History Series / JEOPARDY

After two pilots, ''Jeopardy!'' came back in 1984 with host Creator/AlexTrebek, announcer Johnny Gilbert (both LongRunners on the show), and much higher cash awards. This version has far outlasted the original, starting its 39th season in September 2022. Other than a few cosmetic changes, the doubling of dollar amounts, and the five-day championship limit becoming a "sky's the limit" policy, the format is almost entirely unchanged. Trebek died on November 8, 2020, with his final episodes airing in January 2021; a rotation of {{guest host}}s filled out the remainder of the season. On August 11, 2021, it was announced that executive producer Mike Richards would become the permanent host for regular episodes, while actress Creator/MayimBialik would host primetime specials, beginning with the ''Jeopardy! National College Championship'' in February 2022. After public backlash[[note]]spawned by allegations that Richards had rigged the selection process to favor himself, past incidents during his tenure producing ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' that had led to lawsuits, and alleged sexist and anti-Semitic comments made on his podcast ''The Randumb Show''[[/note]], they would partially reverse their decision on August 20, 2021, and announce that Mike Richards would be stepping down as host[[note]]though he would continue to host the first week's worth of Season 38 episodes, which had been taped the day before[[/note]] and that they would rotate between Bialik and previous champion contestant Ken Jennings as hosts for its 38th season. On August 31, 2021, Richards was fired as EP. When the 38th season premiered, the stage where the show was filmed was officially rededicated as the Alex Trebek Stage. Then on July 2022, it was announced that both Bialik and Jennings will remain as hosts, as the game show franchise intends to expand, necessitating the need for multiple hosts.

After two pilots, ''Jeopardy!'' came back in 1984 with host Creator/AlexTrebek, announcer Johnny Gilbert (both LongRunners on the show), and much higher cash awards. This version has far outlasted the original, starting its 39th season in September 2022. Other than a few cosmetic changes, the doubling of dollar amounts, and the five-day championship limit becoming a "sky's the limit" policy, the format is almost entirely unchanged. Trebek died on November 8, 2020, with his final episodes airing in January 2021; a rotation of {{guest host}}s filled out the remainder of the season. On August 11, 2021, it was announced that executive producer Mike Richards would become the permanent host for regular episodes, while actress Creator/MayimBialik would host primetime specials, beginning with the ''Jeopardy! National College Championship'' in February 2022. After public backlash[[note]]spawned by allegations that Richards had rigged the selection process to favor himself, past incidents during his tenure producing ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' that had led to lawsuits, and alleged sexist and anti-Semitic comments made on his podcast ''The Randumb Show''[[/note]], they would partially reverse their decision on August 20, 2021, and announce that Mike Richards would be stepping down as host[[note]]though he would continue to host the first week's worth of Season 38 episodes, which had been taped the day before[[/note]] and that they would rotate between Bialik and Ken Jennings as hosts for its 38th season. On August 31, 2021, Richards was fired as EP. When the 38th season premiered, the stage where the show was filmed was officially rededicated as the Alex Trebek Stage. Then on July 2022, it was announced that both Bialik and Jennings will remain as hosts, as the game show franchise intends to expand, necessitating the need for multiple hosts.

In November 2020, it was announced that Jeopardy's three biggest champions- Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and James Holzhauer- would be the Chasers in an ABC revival of ''Series/{{The Chase|GameShow}}''. The show premiered January 2021, and was dedicated to Trebek.

An iconic GameShow created by Creator/MervGriffin in 1963 when his wife, Julann, suggested (in a reaction to [[Series/TwentyOne the quiz]] [[Series/{{Dotto}} show scandals]] still in recent memory) that he reverse the trivia format — give the contestants the answers and have them provide the questions. Merv pitched it to Creator/{{NBC}} as ''What's the Question?'', but was told that the game needed "[[EurekaMoment more jeopardies]]" [[note]](which was resolved with the Daily Double)[[/note]]. ''Jeopardy!'' debuted on NBC in 1964 with Art Fleming as host and [[Series/SaturdayNightLive Don Pardo]] as announcer. It ran until January 1975, with a brief revival in 1978/79 (also hosted by Fleming, but announced by John Harlan) that had somewhat different rules.

Jeopardy/TropesAToD
Jeopardy/TropesEToO
Jeopardy/TropesPToZ

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Tropes #-M]]
* AbuseOfReturnPolicy: In the 2016 College Championship, contestant Sam Deutsch tells Alex during the interview that he kept the tags on his school sweater, so he can return it in the event he doesn't win the tournament.
* FifteenMinutesOfFame: Often experienced by contestants who attract viral attention for winning a lot of games, a funny answer, their speech pattern, or their appearance. There have been inversions from notable contestants who used their ''Jeopardy!'' fame to further their public career, arguably none more than Ken Jennings, who parlayed his ''Jeopardy!'' success into a career as a best-selling author. Ken Jennings became a consulting producer in 2020, and he became the first guest host after Trebek's passing.
* AllOrNothing: The True Daily Double and wagering everything in Final Jeopardy! Giving the correct response doubles your money whereas a wrong response leaves you with nothing. A failed True Daily Double during the Jeopardy! round or early in Double Jeopardy! does leave the possibility of a comeback, however.
* AlwaysSecondBest:
** Despite his immense ''Jeopardy!'' success in his original reign, Ken Jennings has finished in second place in all four of his return events, finishing in second to Brad Rutter in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Battle of the Decades, and the All-Star Games, and to Watson in the IBM Challenge. However, Ken did outrank Brad in the latter. [[spoiler:This was ''finally'' subverted in the ''Greatest of All Time'' tournament as Ken managed to beat both Brad and James Holzhauer in three out of four matches[[note]]The other match being won by James[[/note]] to achieve the title of "Greatest ''Jeopardy!'' Player of All Time."]]
** A handful of other ''Jeopardy!'' champions have made it to the finals of two tournaments, only to lose in both, including Dave Traini (the 1987 TOC and ''Super Jeopardy!''), David Javerbaum (the 1988 Teen Tournament and 1998 Teen Reunion tournament), and Jerome Vered (the 1992 TOC and the Ultimate TOC). Similarly, Elliot Shteir was a losing finalist in both the 1969 Tournament of Champions in the Art Fleming era, then a losing finalist during the July 1995 Seniors Tournament.
** The show itself had this dubious distinction for a large chunk of its run, constantly placing second behind sister show ''Wheel of Fortune'' in daily syndication ratings. This started to change around the mid 2000s, when the winnings limit was lifted and Ken Jennings went on his run. The two shows would go back and forth between first and second place in ratings until around 2014, when ''Jeopardy!'' began to constantly outperform ''Wheel of Fortune'' in syndication ratings, and as of 2022, ''Jeopardy!'' is still ahead of ''Wheel of Fortune'' in daily syndication ratings.
* TheAnnouncer: Don Pardo for most of Fleming's run, John Harlan for the 1978-79 revival, Jay Stewart for the 1983 pilot, and Johnny Gilbert for nearly every Trebek episode since (if he misses a taping, he's added in post). During the 1997 International Tournament in Stockholm, Sweden, the Swedish announcer announced. Loretta Fox announced the first two seasons of ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'', with Stew Herrera taking over for the last two. Clue Crew member Kelly Miyahara announces ''Sports Jeopardy!''
* AnimatedAdaptation: ''Jeopardy!'' was the focus of the ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndGuessWho'' episode "Total Jeopardy!" with a cartoon Alex Trebek. It was originally to air on Boomerang sometime in 2021, but Boomerang chose to air it the Friday following Trebek's passing.
* AnimatedCreditsOpening: For most of the Trebek version, the intro has included an animation of the show's logo in some fashion (the most famous being a spinning globe with the show's logo on it, used from its premiere until 1996 and again starting in 2020). Since the beginning of the 21st century, the logo is often accompanied by graphics that involve pop culture or trivia in some fashion.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** In the Jeopardy! round, you can get away with forgetting to phrase your response in the form of a question once (except if you're responding to that round's Daily Double). Averted in ''Jep!'' in which phrasing is enforced throughout the entire game.
** ''Jep!'' had all three players involved in ''Super Jep!'' (that spin-off's title for Final Jeopardy), regardless of if someone had nothing or a negative score at the end of ''Hyper Jep!''/Double Jeopardy. In that case, the player with the lowest score would have their score raised to 500 points, and the other players would receive additional points to match the amount that that player was given. For example, if someone had -100 going into ''Super Jep!'', everyone would get an extra 600 points.
** On Celebrity editions, players who don't have a positive score at the end of Double Jeopardy! are spotted money to wager with in Final Jeopardy!. In most cases, it's $1,000 or $2,000 after the clue values were doubled. Some players have instead gotten their negative total changed to positive.
* AprilFoolsDay:
** In 1997, Pat Sajak hosted that day's ''Jeopardy!'' while Alex hosted the day's ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' (which also had Pat and Vanna as contestants, and Pat's wife at the puzzle board). ''Jeopardy!'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] the switch by including ''Wheel''-themed category names in Round 1. For Round 2, all the categories were related to April or fools ([[BreadEggsBreadedEggs or both]]), and the Final Jeopardy! category was "Trinidadian Amateur Ichthyologists".
** Years after shaving his mustache, Alex wore a phony one for the Jeopardy! round on April Fools Day, 2008.
** In 2010, different hosts made random cameos for brief moments, including Pat Sajak, Neil Patrick Harris, Jeff Probst, and a clip of Will Ferrell's portrayal of Trebek from a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch. There was also a category on notable April Fool's Day hoaxes.
** On April Fools Day, 2016 (4 day champion Todd Giese's final win), ten easter eggs were inserted throughout the episode in post-production, including clips from archival episodes, cameos by Ken Jennings and Watson in gameplay, Wheel of Fortune sound effects, on-screen graphic errors, and even a clip from the ''Estonian'' version of Jeopardy!
** In 2021, the Final Jeopardy! category was "{{Antidisestablishmentarianism}}".
* ArcNumber: $9,812 was a common wager of James Holzhauer’s, referring to his wedding anniversary 9/8/12.
