REAL Jeopardy: Ken Jennings

[Alex Pelan]

He won again, making his total winning >670K. Did anyone else notice he had some pronunciation problems, as if he just went through a book memorizing everything, just as he pronounced it. Scary

[Billfred]

Not to raise any alarms, but didn't some dude who pwned a game show day after day after day cause the whole quiz show scandal of the 1950s?

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Not to raise any alarms, but didn't some dude who pwned a game show day after day after day cause the whole quiz show scandal of the 1950s?

I've never heard about that before. Can you elaborate at all (what show, etc)

Jeopardy comes on an hour from now on the West Coast, i'm going to try to watch it.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by HHSJosh

I've never heard about that before. Can you elaborate at all (what show, etc)

The show was called "The 10 Thousand Dollar Question" or something like that. I heard of the scandal before. It had something to do with the show being rigged and the host was in on it. I don't have much more information so I don't want to speculate.

[Billfred]

Alright, I found some info...

http://www.classicthemes.com/50sTVTh...twentyOne.html

The show was Twenty-One, and ran from 1956-58. (Apparently, it's the same twenty-one that ran a few years back on NBC, although adding in Maury Povich probably didn't help the latter edition that much, IMHO.)

<Edit>I went back and checked--a show called "The $64,000 Question" was also rigged in the same era.</edit>

[Joshua May]

Yeah, I saw the Joepardy last night, he's made almost $698,000! That's just amazing. And I noticed the pronunciation problems that someone had cited before.

Originally Posted by Billfred

<Edit>I went back and checked--a show called "The $64,000 Question" was also rigged in the same era.</edit>

how Ironic, "The $64,000 Question" was an answer to one of the questions on Jeopardy last night, or was it a question to one of the answers?

[dez250]

from the show last night.

"On the June 30TH edition of JEOPARDY!, champion Ken Jennings made his 21ST victorious appearance. Winning $35,000 during this show, Ken’s total has reached $697,760."

[JoeXIII'007]

As of his 22nd appearance and victory, Ken is now at $730K+.

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

As of his 22nd appearance and victory, Ken is now at $730K+.

Will the madness ever stop!

That's just plain crazy.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by HHSJosh

Will the madness ever stop!

I think it will only stop under one of these conditions:
Jeopardy says, "okay, you've played and won enough, you go home now" If this happened, the viewers would be in an uproar to get him back

the other possiblity is that he deliberately quits

The only other ways he will stop is if he really screws up (which he won't) or if someone better than him comes along (in which case that guy would be even MORE incredible.)

I think (and hope) Ken Jennings is here to stay.

[KyleGilbert45]

I do agree that this guy is simply amazing, but I also think that the time will come when Jeopardy says, "Ok, you've had your fun, you got your money, here's some more money for getting us another couple thousand viewers, and now would you please just get off the show. Oh and by the way, would you like to write questions for us as your new job?"

That's just what I think.

[Billfred]

Well, there was the gentleman who competed on "Press Your Luck" back in the 1980s who took the show for such a ride in one game (which they had to split into two episodes, because he went on for so long) that they retired him after one show, which wasn't the policy.

(If you're wondering what happened, on the show they had this board with a light that jumped around. Players won spins, which then got them chances to hit cash and prizes, or a Whammy, which made them lose all their stuff. One or two squares had cash plus one spin. This dude memorized the sequences of the board, and used it to completely pwn the game.)

Long story short, there is precedent for a game show saying that you've just won too much money.

[Jeff Waegelin]

One thing to keep in mind with this: these shows were all taped months ago. So, whatever Ken Jennings's fate is, it's already been decided for weeks or months. Granted, everyone who knows is legally forbidden to tell anyone, but it's interesting to know that what seems to be unfolding day by day really happened months ago.

Another interesting Jeopardy fact... most of the time, they tape an entire week's worth of shows in one day. So, when they come back "tomorrow", the winners really just go backstage, change clothes, and come back to tape the next day's show.

[EddieMcD]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Well, there was the gentleman who competed on "Press Your Luck" back in the 1980s who took the show for such a ride in one game (which they had to split into two episodes, because he went on for so long) that they retired him after one show, which wasn't the policy.

(If you're wondering what happened, on the show they had this board with a light that jumped around. Players won spins, which then got them chances to hit cash and prizes, or a Whammy, which made them lose all their stuff. One or two squares had cash plus one spin. This dude memorized the sequences of the board, and used it to completely pwn the game.)

Long story short, there is precedent for a game show saying that you've just won too much money.

Gotta pipe in on this one. First, there was always a $40,000 limit on that show, even before the guy took ~$110,000. Second, CBS did not want to pay the guy his money (yeah, they were pissed). Long story short, before this guy was on, The Big Board (then a marvel in the gameshow world), ran through 6 patterns at random. When one was finished, the next one (chosen at random) would start. Well, this guy figured it out, and that there were two spaces that never came up with a Whammy (and in fact, that held true until the end of the show, and even onto it's spinoff show on the Gameshow Network). After the whole thing, they upped the number of patterns, and randomized them even more, and it never happened again. Anyhow, IMO, that is the greatest moment in gameshow history, even topping this current Jeopardy run. I mean, anyone can amass tons of knowledge, but to break the code that ran The Big Board and then use it successfully is just genius. It's essentially breaking an algorithm.

Off my rather large tangent, there was always that monetary limit (and a few people would hit it), and I don't think anyone has ever been told to stop on any game show, short of hitting some sort of established limit (usually one show, or a set amount of shows, or a set amount of money). If you ask me, one person winning draws ratings, so I highly doubt they'd ask him to leave anyway. Especially when a lot of people want to see him lose (Red Sox fans can relate him to the Yankees), and a lot of people want to see him win.