SPOILER ALERT: Ken Jennings/Jeopardy

[LittleWinki]

SPOILER ALERT -- BE WARNED!

Today (Wed, 11/24) Ken Jennings returned to Jeopardy and had a large
win -- over $55,000... And bringing his total to $2,410,000 ...
According to previous reports, he loses sometime after winning a total
of $2.5 million.

Jeopardy IS on Thanksgiving day (tho delayed an hour because of Holiday
programming, at least in my area).... Ken has averaged $30,000 per show
(today being an exception), so I give him 3 more shows -- putting his
swan song somewhere early next week.

It will be odd to watch Jeopardy without him -- but I am sure the show
will survive as all of us wonder who might be the next wiz with the
buzzer!

[pal]

There will not be another Ken Jennings in our lifetime. That being
said, how will Alex "react" when Ken loses?

[Steve Rhodes]

If you want the exact details of when it will happen, go to

http://kottke.org

Obvious spoiler warnings.

----------------------------------------

Steve Rhodes

http://ari.typepad.com blog
http://tigerbeat.textamerica.com photo/moblog

[Steve Rhodes]

Paul might want to update the ticker item





Spoiler









Kottke now has audio of Jenning's final appearance and more details


http://www.kottke.org/04/11/ken-jennings-audio

--
Steve Rhodes

http://ari.typepad.com blog

http://tigerbeat.textamerica.com photo/moblog

http://del.icio.us/tigerbeat interesting articles & sites

[LittleWinki]

The spoiler is updated at this site --

http://www.kottke.org/04/11/ken-jennings-audio

On day 74 (Monday) Jennings started with $2,491,700 and the announcer
said he was a 73-day winner. So, having won Monday (with over $2.5
million), day 75 is Tuesday, November 30. (It is interesting, they had
not announced how many days Ken had appeared for several previous weeks
of appearances -- then started again Monday.)

The link above provides audio and written text to the Final Jeopardy
answer/question for Tuesday's show -- apparently Ken Jenning's final
appearance.

[Aaron Barnhart]

I must say, when I learned he was Dave's guest on Tuesday, that
cinched it for me.

--
TV Barn ... all TV all the time ... http://www.tvbarn.com
ClarinaNichols.com ... something completely different

[Thomas Heald]

> I must say, when I learned he was Dave's guest on Tuesday, that
> cinched it for me.

Wednesday night's A&E Biography is on Jeopardy! with a segment on ... Ken
Jennings.

[Steve Rhodes]

I just posted the Biography info to the ticker, a link to de Moraes
who reveals Nightline is doing a show on everyone's favorite game show
(unless there is a real major new event), and this from Kottke:

"I've been contacted by a lawyer representing Sony and they have
asked me to remove the audio clip. Sorry."

Though ofcourse by now the clip has spread all over.

[roy]

I thought the advance spoilers said that Jennings was a 75 day winner,
so doesnt that mean he wins tonight, Tuesday (his 75th day) and loses
Wednesday?

Maybe he's going on Letterman tonight to plug his loss tomorrow (tho
that seems weird).

No big deal, we'll find out soon enough.

--roy

[Aaron Barnhart]

No big deal ... unless you're writing for Wednesday's paper ...

[Aaron Barnhart]

God bless Lisa de Mordant.

[roy]

I should know by 6:02 ET? Any one get the show any earlier?

--roy

[Jeffries, Mark]

> I should know by 6:02 ET? Any one get the show any earlier?

It's on in Chicago right now. Unfortunately, I'm not near a TV set.

Mark Jeffries

[Ed Dravecky]

Aaron Barnhart <tvb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> No big deal ... unless you're writing for Wednesday's paper ...

Conveniently, the AP moved this story in the last hour or so...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=494&e=1&u=/ap/20041130/ap_en_tv/tv_jennings_loses

--
Ed Dravecky III
Allen, Texas USA

[LittleWinki]

SPOILER ALERT!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

SHOW'S OVER ... KEN'S RUN IS OVER....

Ken appeared on 75 shows, losing after 74 -- with more than $2.5
million in winnings.

Watch Letterman tonight (Tuesday), Nightline (Tuesday/Wednesday) and
other shows for details....

This is probably old news by the time I post this.

[roy]

yep, it's on in new york right now

[Aaron Barnhart]

The PR was emailed to me 10 minutes after the embargo expired, 4 p.m. ET.

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:01:44 -0800, roy <rcur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> yep, it's on in new york right now
>
>

[Paul Lin]

Looks like somebody at WPBF didn't read the embargo.

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/tv_radio/article/0,2547,TCP_1083_3362946,00.html

"We expect this episode to be the most talked about show of the
season," said Jennifer Seremetis of the WPBF Channel 25 promotions
department in West Palm Beach.