* ArtificialStupidity: In the IBM Challenge (February 2011), Watson had a few cases where its imposing intelligence faltered:
** In one instance, Ken Jennings got an answer wrong. Immediately afterward, Watson buzzed in with the same answer. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that Watson was technically blind and deaf — the programmers didn't bother with visual or voice recognition. It was merely an analytical machine based on information through text received electronically.
** The programmers had Watson put very low weight on categories as a clue to the answer itself. As a result...
*** In the category regarding decades in history, part of the clue mentioned a flight at Kitty Hawk. Watson guessed 1920. [[spoiler:The answer was 1900s]].
*** In the first day Final Jeopardy round, the category was "U.S. Cities". The clue was a city with an airport named after a famous World War II battle and combatant. Watson guessed Toronto ([[spoiler:The answer was Chicago; Midway International Airport is the one named for the battle, O'Hare International Airport is named for a pilot]]). However, the programmers suggested that there were so many contextual ambiguities that Watson simply was confused: there are multiple cities in the U.S. also named Toronto, and Toronto in Canada has a baseball team that plays in the American MLB (the Toronto Blue Jays). In light of this, Trebek (a Canadian native) jokingly remarked that he learned that Toronto is now a U.S. city and one of the producers wore a Blue Jays jersey. Watson also placed a large number of question marks after this answer, which is apparently a gauge of how "unsure" it was about the answer. So the computer knew the answer was probably wrong, it just couldn't come up with anything better.
*** In the "Literary APB[[note]]All Points Bulletin[[/note]]" category, the clue made it very obvious that it was looking for the main villain of the ''Harry Potter'' franchise ([[spoiler:who is Voldemort]]?). Watson was stumped — it figured out that it was being asked for a ''Harry Potter'' character, but because it wasn't putting much weight on category name and didn't seem to make the connection that the police only issues [=APBs=] for criminals, it couldn't figure out ''which'' character it was being asked for.
*** The "Also on your computer keys" category tripped Watson up really badly. In fact, it was the only category where Watson got the wrong answer for ''every single question''.
* AscendedExtra:
** During a Fleming-era celebrity week in April 1974, one of the guests was a young Canadian named Alex Trebek.
** Merv Griffin tapped Mike Reilly, a losing contestant from a November 1989 episode, to host his 1990 game show adaptation of ''Series/{{Monopoly}}''. [[OneBookAuthor It remains, to date, Reilly's only TV gig.]]
** Rocky Schmidt was a contestant on the show in 1985, and went on to become one of the show's assistant producers five years later. He has been a supervising producer since 2007.
** In June 1992, a college student named Matt Weiner was a one day ''Jeopardy!'' champion with $3,799. 24 years later, and now better known as ''Series/MadMen'' creator Matthew Weiner, he returned as a contestant during the May 2016 Power Players Week, winning his game in a runaway and picking up $50,000 for his charity.
** Over three years after competing on ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'', ''Wheel of Fortune'' host Pat Sajak took over for Alex Trebek for the April Fools Day episode in 1997 (with Alex hosting ''Wheel'' that same day). Pat has since provided a few video clues, and he came full circle in 2010 by competing in two more celebrity games, winning the first with ''$55,300''!
** In 2011, sports anchor and radio host Dan Patrick introduced the clues for two full sports-centric categories, and has also provided scattered video clues as early as 2005. He'd later take this on full time as the host of ''Sports Jeopardy!'' on Crackle in 2014.
** Despite only being a 3 day champion during her December 1996 run on Jeopardy! (and not qualifying for the next Tournament of Champions), Gay Mollette was invited as the American representative during the next year's International Jeopardy! tournament, surprisingly instead of 1996 TOC winner Michael Dupee (possibly averted if he couldn't make the trip to Sweden for the event, but Gay could). She didn't advance to the finals though, which were won by Canada's Michael Daunt, a 1996 TOC finalist.
** After 5 day champion Barbara Lowe's removal from the 1986 Tournament of Champions field for violating contestant eligibility requirements, 4 day champion Gary Palmer made the tournament in her place, despite winning just $18,400, a record low for a TOC qualifier (even when adjusted for inflation). He had a good run though, giving eventual finalist Marvin Shinkman a late challenge in the semifinals.
** As 2001 College Champion Vinita Kailasanath was unable to attend the next Tournament of Champions in 2003 due to final exams occurring during tapings, her spot instead went to 4 day champion Kathy Cassity, making her the first ever TOC qualifier from Hawaii. (Vinita would eventually compete in the 2004 TOC, making the semifinals.)
** With four invited champions (Michael Block, Amanda Goad, Larry Mcknight, and Leslie Shannon) not able to compete in 2005's massive Ultimate Tournament of Champions, the next four highest earning 5 day champions gained their spots in the 145-person field, those being Jay Rosenberg, Dan Katz, Steve Berman, and Bill Dickenson, who all earned between $48,000 and $49,000 in their unadjusted reigns. Of those four, only Berman won his first round game, though he eventually lost in the next round. It helped that Steve Berman had been a finalist in his Tournament of Champions, as well.
** As 74 day champion Ken Jennings gave up his place in the 2006 Tournament of Champions in lieu of the finals bye in 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, his spot in the 2006 TOC went to 3 day champion Aaron Thompson, who won just $57,899 in his reign. He had a good run, leading for long stretches of Double Jeopardy! in his two games, and advancing to the semifinals as a wild card, but he was eliminated there by eventual finalist Vik Vaz.
** Similarly to Vinita Kailasanath a few years prior, 2008 College Champion Joey Beachum couldn't attend 2009's TOC due to military obligations, with his spot going to 4 day champion Deborah Fitzgerald in what would be the first Tournament of Champions with ''no'' regular annual tournament winners since the show introduced them in 1987. Joey would compete in 2010's TOC, which uniquely featured ''three'' College Champions.
** Due to 5 day champion Jerry Slowik's legal issues, he was replaced in the 2014 Tournament of Champions by 4 day champion Mark Japinga, becoming the only regular play competitor in the field who hadn't won at least 5 games. He too performed well, leading through all of Double Jeopardy! in his quarterfinal game, and advancing to the semifinals as a wild card, though he met his end there via finalist Arthur Chu.
** Jennings himself was promoted to Consulting Producer in Season 37, and also reads clues on a recurring basis. He also became the first guest host after Alex Trebek's passing.
* AscendedMeme:
** One Double Jeopardy! round had categories that all referred to the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', including "Creator/SeanConnery", "Surprise Me, Trebek", "Therapists" (Not "The Rapists"), "The Number After 2", and "Rhymes With 'Dog'". Another Double Jeopardy! round had "States That Begin with Californ", "Is This a Hat", "Catch These Men", "A Petite D+ejeuner", "'S' Words" and "SNL Cracks Us Up" as its categories. Other categories from the sketch (including "Japan-U.S. Relations", "Things You Shouldn't Put in Your Mouth", and "An Album Cover") have made appearances on the show as well.
** "Who are three people that have never been in my kitchen?", from the ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' episode where Cliff Clavin competes on the show and writes that down as his Final Jeopardy! response, became a popular joke answer on the actual show.
* AsianAndNerdy:
** Kelly Miyahara, formerly of the Clue Crew, also the announcer of ''Sports Jeopardy!''
** 2011 9 day champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist Joon Pahk, a regular poster to the show's unofficial forums, and one of the 10 highest earning ''Jeopardy!'' contestants ever in regular games.
** 2014 11 day champion and Tournament of Champions finalst Arthur Chu, who is one of only five contestants to win that many games in their regular run, and attracted a great deal of notoriety among fans for his gameplay strategy and on-camera demeanor.
** Bruce Ikawa, whose $80,699 total as a 5 day champion in November 1990 was the third highest in ''Jeopardy!'' regular play history at that time, and is 10th under the show's original dollar amounts.
** 2001 5 day champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist Lan Djang, who later made the quarterfinals in 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and was the last 4 or 5 day champion from Canada for ''fourteen years''.
** 2017 5 day champion and runner up of the Season 33 Tournament of Champions Alan Lin.
** 2019 super-streaker James Holzhauer (who has mentioned he is half-Japanese via his mother), known for being an extremely dominant player and winning almost as much money in 32 games as Ken Jennings did in 74.
** 2021 5 day champion and runner up in the 2022 Tournament of Champions Andrew He.
* AudienceParticipation: Averted during the brief return of Alex Trebek's mustache in the fall of 2014, where he mentioned during opening remarks on episodes that fans could vote online as to whether he should keep the mustache or shave it again. Though Alex indicated on air that the response was about 50/50 in favour of keeping or shaving it, these episodes were ''pre-taped'', and many of the mustache's return episodes aired ''after'' he chose to shave it again (partially at the wishes of his wife). Also averted when Alex Trebek grew a beard in Season 35 (he intended to regrow his mustache, but, as Trebek put it, "those hairs kept attracting friends"), where he mentioned during opening remarks on episodes that fans could vote online as to whether he should keep the beard or shave it. The response was mostly in favor of keeping the beard, though Trebek shaved it off again.
* AutoTune: PlayedForLaughs on the June 23, 2010 show, which had the category "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te4E1cx2J44 Alex Meets Auto-Tune]]".
* BadassBoast: In commercials advertising his 2000s Week game in 2014's Battle of the Decades, Ken Jennings said of his opponents in a commercial, "They actually think they can win." He backed it up with a lock-win, helped by wagering over $12,000 on two correct Daily Doubles.
* BashBrothers: Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, the two super-champions who have each won over $3,000,000 on ''Jeopardy!'' (No other human player broke the $1,000,000 barrier until 2019, when James Holzhauer began his run as champ.) Elite though they may be at trivia, the real skill comes from their reaction times and wagering skills. The IBM Challenge proved they were both [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} equally inferior to computers]], and while this was an exhibition event, Watson is the only opponent to ever defeat Brad [[spoiler:at least until 2020's ''Greatest of All Time'' had him finish a distant third to both Ken and Houlzhauer]].
* BattleCouple: Justin and Kristin Sausville, the only known married couple to have each won 5 games on ''Jeopardy!'' Justin was a 6 day champion in July and September 2011 and was a wild card semifinalist in that year's Tournament of Champions, while Kristin followed as a 5 day champion in March 2015 (complete with a rare one-person Final Jeopardy! in her second win) and competed in that year's TOC as well.
* BonusRound: Two were used.
