Alex Trebec and me

Alex Trebec and me


I am showing my age when I tell you that I first saw the game show Jeopardy in the early '60's. Yes, I am relying on an increasingly shaky memory for some of these facts, so bear with me if I disremember any of them, but until very recently, I considered Art Fleming to be the real Jeopardy host.

Well, I know I'm not the only one who felt this way. After all, Weird Al Yankovich did his parody of "Our love's in Jeopardy" (I lost on Jeopardy), and he mentioned the aforementioned Mr. Fleming in this song and even had Don Pardo reprise his role as the show's original announcer. But the truth of the matter is, this game show that reversed the idea of question and answer was only on for a few years with Art Fleming. It's second incarnation, by way of comparison, is going on 30, or something like that.

Still, in a lot of ways, I don't think it lives up to the first version of the show. And the one thing that has always left me more up in the air than any other thing was the way the current show has always been so damned tight-fisted. From the start, the only player who got any money was the winner. Those who came in second and third got some stupid door prizes, a modern day version of a set of soon-to-be-defunct encyclopedias and a lousy version of the home game. Much later, much too late, in fact, and still many dollars short, these mangy prizes gave way to $3000 for second place and $1000 for third place.

I watched an interview Tom Snyder, he of Tomorrow fame, did with Art Fleming some time back and he, to0, mentioned his distaste for this practice. Give 'em what they earned, he intoned. I agree. One ridiculous aspect of this way of doing business is the times that the winner of a game could walk away from it with less money than the 2nd and 3rd place contestants. And this has happened. If no one knows the final Jeopardy answer, and everyone puts up a hefty wager, suppose that 3rd place has $50. left, 2nd place $75, and the winner $101. In this instance, the winner gets $101, 2nd place gets $3000, and 3rd $1000. Weird, huh?

Then there is Alex's snide attitude. It has to be exactly correct, even when they know what you meant and knew that you were correct. "Oh, I am so sorry, you added an s to that response, so I am going to have to rule you incorrect!" Hawg poopy! Or, a contestant gives what is counted as a correct response, and 5, 10 minutes later, Alex intones, "Our judges have reviewed the tape and found that you (added an unnecessary syllable or whatever) so we're going to have to deduct $X from your score." Again-Hawg poopy! If you can't rule it wrong right away, then eat it, chump. Don't come back in a few minutes later and take these people's money. No more instant replays.

I even believe at times that this thing is straight out of the '50's game show scandal. On one show, I saw a woman give a question to an answer that made no sense whatsoever, a complete non sequitur, and two answers later, an answer came up that required that exact question. I've always wondered if this contestant wasn't a real-life version of Lucille Ball when she and Ricky on an "I Love Lucy" episode were contestants on a game show. Lucy tried to cheat but got the wrong answers to the questions for that version of the show and every response was hilarioulsy incorrect. I mean, suppose this contestant just disremembered the order in which the "right questions" that she was given were to be given. Food for thought.

And the there is that whole Ken Jennings thing. Ken Jennings came along almost immediately after Jeopardy dropped the five show limit for winners. This was also after the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" craze. Ken couldn't be beat. He knew everything. And Alex and the Jeopardy people were livid with the so-called easy questions people were answering to get the big money on Millionaire. Kenny, the avowed Mormon, even went through categories on drinking and questioned answers a teetotaler should never have known.

Okay, I'll grant that maybe someone could be good enough to go, what was it, 74 games in a row before tasting defeat? But why has it been that since this superhuman accomplishment, no one else has gone even 10 games, have they? Second place was probably the Walsh guy who went maybe 8 games before he got beat. And that Ultimate Tournament of Champions that allowed Jeopardy to say it holds the record for the most money won on a game show? Kenny didn't get it. That record amount went to Brad Rutter. In the 2 game showdown, he crapped out. Also crapped out on 1 against 100, and admitted he was passed over for Millionaire.

Still, with all that, and if this goes to court and the Judge asks me, no, I ain't saying the game is fixed. I'm just saying some stuff. Still, like most home viewers, I watch it every night, and I dream of being on the show. I even kept my score one night as a former winner suggested, and while I was unsure if I should deduct the scores for the answers I couldn't question but didn't try, I still had over $42,000 owing to a honking, or whacking great (Britspeak) all-in bet on Final Jeopardy, and just because I knew it would piss Alex off, I added an s to my final question, and I didn't even penalize myself.

Oh, and, on the 26th of January, 2010, once again I took the on-line exam. 50 questions, 15 seconds for a response, for a total of 12 and one half minutes of total terror. But I answered a lot of the questions correctly, (yeah, here it is done in the correct order) though one asked for the name of the animals that are predominant in Australia, and marsupials slipped my poor ol' mind until five minutes after the quiz had ended.

Still I had fun. On one question that asked for the name of a male author, I put down "Joe Mama", which was handy, because a couple of questions later, an actress's name was called for, and I responded "Angie Daddy".

Deep in my heart, I don't think I'll get a call from the show. Its okay, I am an arm-chair Jeopardy contestant, and I am safer here. I can call Alex creative names when he makes one of those stupid rulings that unfairly penalizes a contestant, and he can't get at me.