"Ken has broken every record in television history by winning over 70
shows and more than $2.5 million to date," she said. "America has
enjoyed meeting the software engineer from Salt Lake City, Utah."

Tonight's episode is thought to be his 75th appearance on the
long-running game show, taped at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City,
Calif.

Seremetis said she was informed of Jennings' loss Monday by King
World, syndicators of the program.

"I saw the show and the audience was in shock," Seremetis said. "Even
the woman who won was in shock."
--
I would like to see the press release, though, so at least we can tell
when the official word came out of Culver City.

[Steve Rhodes]

Right now KGO which runs the show here in San francisco is showing a
bad profile of Nancy.

The intro was someday she'll be the answer to a trivial pursuit question.

It was hard keeping the secret for three months.

She talked about how nice Ken was and his subversive sense of humor.

She reads two newspapers a day and knew she could beat him.

Still, no one will ever be better than Ken (who is writing a book
on his experience which may earn him more than he won. I wonder if
Redford will
do Quiz Show II).

[Paul Lin]

I think all the ABC O&O's got this. A teaser promoting the bad
interview aired immediately after the program.

As for Jennings, I hope any deals he gets are better than the John
Carpenter book. The first winner on Millionaire, Carpenter's book
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/042518319X/qid=1101886367/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-5174767-1604055?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
flopped with America much like his smug call to his dad did.

[pal]

Why was it smug? He knew the answer, and perhaps he wanted his dad to
share the moment.

[jugrock]

They broke with tradition and brought Jennings back at the top of
today's show for a proper goodbye... at least until the next
Tournament of Champions.

I'm afraid he still has a couple minutes of his 15 remaining.

[PG...@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/1/2004 12:52:28 PM Pacific Standard Time, jug...@gmail.com writes:

(SNIP) I'm afraid he still has a couple minutes of his 15 remaining.

PGage writes...
I have been pretty successful at insulating myself from any media discussion of Ken (including this list). I TiVo'd the East coast feed of Jeopardy every day, and watched it after work before I turned on my computer. I also deleted unread any post to this list that referenced Jeopardy in the title (and my home page, excite.com, nicely headed their report on Ken in a nondescript way so I could avoid hearing anything. The recent flurry of Ken posts to this list with spoiler alerts suggested that Ken had lost -- but since I knew he would lose sometime that didn't matter much, and given the lag from taping to broadcast, the actual loss could have been anytime.

But my self-imposed blackout may have led me to miss the general attitude towards Ken "out there" -- the comment above seems to suggest some negative evaluation. Has there been a Ken backlash around here? I have not seen any of the reality shows, but I know there has been a lot of hype over some of their "stars"; I didn't think Ken was in their mode. He played a game that many of us have followed since childhood with great skill, was always polite and easygoing, and just a good guy. He had more than 15 minutes of fame because, as much as anyone does this kind of media attention, he "earned" it. I thought he was great.

Is there any Internet site that has gathered together Ken Jeopardy facts? For example, he missed both double jeopardy questions on his last show -- how many times did that happen in his 75 games? How many times did he get the Final Jeopardy question right over the run? Was it just because we knew he was a Mormon that there seemed to be more religion and Bible related categories than usual, or were there, really? He mentioned once that The Great Gatsby was his favorite novel, and then it seemed there were a half dozen Gatsby related questions over the rest of his reign. One of the most interesting things about his performance (to me) was how quickly and accurately Ken seemed to be able to judge if he knew the correct answer to a question (which is different from actually knowing the correct answer). I guess one would have to be real Jeopardy nerd (something I only aspire to) to have kept track, but I would love to know how many times Ken buzzed in and then failed to come up with an answer, and if (as it seemed) this percentage was significantly lower than the show's usual average.

Surely someone in cyberspace with even less of a life than I must have compiled this kind of meta-trivia about Ken Jennings and Jeopardy.

[Jay Lewis]

At 09:44 PM 12/1/04 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 12/1/2004 12:52:28 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>jug...@gmail.com writes:
>>(SNIP) I'm afraid he still has a couple minutes of his 15 remaining.
>
>
>PGage writes...
>

>Is there any Internet site that has gathered together Ken Jeopardy facts?
>For example, he missed both double jeopardy questions on his last show --
>how many times did that happen in his 75 games?
>

>Surely someone in cyberspace with even less of a life than I must have
>compiled this kind of meta-trivia about Ken Jennings and Jeopardy.

Sadly, I must point you to http://www.tvgameshows.net/jenningswinnings.htm

I say sadly because the webmaster is somewhat of a hack. That is my
personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of TVBarn or anyone else
on the TVBarn2 mailing list


-----
If I have to explain why, go watch Home & Garden TV
-- Jesse James, Monster Garage

[Brad Beam]

----- Original Message -----
From: PG...@aol.com

Is there any Internet site that has gathered together Ken Jeopardy facts?