** The Jackpot Board: Used for the first half of the 1974-1975 syndicated version, this was somewhat of a knockoff of the Gambit Board from ''Series/{{Gambit}}''- the winner selected a number off the board from 1-30, revealing a bonus prize (car, trip, more cash), or half of "$25,000" (which earned one more pick to find the other half- in that sense it resembled the Big Match from ''Series/ThreeOnAMatch'').
** Super Jeopardy!: Not to be confused with the 1990 tournament, this was used for the 1978-79 version. It was basically J! Bingo; five categories, must make a line across/up and down/diagonally before getting three wrong. $100/pop, a win earns a ProgressiveJackpot.[[note]]Similar bonus games would later be used on ''Series/CatchPhrase'' and on ''Trump Card'', an adaptation of the UK game show ''Series/BobsFullHouse'' (a revival of that format in the UK, ''Lucky Numbers'', would reuse that bonus round)[[/note]]
* BonusSpace: The Daily Doubles. Also the very short-lived Bonus categories listed below.
* {{Bookends}}: Matt Amodio's run began when he wagered his entire score on Final Jeopardy and defeated the reigning champion, Josh Saak. His run ended when Jonathan Fisher wagered his entire score and defeated Matt. Though unlike Josh, Matt got his FJ clue wrong.
* BootstrappedTheme: This show has quite possibly the most well-known game show theme ever, the "Think!" music was originally just used for the Final Jeopardy question rather than the opening of the show itself. (In a lesser example of this trope, the 1978-79 version's opening theme was used as a prize cue on ''Wheel'' for several seasons.)
* BowChickaWowWow: This was used to set the mood for "The Sexiest Potpourri Category Ever."
* BrickJoke: Some RuleOfFunny categories will have counterparts in the Double Jeopardy! round; for instance, on the January 18th, 2011 show, the sixth category in the first round was "[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Team Jacob]]" and the sixth category of Double Jeopardy! was titled "[[ShipToShipCombat Team Edward]]".
* BriefAccentImitation: 2015-16 ''Sports Jeopardy!'' superchamp Vinny Varadarajan liked to give certain category names and questions in the voice of sports announcers (or at least, an attempt of them) for comic effect.
* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: On November 30, 2004, Nancy Zerg ended Ken Jennings' 74 game winning streak...and lost the following night. [[https://nypost.com/2019/06/03/meet-the-woman-who-took-down-jeopardys-last-big-champ/amp/ She has stated]] that all the backstage fuss over Ken finally being taken down left her disoriented and unable to focus on the next game. Any subsequent instance of a contestant overthrowing a superchampion only to lose their next game has been referred to as the "giant-killer curse" by the fandom.
* TheCameo: It's not uncommon to see celebrities or politicians deliver pre-recorded clues. Often, ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' contestants will record clues for future episodes during their taping.
* CanadaEh: Alex never truly got rid of his Canadian accent, most notably in how he said "sorry" and "dollar" with long O sounds, pronounced "produce" as "praw-duce", and his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmNK8R-YuEc distinctly French pronunciation]] of "genre". This is more prominently seen with Canadian contestants, of which there have been many over the years.
* CanonDiscontinuity:
** 1990's ''Super Jeopardy!'' tournament on ABC is not considered canon when Jeopardy! tabulates contestant winnings and records, though whether it's due to its special rules and scoring, its overall lack of success, or not taking place during the regular syndicated run is up for debate. Notably, Bruce Seymour (who won the $250,000 ''Super Jeopardy!'' top prize) wasn't considered the modern show's all-time winnings leader (Chuck Forrest, Bob Blake, and Robin Carroll instead led in winnings before Brad Rutter took the record on any level in 2002), and as Seymour was only a four day champion and Tournament of Champions quarterfinalist in regular play, he has never been invited back for later reunion tournaments.
** 1998's "Battle of the Bay Area Brains" episode is also not canon for past contestant winnings, likely as it was a charity game that only aired in the San Francisco market. Notably, the $7,700 prize package won by Michael Rankins for that game is not counted among his official winnings.
** Infamous 1986 5-day champion Barbara Lowe is nowhere to be seen on official ''Jeopardy!'' records, was not invited to that year's Tournament of Champions, and her games never re-aired after the fact.
* CatchPhrase:
** "Let's make it a true Daily Double."
** "I'll take [category] for [dollar amount], Alex".
** Thanks to James Holzhauer, "All in" is becoming popular for true Daily Doubles.
** The February 21, 2020, episode made a board out of Alex's catchphrases on the show, with the first category titled "Familiar Phrases". From there, the categories were "Ooo, Sorry"[[note]]Alex's sympathetic response usually to a missed Daily Double[[/note]], "You're Out Of The Hole"[[note]]when a contestant's response pulls them out of the red[[/note]], "Make A Selection"[[note]]Alex starting or re-starting gameplay[[/note]], and "And Finally...".[[note]]Alex's segue to the last category during the board rundown[[/note]] The final category admitted: "The Writers Are Trying To Be Clever".
* CelebrityEdition:
** One of the most famous in the game show industry. The concept is well-known through ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'''s "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketches, with Creator/WillFerrell as Trebek. Four variants featuring politicians and newsmakers have also been held under the "Power Players Week" branding, all as taped at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. during U.S. election years, while a Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational tournament was held from 2010-2011.
** ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' had a number of celebrity games, typically featuring popular musicians, though episodes also took place featuring recent ''Survivor'' castmates, as Jeff Probst hosted both shows. Similarly, ''Sports Jeopardy!'' featured two celebrity editions in its second season, including one with "The Danettes" (on-air personalities from host Dan Patrick's radio show) and a Super Bowl-week episode featuring NFL Network personalities, with a Danettes rematch opening season 3 as well.
* ClipShow: Fleming #2,753, plus Trebek #3,000 and #4,000. The first two had the clips interspersed amongst the gameplay, while #4,000 was purely a clip show.
* ClosetGeek:
** Often seen when a high winning or earning contestant comes on that doesn't look the part of a trivia aficionado, or is in a profession that doesn't seem like an obvious source for a ''Jeopardy!'' champion (one notable example: New York transit cop Frank Spangenberg)
** ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' is often a source for this, too. If you weren't familiar with their prior ''Jeopardy!'' games, would you have predicted that the standouts of 2011's Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament would be comedic actors like winner Michael [=McKean=] and ''$68,000'' one game-winner Andy Richter?
* CompanyCrossReferences: As this show and ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' are considered sister shows -- both were created by Merv Griffin, are usually packaged together for most markets, and share a distributor (CBS Television Distribution) and production company (Sony) -- both shows have made references to each other over the years. For example, "Before & After" was a recurring ''Wheel'' category before it was adopted for ''Jeopardy!'', and "Rhyme Time" was a ''Jeopardy!'' category long before it was adopted for ''Wheel''. At one point, they featured a category called "Wheel of Jeopardy!" where the clue was given in the form of an unsolved ''Wheel of Fortune'' puzzle.
* ComplacentGamingSyndrome:[[invoked]] As with many other game shows, contestants invoke this frequently.
** As the Fleming version paid full winnings to every contestant, some contestants intentionally stopped ringing in if they felt that they had earned enough money, or if an opponent had picked up an insurmountable lead. The Trebek era gave this an ObviousRulePatch by offering the full winnings only to the winner, to create more of an incentive to compete. Losing contestants initially got parting gifts, but starting on May 16, 2002 second and third place win a flat $2,000 and $1,000 respectively (if there is a tie for second following Final Jeopardy, it is broken in favor of whoever brought more money forward).
** The vast majority of contestants pick clues from top to bottom within each category, even in cases where it might be advisable to do otherwise (for example, if Alex has said "Less than a minute" and several high-value clues are still on the board and/or a Daily Double hasn't yet been uncovered — the Daily Doubles are almost never in the top two rows). To be fair, this is often enforced by the producers to help maintain the flow of the game better and decrease the likelihood of the board operators revealing the wrong clue by mistake.
** 9 times out of 10, the leader going into Final Jeopardy will wager the double of what second place has minus what they have plus one, so if both get it right and second place wagered everything, the leader will win by a dollar. For example, if first place has $12,400 and second place has $7,000, first place will wager $1,601 (2 times $7,000, minus $12,400, plus 1).
** If a Daily Double is hit early in the Jeopardy! round, the contestant who found it will often make it a True Daily Double (or wager $1,000 if the player has less than that).
* CompoundTitle: Sometimes, the categories for each show may be related to each other (for example, in episode 4456, Genesis, In the Big Inning, God, Created, The Heavens, and The "Earth") even if the actual questions aren't.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Averted with IBM computer Watson, who is not connected to the internet (or the outside world in any way) when competing, relying on his data in memory[[note]]Although considering his data memory [[DistinctionWithoutADifference consisted largely of Wikipedia]]...[[/note]]. It still turned into a CurbStompBattle in short order, however, largely because ComputersAreFast. Ken Jennings himself later [[http://ken-jennings.com/blog/archives/2554 made some suggestions to level the playing field]].
* ConsolationPrize:
** In the original Fleming era, all contestants received their cash earnings win or lose; however, contestants who finished with $0 or a negative score received parting gifts.
** In the Trebek era, only the winning contestant received his or her full cash winnings. Initially, departing contestants received non-monetary prizes, usually a vacation package for second and merchandise for third; however, starting in 2002, second and third place received a flat $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.
* CouchGag: In season 34, different objects surrounded by written responses (being written in like as in Final Jeopardy!) are shown in the intro. Season 36 has different topics shown in the intro as well, and Season 37 uses different clips from throughout the show’s history.
* CrosswordPuzzle: A recurring category is "Crossword Clues [letter]", where the clues are phrased as crossword puzzle clues.
* CurbStompBattle:
** Chuck Forrest, one of the first big champions, won all five of his games in lock fashion (including a lock-tie on his fifth game). This continued the following fall where his quarterfinal and semifinal games were also runaway victories. He did so well in the finals that his two opponents, Paul Rouffa and Marvin Shinkman, won fewer than the guaranteed prize for semifinalists. They appealed and were each given $5,000.
** [[https://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=5773 January 29, 1986]]: Returning champion Beryl Arbit finished the game with $8,600 ($17,200 in post-doubling play), while both her opponents finished in the red. It's not entirely clear if they even ''played'' Final Jeopardy.
