke and Moline spoke out about their responses on ironically, Reddit. “Rough game. For FJ, I got stuck on Reddit, and it didn’t quite feel right, but I couldn’t come up with anything else. Turns out Reddit was founded in 2005, so the timeline theoretically could have been right, but it didn’t really take off until around 2010, so I doubt it was getting written up in the WSJ as early as 2006. I feel like the clue needed a little more to go on, given that so many early popular websites were basically just lots of hyperlinks. Maybe something like ‘this site was founded 11 years earlier…’ to at least pin it to the ’90s? Edit: This is what Reddit looked like in 2005,” Croke explained.
Moline said, “I could see Craigslist in my head, but up on stage, I couldn’t get the word out, so I just wrote Google. It had probably been a decade since I thought about Craigslist.”
Fritz did not comment on the thread.
Fans also thought this was one of the worst final clues ever. “One of the worst FJ questions ever,” a Reddit user said.
“I’ve seen worse, but I’d like to see better,” said another.
“That FJ wasn’t great,” added a third. “I ended up getting it and understanding what they were going for, but it feels very unpinned — I mean, technically it’s pinned because you can go look up that WSJ article, but as far as gettability, every website used to be rows of blue hyperlinks.”
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Conversation24 Comments
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Comments are closed on this story.
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R
Do these so-called Jeopardy! fans who comment ever do anything but complain????? My goodness, it's a TV game show. A good one -- arguably the best -- but it's not worth this much anger and consternation.
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They complain cause they actually have to use the brain and are ashamed they lack apparently.. it just like guys people get crap wrong they lose games and go home with less many if any by end of the game..that literally how game shows work.
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Ironic that you'd call people uneducated when you can neither write nor punctuate a coherent sentence.
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I'm in that subReddit. Yes, we have positive threads, but when they steal comments to write these "articles" it's always the negatives.
Half the time when you see "Jeopardy fans are up in arms over XYZ" it's from a few comments in the daily episode thread that a few people made while the rest disagreed and thought whatever issue was fine.
Case in point was the recent claim that we were all mad about a spelling ruling in Final Jeopardy. That always happens with new viewers. The rest of us know the rules and explain them (if the misspelling changes the pronunciation, it's ruled wrong). It definitely wasn't a thread with everyone ranting about that one issue.
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I agree. Seems like people watch the show just to find something about which to complain.
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You are right. Too easy, they complain. Too hard they complain. What about all the people who never complain. Those are the ones the sponsors and station owners look to as their audience.
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O
As a long time, viewer of Jeopardy (Alex Trebek), I think some of the categories are downright outrageous.
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C
I'd rather FJ questions be 'too hard' than too easy. I admit this particular FJ question (about Craigslist) was quite obscure, but again, better that than too easy.
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The categories are annoying and blase'. I believe the writers need to be replaced.
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I’d like to see Jennings be more consistent with his rulings. Sometimes the contestant will answer in the singular instead of plural and he’ll give it to them. He says on the final question that the don’t penalize for spelling then he’ll say that sorry, you wrote RE instead of ER so you’re wrong!
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When the spelling changes the pronunciation, they don't accept it. The one you're referring to did change it.
Ken doesn't make the rulings, the judges do. The broadcast edits that out, but things stop in the studio for the judges to decide and tell Ken which way to go. Same as they did when Alex was the host.
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Yesterday's categories were quite the reach.
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It’s not the quality of the questions; it is the quality of the contestants. The dumbing down of America has been going on for quite some time and it is finally showing on Jeopardy.
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You clearly never watched Jeopardy when it first aired generations ago. The questions were downright simple. They've definitely gotten harder over the years as the contestants have gotten better.
People who appear on Jeopardy are absolutely not "dumbed down."
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Agree 100%
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R
I wish they would not show such extreme close-up photos of the contestants -
Jeez, you can see every wrinkle / pimple / blemish / mole / nose hair / spinach in teeth -
on their face !!! Plez zoom out a bit with the promo contestants photos!!! YIKES
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I actually answered 47 of the clues correctly and I got the FJ. I didn't think this was a hard episode at all. I just think lately that the contestants are lacking.
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The fact that they all missed some easy answers suggests none of them will be on any more jeopardy contests. Not the brightest bulbs on the show. But that's how it's been lately...Can't they get good contestants anymore?
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I don’t enjoy jeopardy anymore
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C
I think that Tuesday's questions were the worst ever
Did the crew try to intimidate the contestants with off the Wall questions.
Even brilliant people with college degrees might have known 10 to 20% of the answers
I am sure I'm not alone in feeling embarrassed for the contestants and appalled by those who prepare the questions.
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So often I find the clues ridiculous. Just so obscure and some detail about some even more obscure aspect of it. Poor quality clues!
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Not Google. Craigslist.
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That's a fairly easy Final Jeopardy clue.
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I answered it…I was in IT at the time so that helped
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