Try <TVGameShows.net>. There are three pages of statistics, accessible by
the "Jennings Winnings" link on the front page. It doesn't break down
category frequency and such, though.

_ _
|_>|_> Brad Beam- Belle WV
|_>|_> http://pages.prodigy.net/bbeam/tvr/cable.htm

[PG...@aol.com]

PGage wrote...

Surely someone in cyberspace with even less of a life than I must have compiled this kind of meta-trivia about Ken Jennings and Jeopardy.

lew...@nbnet.nb.ca wrote...

Sadly, I must point you to http://www.tvgameshows.net/jenningswinnings.htm

I say sadly because the webmaster is somewhat of a hack. That is my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of TVBarn or anyone else
on the TVBarn2 mailing list

PGage writes...
Thanks! That had most of what I was looking for (I don't know enough about web design to be bothered by any hackery).

[jugrock]

I didn't mean to diminish his accomplishments. I think he did a
phenomenal job and enjoyed watching his mastery of the game. However,
I do know some people who followed his success that are tired of
hearing about him ad naseum.

But once I knew the end was coming, even I wanted it to be over. Let's
just cut to the chase and see how it all goes down.

But I was given an opportunity too. I started watching for clues of
the end: missed questions, lack of deftness with the button, loss of
the knack to find the Daily Doubles, etc. And I was quite disappointed
with the way he went out with a whimper. He finally looked tired,
possibly distracted. The end was not as I envisioned. I thought a
challenger would bring the game to Ken... not just get lucky and knock
him off.

It's a grueling taping schedule for someone to be 'on his game' for as
long as he was and as consistently as he was.

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 21:44:17 EST, pg...@aol.com <pg...@aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 12/1/2004 12:52:28 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> jug...@gmail.com writes:
>
> (SNIP) I'm afraid he still has a couple minutes of his 15 remaining.
>
> PGage writes...

[jdi...@juno.com]

Well, my dream of taking on Ken in Culver City is over :) (I am in the
contestant pool for 2004-05 -- still waiting for a call). At least I
can go to my grave knowing that I have a legit victory over Ken at a
trivia tournament -- the 2000 Ann B. Davis Invitational in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Read about another player's Ken victory at
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~gregs70/2004_07_01_gregarch.html

As far as the Ken backlash goes, part of it is due to the fact that he
has been such a success on J! There are those who just hate people and
teams who do nothing but win (as a child, I remember my mother
constantly complaining that the 49ers were always in the NFL playoffs,
because other teams were being shut out year after year).

Sadly, Ken received a couple of death threats during the summer hiatus,
leading to increased security at the Sony studio where J! was taped.
Thom McKee went through the same during his winning streak on Tic Tac
Dough in the early 80s.

In regards to his literature knowledge, I believe Ken has worked as a
literature question editor for National Academic Quiz Tournaments <find
out more at http://www.naqt.com >, so you can consider him a walking
bookstore.

Re: Jennings stats. I believe the Ken Jennings entry on Wikipedia also
has detailed information on The Streak.

[Jeffries, Mark]

He doesn't mean that kind of hack.

 

The Chief knows Steve, but personally myself and some of my fellow game show fans tend to look upon him as a self-promoting, self-righteous right-wing blowhard.  The fact that he does a weekly talk show for the American Family Association's radio station in his home town of Jackson, TN (he used to be in the TV business before he started teaching and still does some play-by-play sports announcing for his college's teams) will give you an idea of why some of us are uncomfortable with him--although some of his sliminess is unpolitical.

 

If you wanna know more about Steve Beverly, just ask Tom Heald about the April Fools gag that Steve fell for one year...

 

Mark Jeffries

---

From: PG...@aol.com [mailto:PG...@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 9:19 PM
To: tvb...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [tvbarn2] Re: SPOILER ALERT: Ken Jennings/Jeopardy (update w/audio)

[Thomas Heald]

>The Chief knows Steve, but personally myself and some
>of my fellow game show fans tend to look upon him as a
>self-promoting, self-righteous right-wing blowhard.

Steve Beverly is available for media interviews with newspapers, talk
radio and television stations or networks.

He will be available Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for special
interviews about Ken Jennings and Jeopardy!. Interviews should be booked
through Tim Ellsworth at Union University's Office of University Relations
at: (731) ###-####

If Steve is in class, he will contact you as soon as he returns. For
local TV stations, Steve is available for soundbites. A satellite uplink
truck is available in Jackson, Tn., which could be booked through either
Gary Pickens or Brad Douglass at: (731) ###-####

In addition, TVgameshows.net will provide a special Jennings
statistical rundown of winnings and significant dates on request via e-mail
to news media personnel.