** The opening game of season 26's Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament episode with Andy Richter and Wolf Blitzer from September 2009. The score as they were going into Final Jeopardy! - Andy, $39,000; Wolf, '''negative $4,600'''. (In celebrity games, any contestant with a negative score is automatically given $1,000 to participate in Final Jeopardy!) Andy would end up with ''$68,000'', among the best one day scores on ''any'' episode of ''Jeopardy'', thus meaning that the comedian beat the everloving crap out of the journalist.
** The majority of Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter's games were these, which helps explain why they've won millions of dollars through the show and related tournaments. Good examples for each would include Ken's 38th win from July 2004 (where he won a then record ''$75,000''), and Brad's 2001 TOC quarterfinal game (which he dominated from beginning to end, finishing with $18,000, or $36,000 in today's values)
** Thanks to jumping across categories, hunting for Daily Doubles in the higher dollar amounts from the bottom up, and often going all in on Daily Doubles, notable Jeopardy! contestants like Roger Craig, Alex Jacob, and Arthur Chu made a habit of curb stomping contestants during their runs on the show. However, the high risk of this gameplay strategy backfired on all of them at least once in later tournaments.
** Mark [=McGrath=] (of Music/SugarRay)'s appearances on ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'', where it became less of a game and more of "How much will he win by?" (even voiced by his opponents themselves). Say what you will about Sugar Ray, but the man knows his rock and roll inside and out.
** Dave Mustaine of Music/{{Megadeth}}. Like Mark above, he has an ''incredible'' knowledge of music (fellow contestant Moon Unit Zappa even comments at one point "How do you even ''know'' that?"). Any fan of Megadeth would know Dave is an incredibly intelligent person, but anyone who just saw him as some kind of dumb metal guy would probably be surprised how he runs away with the game.
** The first game of the two-game IBM Challenge (February 14-15, 2011) saw IBM's Watson computer finish with $35,734 (even after a wrong Final Jeopardy answer). Ken Jennings ($4,800) and Brad Rutter ($10,400), Jeopardy's two most successful players, weren't even as close as the score made it seem -- they both doubled up in Final Jeopardy.
** In the [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3599 March 16, 2011]] game, eventual 5 day champion Tom Kunzen absolutely ''owned'' his opponents who struggled to even remain on the plus side: the scores at the end of DJ! were $29,200 for Tom and -$3,600 and -$1,400 for his opponents respectively, leading to only the fifth (at least) single-player Final Jeopardy! in the Trebek era.
** The 2015 Tournament Of Champions turned into this for 6 day champion Alex Jacob at every stage. He doubled up his opponents in all four games, largely prevented 5 day champ Brennan Bushee from ringing in ''at all'' in the ''Jeopardy!'' round in the semifinals, and pulled off 3 all-in Daily Doubles in the finals to help lock out no less than Matt Jackson and Kerry Greene. When all was said and done, he was guaranteed to win by over $30,000 in the finals no matter what either opponent wagered, and Alex Trebek referred to Jacob's performance as "the most dominant performance by anyone in any of our tournaments."
** Harking back to the original NBC version, one of the era's most biggest winners was Burns Cameron, who won a record $11,000 during his five-day romp. In one game, he played against two contestants who were said to be inebriated during their show; they were so drunk they struggled to even press the lock-out buzzer (leading Cameron to at times intentionally delay ringing in to give his opponents a chance to answer). Unsurprisingly, he was the only one around for "Final Jeopardy!" (This was at a time when the values went $10 to $50 in the Jeopardy round, which means that after adjusting for the change in clue values, his five-day score actually ''beats'' that of Frank Spangenberg.)
** James Holzhauer did this a ''lot'' in the spring of 2019. Thanks to his background as a professional gambler, his gameplay was dominated by playing the higher-value clues first, seeking out Daily Doubles, and wagering aggressively. As a result, most of his games were blowouts. Of his 32 wins, only four saw the second place contestant finish within $30,000 of Holzhauer. The closest call was in Holzhauer's 18th game, when he beat Adam Levin by only $18. Four of Holzhauer's wins were by more than $100,000 ''over the second place contestant''. He also blew past the previous one-day winnings records (Roger Craig's $77,000 mark from 2010) no fewer than ''ten'' times (Holzhauer's score of $89,229 from May 20, 2019, is the tenth-highest single-day score in the show's history).
** Matt Amodio's 2021 run was characterized by these. The Double Jeopardy round in one of his later games ended with one of his opponents having $2200, one having $4200...and Matt having ''$46,000''. He ended the game with $83,000, making him only the second player to break the 80k barrier...while one of his opponents had $4401 and the other had $200.
* DarkHorseVictory:
** December, 1984, 5 day champion Jerry Frankel was the second lowest earner in the inaugural 1985 TOC field, and only advanced to the semifinals as a wild card after finishing in third place in his opening game. Then, he beat two of season 1's top four earners (Ron Black and the top-ranked Paul Boymel) in a runaway in the semifinals, and won a competitive final round to become the show's first ever TOC winner, and the show's biggest overall cash winner at the time.
** Going into the finals of 1990's ''Super Jeopardy!'' tournament, Bob Verini was the understandable favourite, having won the 1987 Tournament of Champions, and having defeated fellow ''Super Jeopardy!'' finalist Dave Traini in the 1987 finals too. However, both were upset by Bruce Seymour, a ''4'' day champion who didn't make it out of the 1988 TOC quarterfinals, and who hasn't been invited to any reunion tournaments since.
** 1994's Tournament of Champions' top three earners were Steve Chernicoff and John Cuthbertson (future standouts of 2005's Ultimate TOC) and Amy Fine (the winningest woman in regular play of the pre-doubled era), but Fine was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and Cuthbertson and Chernicoff were upset in the semifinals by College Champion Jeff Stewart. The finals that year would see Stewart square off with 4 day champions Rachael Schwartz and David Hillinck (the first time that the TOC didn't have at least one 5-time champion in the finals), the lowest earners to qualify for that TOC, and who had both lost to Cuthbertson in the quarterfinals. When all was said and done, Schwartz edged out Stewart by $1 to become the first woman and 4 day champ to win a TOC.
** The obvious favourite in the 2004 Tournament of Champions was Tom Walsh, the show's first ever 7 day champion, but he fell in a finals upset to Russ Schumacher, who was the lowest earning 4 day champion in the field, had only gotten seven clues right in his quarterfinal loss, and was in a $10,100 hole going into the second game of the finals. However, he proved his TOC win was no fluke by making the Battle of the Decades semifinals a decade later.
*** In the same tournament, Tom Baker became the first 3 day champion to ever win a Tournament of Champions game when he defeated the aforementioned Russ Schumacher and eventual Ultimate TOC semifinalist Chris Miller in a quarterfinal runaway. Arguably, any 3-time champion that wins in a TOC can be seen in this light, especially given that they didn't run as long or win as much as their opponents in the field, as later seen with Michael Falk, Vik Vaz, and Doug Hicton's TOC final runs.
** The 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions was littered with upsets and dark horse victories in the early rounds. Of the "Nifty Nine" champions that were byed to the second round following their record setting and accomplished prior runs on the show, ''seven'' of them lost their opening game, with only Brad Rutter and Frank Spangenberg advancing to the quarterfinals (and only one other TOC winner, Dan Melia, joining them there). On the flip side, the UTOC was a great showcase for John Cuthbertson, Chris Miller, and Pam Mueller, who won their own share of upsets on their route to the semifinals, after ending their previous ''Jeopardy!'' runs as semifinalists in their regular [=TOCs=]. Cuthbertson, in particular, impressed many by knocking off TOC winners Bob Verini and Bob Blake, plus TOC finalist Tad Carithers in the first two rounds alone, and got very close to defeating Rutter himself during the Round 4 semifinals.
** In the 2006 Tournament of Champions, 6+ day champions David Madden, Tom Kavanaugh, and Kevin Marshall were understandable favorites to take the $250,000 top prize, only for all to fall in the opening rounds at the hands of 4 day champion Bill Macdonald... and all in runaway fashion, no less! However, Bill's Cinderella run met its end in the finals at the hands of two even bigger underdogs: 3 day champions Vik Vaz (who had ended Bill's regular reign the previous year) and eventual winner Michael Falk, who rallied from Vik's $13,400 lead after the first day to become the only 3 day champion to win a TOC.
** Much of the chatter surrounding the 2014 Tournament of Champions finals revolved around who'd win between 20 day champion Julia Collins and 11 day champion Arthur Chu (far and away the top winners of season 30), but both lost in the finals to 8 day champion Ben Ingram after he opened up a $10,000 lead going into day 2. Ben was the biggest winner of season 29, and the fourth highest earning qualifier in the field, but anyone in that TOC would have been a dark horse against the Julia/Arthur pairing.
** As hard to believe as it is, Brad Rutter was once a dark horse. He was only the 9th highest earner in the 2001 TOC field, but he proved himself on the big stage by defeating the field's biggest winner (Doug Lach, who won over $30,000 more than Brad) in a runaway in the quarterfinals. The rest is history.
** Any defeat of a lengthy, seemingly unstoppable ''Jeopardy!'' champion could be considered this, particularly Nancy Zerg's defeat of Ken Jennings in his 75th game in November 2004. Averted when said champion loses to someone who goes on a long reign of their own, like when 9 day champion Jason Keller lost to eventual 6 day champion Dave Leach in December 2011.
** The 1991 Tournament of Champions was notable for being the first time that all 3 finalists, Jim Scott (the eventual winner), Steve Robin, and Lou Pryor, were wildcard semifinalists. Jim Scott and Steve Robin both lost to Mark Born (season 7's top winner) in the quarterfinals, who was defeated by Lou Pryor in the semifinals. Lou, in turn, lost to Leslie Frates in the quarterfinals, who was defeated by Jim in the semifinals.
* DeadpanSnarker: Who is Alex Trebek?
* DeathOrGloryAttack: A True Daily Double (or close to it) in Double Jeopardy!, which was Roger Craig's signature strategy. Get it right, and you double your score, potentially securing victory or denying an opponent a lock-win. Miss, and you drop to $0 with little to no time to recover.
** 1988 3 day champion Bob Beers wagered $6,000 on the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy! from his first game, then followed up six clues later with a a whopping ''$10,000'' wager, which remained a ''Jeopardy!'' record (when adjusted for inflation) until 2019. A miss on either would have likely cost him the game, especially as he missed ''Final''.
** Three of Isaac Segal's opponents in July 1995 did this.
*** July 5, 1995: Dan Schay was a very distant third when he wagered his entire $2,500. He would end up taking the lead from Isaac going into Final Jeopardy.
*** July 6, 1995: James Greenberg wagered his entire $2,900, [[LetsGetDangerous saying "I'm a gambling man, let's bet it all" beforehand]]. He (briefly) narrowed the gap Isaac had throughout much of the game.
*** July 7, 1995: Beverly Adams entered Double Jeopardy leading over Isaac, who hurriedly retook the lead when she uncovered one of the [=DDs=]. She wagered $3,000 of her $5,200, but got it wrong. After recovering to $3,200, she found the second DD, and wagered $3,000 again, but missed it too. That, along with another incorrect answer, threw her into negative score territory which she was unable to get out of before time ran out.
** Happened in two of 4 day champion Barbara Walker's games in January 1996:
*** Barbara herself did this in her second game. She found the second Daily Double at the end of Double Jeopardy! and wagered $4,500 of her $4,900. She got it right, putting her in second place with only $1,200 separating her from the then-first place player.
*** Done by one of her opponents in her fourth. Nick Lamelza had $4,800 when he hit the second Daily Double at the end of Double Jeopardy!, with Barbara at $10,400 and the other player John Zappacosta at $9,100. He risked $4,000 but got it wrong, leaving him with only $800 for Final.
** June 25, 1996: Karl Coryat was victimized by one of his opponents doing this on his third game. Don Sloan found the second Daily Double on the second to last clue of Double Jeopardy! and got it right after wagering $4,800 of his $5,200. Karl lost his lock going into Final and eventually the game.
** During a semifinal in 2001's last International Tournament, Swedish champion Fredrik Gildea wagered all of his $9,500 on the last Daily Double, in what is the biggest ''true'' Daily Double in recorded ''Jeopardy!'' history when adjusted for inflation. However, he couldn't repeat the same magic in the finals, as eventual winner Robin Carroll landed ''five'' of the Daily Doubles in the two day affair, and Fredrik didn't find the other.
** Bob Verini finished the first game of the Million Dollar Masters finals $5,000 behind Brad Rutter, and he was trailing Brad by $2,000 in Game 2 when he found the second Daily Double late in Double Jeopardy! Bob wagered all $10,400 to cheers and applause in the audience... but he wound up being completely stumped by the clue. The audience gasped as he went down to zero, and then they gave him sympathetic applause. Bob still was able to play Final Jeopardy! after ringing in on the last clue and getting it right.
** 2011 7 day champion Joon Pahk made expert use of this during his run, becoming the only recorded ''Jeopardy!'' contestant to wager at least $14,000 on Daily Doubles ''twice''. Both of the wagers were in math categories, and Joon is a college physics teacher, hence his eagerness to go big when the opportunity arose.
** In arguably the costliest true Daily Double in ''Jeopardy!'' history, June 2012 contestant Terry Kent (who was in second place by $400) wagered ''all'' of his then-$13,600 in an attempt to take the lead in Double Jeopardy. However, he misunderstood the clue (which asked for a Mohs scale-listed element that ''ended'' in Z; he responded with "zirconia"), dropping him to $0 and knocking him out of Final. He made up for it though as a ''Sports Jeopardy!'' contestant in the fall of 2016, becoming a 3 day champion, and surviving an all-in Daily Double miss in this third game with a major comeback.
** Though overshadowed by his Final response ("What is someone in Normandy, but I just won $75,000!"), 2013 Teen Tournament champion Leonard Cooper employed this in the deciding second game of the finals, wagering ''$18,000'' of his then-$18,200 on the last Daily Double to take a huge (though, despite his Final response, not insurmountable) lead.
** 2016 3 day champion Philip Tiu relied on this during his reign, especially as he visibly struggled with the buzzer and was often slow to ring in and respond. Bold Daily Double wagers, including a then-record bet of ''$19,000'' in his second game, helped net Philip over $96,000 in just three days, but a wrong response on an all-in wager in his fourth game helped end his run.
** A death-or-glory attack may also appear in Final Jeopardy!, particularly if a contestant with a comfortable or runaway lead wagers an excessively large amount, which would net them a huge score if they're right, and cost them the win if they're wrong. 2015 5 day champion and TOC semifinalist Dan Feitel (who often wagered all but $1 if he led going into Final without a lock) is a notable recent example, but other examples include 2012 Teen Tournament winner Elyse Mancuso and 2013 Kids Week standout Skyler Hornbeck, who each wagered almost everything in Final despite having first place locked up, and would have needlessly gave the victory away had they missed.
** Occasionally, a Celebrity Jeopardy! player in first place will bet it all in Final Jeopardy!, which would obviously net them more money for their charities, and put them at $0 if they're wrong, but you could justify the unsafe wager as they'll still get at least $10,000 for their charity. Andy Richter and Jon Stewart both gambled their whole $11,000+ winnings in 1999 (on consecutive days, no less) despite each having locks. The same didn't work out for author Tom Clancy, who only needed a $1,401 wager or an incorrect reply from Catherine Crier to win his Power Players Week game in 1997, and while she was wrong, he wagered everything, handing the game to Tim Russert (who had been in a distant third place).
** Going True Daily Double during a commanding lead was also a signature move of 2019 champion James Holzhauer.
** 40-game winner Amy Schneider was felled by opponent Rhone Talsma this way. Rhone hit a Daily Double towards the end of Double Jeopardy!, wagered his then entire $7,800 and got it right. He later got the Final Jeopardy! correct response, and he dethroned Amy who missed it.
** Ketty Pan attempted this during Megan Wachspress's fifth game. She found the ''first'' Daily Double with only five other clues left in play. She wagered $8,800 of her then $12,200 but gave an incorrect response which dropped her to third place. She then almost missed out on Final Jeopardy! by going into negative territory on the second after missing a $1,600 clue. Thankfully, she got to participate by giving a correct response on another clue. These combined with Megan and the other player Tory Leviton losing nearly $20,000 ''combined'' in final resulted in Megan winning with only $401.
* DefeatEqualsFriendship: Many champions and contestants who have played against each other have become friends over the years. Further reinforced by games in reunion tournaments, where Alex and the contestants - most well acquainted from prior events - chat on old times.
** Sometimes inverted when some winners film their episodes in the same taping sessions, especially pre-2003. For example, 1996 5-time champions David Sampugnaro and Michael Dupee had their shows filmed almost back-to-back (David's encompassed one week, while Michael got 4 out of 5 shows of the next week).
* DemotedToExtra: The Clue Crew became this when the show was able to resume production from the COVID-19 pandemic. Categories and clues featuring Jimmy [=McGuire=] and Sarah Whitcomb-Foss were drastically reduced as a result of cost-cutting measures. It was then quietly announced that Season 38 would be the last one with Clue Crew material.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment:
** The name of a category on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3495 November 3, 2010]], where each correct response contained or completed a phrase with the same word twice.
** July 17, 2013: Jimmy [=McGuire=] of the Clue Crew announced "Vietnamese Water Puppets--The Water Puppets of Vietnam" as one of the category titles.
* DesperationAttack:
** The Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! can turn into this if a contestant is trailing first place by a large amount, forcing them into a huge wager to attempt to at least get back in contention. Much like a DeathOrGloryAttack, this can also obliterate any chance at victory if a contestant is wrong.
** Some trailing contestants will also get more trigger happy on the buzzer late in Double Jeopardy! in an attempt to get first dibs on answers, but this leaves the risk of either getting locked out or ringing in before figuring out (or knowing the answer), and falling even further behind as a result.
* DoItYourselfThemeTune: On the original version, Merv Griffin composed both the theme tune and the think music. When the revival was made in 1984, the think music ''became'' the theme tune, and is still in use to this day.
* DoubleTheDollars: "Double Jeopardy!" is so named because its clue values are double those of the first round. The round also has two Daily Doubles instead of one.
* DownerEnding:
** If no contestant on Jeopardy! finishes with a positive total, three new contestants compete on the next show. Overall, this has happened in the Trebek era at least eight times (most recently in January 2016). It's uncertain how many times this occurred in the Fleming era, but on one episode he hosted, all three contestants finished ''Double Jeopardy!'' with no money, so Fleming spent the rest of the show chatting with the contestants. If this scenario were to happen today, the show's website implied that they may play the Final Jeopardy! clue just for fun.
** In the inaugural season of the current version, all three players ended Final Jeopardy! with scores of $0 in ''two'' different games after giving an incorrect answer and wagering everything.
*** The first time was on the Trebek version's ''second episode'', with all three giving the same incorrect day the 20th Century began — all three responded with "January 1, 1900", but the correct response was January 1, 190''1''.
*** It happened again on April 8, 1985 when all three contestants missed a ''Final'' response on the date that college football bowl games took place. The correct response was January 2, 1984, and all three contestants wrote "January 1, 1984".
** This happened for the first time in a tournament setting during the 1991 Seniors Tournament. During the second quarterfinal game, all 3 players were incorrect in Final Jeopardy!, with all 3 wagering everything. As a result, a fifth wild card position was added to round out the semifinals, the only time to date that there were only 4 automatic semifinalists in a ''Jeopardy!'' tournament.
*** More famously, during the second semifinal game of the 2013 Teen Tournament, all 3 players had the same incorrect response on all-in wagers in Final, thus no player won. As the tournament finals needed three contestants, the third spot went to the highest scoring runner-up in the semifinals (Leonard Cooper, who ended up winning the tournament), though that rule has since been changed.
** Triple-zero finishes have occurred in two Celebrity Jeopardy! games when each missed Final Jeopardy! and went all in. The first was a 1996 game between Creator/JonLovitz, Carl Lewis, and Matthew Fox, while a 1998 "Ladies Night" game between Jane Curtin, Teri Garr, and Naomi Judd saw the same finish. For the former, all three contestants received the $10,000 runner-up prize for their charity, but producers changed the rules afterward so the leader after Double Jeopardy! would win the game if a triple-zero happened again in a celebrity game. As a result, Jane Curtin was the credited winner of the 1998 game, winning the $15,000 top prize for her charity.
** The electronic pens used to write down Final Jeopardy! responses shut off when the last note of the think music plays. The show rules against contestants if their responses are cut off by the time limit. One episode had Creator/ClintEastwood as the correct response, and a contestant was denied credit for "Who is Clint Eastwoo".
** If a challenger wins the game with a score less than $1,000, he/she ends up taking home the least money of all three contestants for that day's game, but at least they get to come back for a second episode.
** November 19, 1992: The first Final game in the 1992 Tournament of Champions between Jerome Vered, Leszek Pawlowicz, and Bruce Simmons was a very fast-paced affair, and the three players entered Final Jeopardy accumulating $25,400 as a group (pre-doubled, no less). Unfortunately, they all missed the Final Jeopardy! answer, and they cumulatively lost $20,700.
** June 12, 1998: A two-player Final Jeopardy! with the players both tied at $7,600 showed the pitfalls of the "PrisonersDilemma". Neither of them trusted the other to wager $0 and tie, so they both wagered everything… and both got it wrong.
--->'''Trebek:''' Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in over 14 years, we will have no returning champion because all three players wound up with no money!
** A rare PlayedForLaughs example on June 3, 2002. Four-time champion Jill Bunzendahl Chimka said that if she won five games, she'd give the car she won to her son, Cory. Unfortunately in her fifth game, she finished Double Jeopardy! dead last and didn't know the answer to the Final Jeopardy! clue. She wrote "What is Sorry Cory no Jag?" to the amusement of Alex and the audience.
** In a tournament wide variant, the 2003 Tournament of Champions saw ''eight'' of the ten losing quarterfinalists finish with no money (six wagered everything in Final Jeopardy! and were incorrect, while two finished Double Jeopardy! in the red). As four wild cards are needed for the semifinals, the six-way tie at $0 was broken by which two contestants had the highest post-Double Jeopardy! scores in their games, with Eric Floyd (an eventual finalist that year) and Max Levaren advancing as a result. This was especially unlucky for Mark Lee, whose score after Double Jeopardy! was just ''$200'' less than Max's score. As well, Travis Troyer's quarterfinal score of $2,599 was good for the third lowest by a wild card semifinalist in TOC history if adjusted for inflation, behind only Floyd and Levaren.
** November 19, 2008: A semifinal match of that season's Teen Tournament had Anne Frank as the correct response to a Final Jeopardy! clue. Going into Final, Karan and Sarah were tied for the lead with third place player Anurag only $1,200 behind. Sarah got the correct response but didn't wager enough to cover Anurag. Karan wrote "Who is Ann'''i'''e Frank?" which initiated a stopdown for the staff to check his answer. When taping resumed nearly 30 minutes later, Alex said that they could not give him credit because their research library found no reference to Anne ever being called that. To make matters worse for both Karan and Sarah, Anurag went onto win the tournament.
** On January 18, 2016, two contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with $13,800 while the third finished with $6,000. All three contestants missed Final Jeopardy!, wagered their entire earnings and finished the game with $0, even more surprising when you realize that this game had ''two'' returning champions (though in fairness to the two of them, betting it all when tied going into Final is a valid strategy in that scenario).
** After an impressive 6 day championship reign by Cindy Stowell in December 2016 (becoming the first female 4+ day champion in ''20 months''), her loss concluded with an epilogue by Alex Trebek, where he announced that Cindy was battling stage IV colon cancer during her taping dates, and had passed away on December 5th - eight days ''before'' her first game aired. This wasn't shocking news for most, given how the story spread online, but it's no less sad. Her winnings from her run were donated to a cancer research charity; her estate was later given another $10,000 by the show ($5,000 of which would have been her guaranteed prize money had she lived to be in the Tournament of Champions, the other $5,000 being a donation) and this also went to the charity. During the 2016 Tournament of Champions, Alex and all 15 contestants wore dark blue ribbons for colon cancer awareness in Cindy's memory.
** November 10, 2017: In that year's Tournament of Champions, the Final Jeopardy! clue asked for the contestants to identify the George Cross. Quarterfinalist Justin Vossler lost out on a wild card spot when his response of "What is the George'''’s''' Cross?" was ruled unacceptable due to it not being a possessive.
** February 18, 2021: The correct response to that day's Final Jeopardy! clue was UsefulNotes/WilliamJenningsBryan. Returning champion Andy West, who won only $1,999 the day before, wrote "Who is William Jennings Bryant". Ken explained that they couldn't accept it because of the added "T" at the end. Had he got the name right, he'd have won his second game.
** May 5, 2022: Sarah Snider leads 22-day champion Mattea Roach by nearly $10,000 entering Final Jeopardy with the category "20th Century Cinema"[[labelnote:The clue]]"A black & white newsreel in this film begins: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree""[[/labelnote]] Mattea bets all but $1 and correctly says "What is ''Film/CitizenKane''". Unfortunately, Sarah admits that she'd never seen ''Citizen Kane'' and doesn't write anything down, giving Mattea the win. Sarah did end up making the cut for the 2022 Second Chances Tournament, so it remains to be seen if she redeems herself.
** June 17, 2022: Sadie Goldberger enters Final Jeopardy in the lead, but second place is only $600 behind her. Both second and third place correctly answer "Who is Harriet Tubman?"[[labelnote:The clue]]"Congratulating her on the 1869 release of her biography, Frederick Douglass wrote, "I have wrought in the day--you in the night""[[/labelnote]], but Goldberger only manages to write down "Who is Harriet Tubma" before time is up. She's marked incorrect, and her wager would have won her the game. Goldberger was later invited back for the 2022 Second Chances tournament.
* DownToTheLastPlay: Unless here's a runaway leader that can't be caught, Final Jeopardy! is this by design.
* DramaticSpotlight: Used during the Final Jeopardy! Round (ever since Season 7, and is still used to this day).
* DudeNotFunny: During one interview, the second contestant talked about her pet goat dying after eating an entire back of quick-dry concrete. Alex interrupted her admonishing the audience to ask if it was a 60- or 80-pound bag, to which she replied that he was being insensitive. Alex then declined to interview the third contestant.
* DueToTheDead: At the beginning of the episode airing 11-9-2020, producer Mike Richards, in his comments at the beginning of the show, noted that there were 35 episodes that had not yet been aired at the time of Trebek's passing, and that it was Trebek's wish that they be aired as-is. After Richards closed his remarks with a somber "This is ''Jeopardy!''", the entire set darkened.
* EarlyBirdCameo: According to NBC records, Alex Trebek appeared in the Fleming run twice in 1974 (March 7 and the first week of April) to promote his short-lived game show (and his first American show), ''The Wizard of Odds'', a decade before starting his long run as host.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The first episodes in 1964 had a slightly different board (with the category titles located above ''and below'' the dollar amounts) and different contestant podiums (the score displays were directly in the middle, while the nameplates were on top). By mid-1965, the lower category displays had been removed and the contestant podiums reworked into the form used for the rest of the run. See also ObviousRulePatch, below.
** The first Trebek season, for that matter. Just like the Fleming version, contestants could ring in as soon as the clue was revealed; Alex would often add chatter about each clue; and of course, a RulesSpiel before each round. It's been said that not one game in the first season saw all 61 clues played. As well, there were no on screen graphics listing contestant names during the introduction.
** The first Trebek season also aired on most stations late at night or early in the morning. The poor clearances were due to the fact that most stations at the time didn't think a serious game show (game shows by this point were mostly lite faire) would succeed. Merv Griffin used his clout from the success of ''Wheel of Fortune'' to request stations to move the program to the more lucrative evening time. Most of them did this, with many of them pairing the program with ''Wheel of Fortune'' for an hour block. Some affiliates continue to air the program in the morning or afternoon time frame.
** Early on, the Daily Double sound effect on the Trebek version was a "sweeping" sound on a synthesizer, somewhat like a baby version of the THX "deep note". After about a month, the sound effect was changed to the electronic "trill" still used to this day.
** There seemed to be more of an attempt to incite drama in the early Alex Trebek episodes, as there were often canned gasps after incorrect or missed questions. Trebek would also "caution [the players] about the jeopardy" -- namely, that they would lose money for incorrect questions -- and tell them that they were "out of jeopardy" at the end of each round. These dramatics were quickly dropped.
** Trebek himself had a different personality for the first 7-8 seasons, where he was more of a game show host stereotype with his sometimes overly enthusiastic positivity and high energy. Around season eight or nine, he developed more of the personality he was known for, and stayed that way until his death in 2020.
** The shots of the clues would rotate between the now-familiar full-screen zoom of the text and an actual shot of the monitor where the text was displayed. Eventually the latter was phased out. Relatedly, Daily Doubles would originally show a still shot of the monitor with the Daily Double logo flashing within, cut to the contestant as he or she wagered, then cut back to the monitor to show the clue. By Season 2, the clue text began to be superimposed on a shot of the contestant after the wager, and by 1986, the Daily Double logo began "flying" out of the monitor as the clues do.
** Season 2 began in September 1985 by placing the defending champions in the ''third'' podium at the far right, and introducing them first in an episode. This experiment only lasted one week before moving back to the first podium at the left.
** The original 1985 Tournament of Champions quarterfinals saw contestants grouped together in games in chronological order by when their original run on the show was (resulting in one game featuring two contestants named Paul). Starting the next year, ''Jeopardy!'' ignored chronological order when selecting quarterfinal matchups.
** Competition wise, ''Jeopardy!'''s first two seasons are seen by many fans as lacking in "great" champions and the common gameplay strategies and preparation that most notable champions have since utilized. No one from the inaugural 1984-85 season has ''ever'' won a game in a later reunion tournament, and from season 2, the only contestant to do so is 1986 TOC winner Chuck Forrest, who is often considered the modern show's first great player. In fact, six of the nine lowest earning TOC qualifiers in history came from season 2.
** For the first 11 seasons, ''Jeopardy!'' rigidly scheduled their annual tournaments in the same sweeps period month each year, with the Tournament of Champions in November (later preceded by a week of Celebrity games), the Teen Tournament in February, the College Championship in May, and the Seniors Tournament ending the season in July (and previously airing in May before the College Championship was introduced). Starting in season 12, tournaments were moved to a fluid scheduling pattern, though with the exception of the December 1995 Seniors Tournament, and the September 2004 and March 2009 [=ToCs=], they are still held at least partially in the aforementioned sweeps periods.
*** As well, the Tournament of Champions ran for its first 9 installments (1985-1993) as an annual November event with the entire previous season being the qualifying period for it. Starting in the 1993-1994 season, the qualifying periods changed to all games between tournaments.
** From January 1998 until April 1999, ''Jeopardy!'' held nine one-off Celebrity Jeopardy! games that weren't scheduled as part of a week of celebrity episodes, though the last four were scheduled on consecutive Mondays. These episodes featured themed contestant groupings and names (i.e. Sitcom Stars Night, Olympians Night, and so on). One-off celebrity episodes were largely retired afterwards, save for one in March 2009 (as a precursor to that year's Tournament of Champions in Las Vegas) and the quarterfinals of the next season's Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament (which were scattered throughout the season before the final rounds aired in May).
** Though ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' and Power Players Week contestants typically get $1,000 to play with in ''Final Jeopardy!'' if they finish with no money, the amounts varied prior to 2009 for scores below $0. Many celebrities with negative totals basically had the minus removed from their negative post-Double score (effectively multiplying it by -1), but there are recorded games prior to 2009 where celebrities with negative money were spotted even less (i.e. $500, $100), possibly depending on how the game itself went.
** Though only in its third season, ''Sports Jeopardy!'' differed in its first season by not having returning champions. As a result, the chase to get into the season-ending two day championships saw contestants making high and risky wagers to rack up points in order to try and qualify. Now, returning champions are in full effect, with victories gaining precedence over accumulated points.
** Seasons 1-8 (1984-92) had contestant interviews held after the first commercial break and the Jeopardy! round wrapped up afterwards. However, from seasons 9 through 12 (1992-96), the Jeopardy! round would be completed immediately following the first break and the interviews took place afterwards. Season 13 (1996-97) switched them back to where they've been since.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: On February 4, 1994, Tom Nichols was in his 5th game, but lost due to an incorrect Final Jeopardy answer. Several months later, it was determined that there was a "clue discrepancy" and he was correct after all, and he was invited back on October 10, 1994 to try again for his 5th victory. He got it, qualifying in time for the Tournament of Champions that took place the following month.
* EasterEgg: The Season 35 intro is full of them, including images of RunningGag categories such as "Potpourri", "Those Darn Etruscans", and "The Dreaded Opera Category", along with a picture of a mustache dated September 22, 2001 (the first episode which Alex hosted without a mustache).
* EscapeArtist: Often cited for ''Jeopardy!'' champions who frequently win games despite trailing going into Final Jeopardy!, where they're not in control of their destiny and likely need the leading contestant to be incorrect or do the wagering math wrong to have a shot at victory.
** September 2001 5 day champion Mark Dawson used some skill and luck to force some big escapes in Final. In his very first game (where he trailed $7,600-$7,000), he won after wagering all but $1 in Final, as the leader just wagered $1,400, rather than the $6,401 lockout wager. A $0 wager on a triple stumper won him his fourth game, while a $200 math error from leading finalist Brian Weikle handed Mark the Tournament of Champions victory in May 2003. More recently, a light wager from second helped Mark win his opening game of 2014's Battle of the Decades tournament, allowing him to lock out Claudia Perry and allow him to steal the win when Dave Abbott missed Final.
** June 2006 5 day champion Celeste [=DiNucci=] definitely knew how to wager from behind during her games, winning her second and final regular games with Final comebacks when her opponents missed and she wagered to stay above them if she did the same. She pulled it off again in the 2007 Tournament of Champions, surging past Jeff Spoeri to force a tiebreaker with Christian Haines in the semifinals (which she won), before one final savvy wager helped her steal the championship from Doug Hicton in the finals, despite his own impressive performance in the second game.
** May 2012 6 day champion Joel Pool needed an escape from second place to win four of his six games, only leading going into Final for his second and fourth games. In each case, the leader missed, with Joel wagering almost everything in 3 of 4 occasions.
** Eventual 2015 TOC finalist Kerry Greene won her third-fifth games that April after betting basically everything while the leader missed in each case. She pulled one more escape in the Tournament of Champions under similar circumstances that November, rallying past Dan Feitel to make the finals.
** May 2015 5 day champion Andrew Haringer made a habit out of this in his championship reign, winning ''his first four games'' after the leading challenger missed Final, including a savvy game 3 wager where he won by $1. However, his final win was a runaway. Coincidentally, Andrew faced Kerry in the TOC quarterfinals. In this case, Kerry led going into Final and won the game, though Andrew secured a wild card.
** Though his massive ''Jeopardy!'' successes and winnings speak for themselves, even Brad Rutter needed some big escapes en route to winning his $4 million plus over the years. Were it not for Leslie Frates gambling on a $0 wager in the Million Dollar Masters semifinals, Michael Rooney missing Final and not accounting for Brad's wagering savvy in the Ultimate TOC quarterfinals, and Ken Jennings missing Final in game 2 of the Battle of the Decades finals, Brad's career winnings would ''only'' be $330,102.
* EveryYearTheyFizzleOut:
** After becoming the biggest cash winner of season 17, 2001 Tournament of Champions semifinalist Babu Srinivasan was invited to all three of Jeopardy!'s most recent reunion tournaments (the Million Dollar Masters Tournament in 2002, the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005, and the Battle of the Decades in 2014), but was eliminated in the opening round each time. If you count the 2001 Tournament of Champions, he's ''0-5'' in tournament play (he was a wild card semifinalist in 2001). Coincidentally, all four tournaments that he was in were won by all-time money winner Brad Rutter, but they oddly have never been drawn into the same match.
** Similarly, two early 4 day champions (Lionel Goldbart in 1986 and Kate Waits in 1987) were favourite invitees to later tournaments, but they also finished their ''Jeopardy!'' runs with 5 straight losses. Both lost their 5th and final regular play game, both games in their respective TOC (they were each wild card semifinalists), the ''Super Jeopardy!'' quarterfinals, and their opening game in a later reunion tournament each (Lionel in 1993's 10th Anniversary Tournament and Kate in 2002's Million Dollar Masters tournament). If you count ''Sports Jeopardy!'', Kate has lost ''six'' straight, having lost on the Crackle spinoff in February 2015.
** Since winning her five games in December 2007, Cora Peck has gone 0-4, losing in her attempt to win her sixth game, in the quarterfinals and semifinals in the 2009 Tournament of Champions (she was a wildcard semifinalist), and on ''Sports Jeopardy!'' in July 2015, when she overwagered in a lock situation.
* ExcitedShowTitle: The show's name has always ended in an exclamation point. Its spinoffs also end in exclamation marks.
* FateDrivesUsTogether:
** The last quarterfinal of the May 2010 Tournament of Champions saw Vijay Balse defeat Jason Zollinger and Stefan Goodreau to advance to the semifinals, though Jason and Stefan both also advanced as wild cards. As fate would have it, the finalists in that year's TOC were... Vijay Balse, Jason Zollinger, and Stefan Goodreau, who each won their separate semifinal games. (Balse won the two-day final rematch.)
** 1987 Tournament of Champions winner Bob Verini seemed fated to rematch many of his tournament opponents. In 1990's ''Super Jeopardy!'' tournament, he faced both of the other 1987 finalists (Eugene Finerman and Dave Traini) in the last two rounds, and while he did defeat Finerman (and 1989 Teen Tournament winner Eric Newhouse) in their rematch, he and Traini both were upset by Bruce Seymour in the finals. Then, in 2002, Verini rematched Eric Newhouse in the finals of the Million Dollar Masters tournament, though both lost to Brad Rutter.
** In tournament play on the syndicated version, ''Jeopardy!'' producers traditionally avert booking rematches from prior rounds or tournaments unless it's the finals when you can't get around it, and fate has seen a number of rematches from quarterfinal opponents there. TOC rematches from regular play games, however, have occurred on two rare occasions. After eventual 3 day champion Vik Vaz defeated 4 day champion Bill Macdonald in November 2005, they both managed to advance to the finals of the May 2006 Tournament of Champions, where Vaz outplayed Macdonald again, only for both to lose to Michael Falk. 7 years later, eventual 5 day champion Paul Nelson dethroned 7 day champion Keith Whitener in November 2012, only for them to surprisingly be booked against each other in the semifinals of the February 2013 TOC. Despite the presence of 9 day champion Jason Keller in the same match, Whitener avenged his original loss to advance to the finals.
** Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter have competed against each other in a record eight episodes of ''Jeopardy!'', with Brad defeating Ken in the finals of both the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and the Battle of the Decades, while both lost to the Watson supercomputer in The IBM Challenge. However, as both are elite level ''Jeopardy!'' contestants, their own knowledge bases and buzzer skills are arguably more to blame than fate.
** Similar to the 2010 TOC example, the finalists of the 1992 College Tournament, Nick Jungman, Stephanie Leveene, and Billy Baxter, all played against one another in the quarterfinals. Nick had won their quarterfinal match with Billy and Stephanie advancing as wildcards, each winning their separate semifinal games, before Billy ended up winning the tournament.
** The November 2019 Tournament of Champions found James Holzhauer competing against Emma Boetcher, who defeated him in regular play. [[spoiler:James defeated her in the tournament.]]
* {{Filler}}: The November 8, 2022 episode fell during that year's Tournament of Champions. Because ''Jeopardy!'' was expected to be pre-empted on nearly the entire West Coast for network coverage of midterm elections, along with some East Coast markets for local election coverage, the episode for this day was merely a filler "practice" game that had no impact on the tournament's proceedings, meaning viewers who couldn't watch ''Jeopardy!'' on Election Day would not miss out on anything. Sister program ''Wheel of Fortune'' was a still typical new episode on this day.
* ForegoneConclusion:
** If the player in the lead has more than twice as much as the second-place player going into Final Jeopardy!, no one can catch them. This is known as a "lock" game, assuring the first-place contestant of winning (as long as they don't do something so amazingly stupid as [[PersonAsVerb pulling a]] [[Series/{{Cheers}} Cliff Clavin]]).
** And then there's the 2011 Tournament of Champions, for which "lock" was an understatement. Champion Roger Craig finished the first day of the final with a $31,200 lead over 2nd place opponent Tom Nissley, who finished Double Jeopardy! with $14,600 on the second day; Roger was therefore guaranteed to win the tournament by $2,000 or more no matter what everybody wagered.
** A 2004 Power Players Week game featuring Al Franken had a category entitled "[[Series/SaturdayNightLive SNL]] Presidential Players". Needless to say, Al swept the category. Then he apologized to his opponents (Keith Olbermann and Gretchen Carlson), explaining that he wrote ''four of the five sketches featured in the category.''
* FormulaBreakingEpisode:
** The IBM Challenge in 2011, which was taped at an IBM lab in New York, with the first match was split between two episodes, allowing room for lots of behind-the-scenes footage (Also, the whole conceit of a ''computer'' facing off with real ''Jeopardy!'' contestants.)
** When ''Jeopardy!'' travelled to Berkley, California to tape the 1998 College Championship, they also taped a special episode called "The Battle of the Bay Area Brains" that aired only in the San Francisco market, rather than among that season's national syndicated run. It featured three notable champions from the area competing for charity, with 1988 TOC semifinalist Michael Rankins defeating 10th Anniversary Tournament finalist Leslie Frates and 1996 TOC semifinalst Beverly Spurs to win a $7,700 prize package.
* FreezeFrameBonus: The set pieces for road shows in the 2000s often included oversized replicas of books, most of which had funny titles that were only seen for a couple seconds as the camera panned the set going in and out of commercial breaks.
* GameShowHost: Art Fleming and Creator/AlexTrebek have hosted the regular version. Creator/BobBergen hosted ''Jep!'', Jeff Probst hosted ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' before he would become known for ''Series/{{Survivor}}'', and sportscaster Dan Patrick hosts ''Sports Jeopardy!''
* GameShowWinningsCap:
** Until 2003, contestants could only stay on for five days and win up to $75,000 (later $100,000), with the excess donated to a charity of the contestant's choice. Since then, a contestant can stay on so long as s/he keeps winning, and keep ''all'' winnings. Shortly after the cap was removed, Ken Jennings ran for 75 games (74 wins and then his defeat by Nancy Zerg).
** ''Jeopardy!'' is far more lenient than ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' in that it still has returning champions (''Wheel'' did away with them in 1998). Once you've appeared on the current version of ''Jeopardy!'', whether before or after Alex Trebek's death, you're ineligible to play again unless one of the following happens:
*** You're invited back for a tournament or a special game (such as Jennings vs. Rutter vs. IBM's Watson).
*** You're invited back because of a ruling error that may have affected the result of your game.
*** You're not able to continue as champion due to illness, previous commitments, etc., and are called back to continue playing once your schedule clears.
** ''Sports Jeopardy!'' had no returning champions for its first season. Like its parent show did in 2004, winning limits were abolished for its second season, and like Ken a decade prior, Vinny Varadarajan capitalized on the new rule for a 15 day reign as champion.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: On 21 February 2017 episode of , during the College Tournament, Stanford student Viraj Mehta displayed an extended middle finger for at least seven seconds, supposedly to illustrate his interview subject, the geometry of folded pizza slices. [[https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/02/142375/jeopardy-viraj-mehta-middle-finger Mehta layer confirmed on Twitter that his gesture was deliberate]].
* GoldenSnitch: Played with. In theory, Final Jeopardy can result in people [[AllOrNothing doubling their money or losing everything]]. It is, however, rather common for Double Jeopardy! to end with second place having less than half of the leader's score. The leader can simply bet nothing and be guaranteed a victory. Also, if the leader bets enough money, they can guarantee themselves victory if they're correct.
* GrandFinale: The last NBC episode of the original Fleming era featured some clips of notable moments — the end of the 1967 College Tourney (with Fleming as the most excited guy in the room), Mel Brooks on the 2,000th episode (1972), and Gene Shalit amusingly tackling a Daily Double. At the end, Fleming thanked the viewers and left the now-darkened set to Charlie Chaplin's "Smile".
** 2020’s Greatest of All Time event is considered this for the Trebek era, reuniting the show’s three most successful contestants to determine which one of them is the most outstanding player in ''Jeopardy!'' history. Despite the sense of closure, Trebek continued to host regular episodes until his death later that year.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Ken Jennings would occasionally give his responses in foreign languages (e.g. "¿Qué es nada?"). Sometimes, entire categories focus on foreign languages, and the answer usually must be a translation, or the word itself. Trebek was rather good at accents. He also liked to throw foreign phrases at contestants who mention that they are fluent in another language.
* GuestHost: Following Trebek's death in Season 37, the show confirmed a multitude of guest hosts would fill in for the remainder of the season until a new successor was chosen; Ken Jennings was first, followed by executive producer Mike Richards. After him came Creator/KatieCouric, [[Series/TheDoctorOzShow Dr. Mehmet Oz]], Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Creator/AndersonCooper, [[Series/SixtyMinutes Bill Whitaker]], 2017 Tournament of Champions winner Buzzy Cohen, Creator/MayimBialik, Creator/SavannahGuthrie, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Creator/GeorgeStephanopoulos, ''Good Morning America'' anchor Robin Roberts, ''Squawk on the Street'' anchor David Faber, sportscaster Joe Buck, and Creator/LeVarBurton. Richards was tapped as the new host, but stepped down after taping only one week's worth of episodes. The rest of Season 38 was split between Jennings and Bialik.
* HalloweenEpisode: On Halloween 1997 (eventual TOC finalist Bob Harris' debut game), Alex dressed as the Statue of Liberty.
* HammerspaceHair: Leonard Cooper, champion of the 2013 Teen Tournament, revealed in an anecdote that a fellow student hid a highlighter in his afro, and it remained undiscovered for several days.
* HandicappedBadass:
** Eddie Timanus, the first blind contestant on the show and quite the high winner, becoming a retired 5-day champion and a 2000 Tournament of Champions semifinalist. Although he proved that it's not that difficult for ''Jeopardy!'' to accommodate blind contestants, only one or two others have ever appeared after him.
** The changes that were made to accommodate Timanus were: no visual clues or Video Daily Doubles; a card with the categories printed in Braille (handed to him at the start of each round), a tone that would denote when the contestants could buzz in (usually, the contestants would see a light around the board when Alex was finished speaking and they could buzz in without a small time penalty) and a Braille keyboard to type in his wagers and responses in Final Jeopardy!
** Also, though not related to Timanus's blindness, it is notable that starting with his shows, contestants began the show already standing at their podiums when Johnny Gilbert introduced them, instead of the old practice of them walking up to the podiums as they were being introduced. The practice became permanent starting in September 2000.
* HeliumSpeech: On February 23, 1987, Alex inhaled helium before delivering the Audio Daily Double "Type of gas I just inhaled that makes me talk like this" in the category Chemistry for $600.
* HistoryRepeats: The first giant-killer, Nancy Zerg (who defeated Ken Jennings), lost her next game pretty handily. The first giant-giant-killer, Nancy Donehower (who defeated Jonathan Fisher, the 11-day champion who’d defeated Matt Amodio) also lost her next game.
* HollywoodToneDeaf: Averted. Instead of singing, Alex (or occasionally Johnny) reads the lyrics in a hilariously deadpan manner. One category even had pre-recorded clues where Trebek performed five songs with the help of AutoTune.
* HomeFieldAdvantage:
** Robin Carroll definitely used this to her advantage in her victory in the 2000 Tournament of Champions, as that year's event was held in Atlanta, Georgia (she's from nearby Marietta). On a wider scale, she also had the home field advantage for her victory in the next year's International Tournament (held in Las Vegas) as the only representative of the American ''Jeopardy!'' in the field.
** A pair of College Champions have won that event near their alma maters during the years when it took road trips away from the main studio. 1999 College Champion Carolyn Cracraft (a then-junior at The University of Chicago) won that year's tournament in nearby Rosemont, Illinois, while 2007 College Champion Cliff Galiher (a then-sophomore at UCLA) won his tournament while on the campus of the nearby rival University of Southern California.
** In a sense, any Los Angeles-area contestants will have home field advantage as they will have less travel and work commitments to worry about, but then again, most ''Jeopardy!'' contestants are from California for a reason, and none are guaranteed to win when they do make the show.
** Arguably, any returning champion will have home field advantage simply from their recent experience on the show and familiarity with the buzzer compared to the new challengers.
* HomeGame:
** Several board games, video game versions as early as the NES (an Atari 2600 version was planned shortly before [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 the market crashed]]), and several PC versions as well. Creator/{{THQ}} released Wii versions of ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel of Fortune'' in 2010, and again for multiple systems in 2012. There's also a school version that uses a dedicated console and allows custom answers and images to be used. Modified scoring calculators are also sold which allow playing along with the actual show.
** Milton Bradley's home game merely reused the plastic board from its ''Series/{{Concentration}}'' home games and tinted the window red. As such, only five categories could be played per round and one window in Double Jeopardy! had to be reserved for Final.
** Inexplicably, the later 1980s/90s Pressman versions kept the same odd setup for the board and Final Jeopardy, and even versions released as late as 2003 still had it; they also released ''Electric Jeopardy!''- with a set of battery operated buzz-in devices with rotating dials for scorekeeping. Conversely, the 1992 Tyco version had a radically different style of gameplay (six category stands instead of a board, with the players splitting up the duties of answering and reading each one), while the 1999 Parker Brothers version finally had the board with the correct amount of categories, pre-selected Daily Doubles and reserved a special space for Final Jeopardy! below the main board.
** Around 1990, there was also a premium-rate HomeParticipationSweepstakes phone-in version known as "Phone ''Jeopardy!''" (''Wheel'' had one, too).
** For many years, ''Jeopardy!'' advertised on-air and sold the Jeopardy! Challenger Scorekeeper, a handheld LCD device that allowed contestants to keep score at home as they played along, as well as wager on Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! While often mistaken for a game, it's basically a modified calculator. Though it's obsolete for modern episodes (as it was made for games before dollar amounts were doubled), equivalent scorekeepers are available online and on mobile devices that feature the current values.
** Tiger Electronics released two handheld LCD ''Jeopardy!'' games in the late 1990s. Due to technical limitations, the first version merely listed numbers for each clue that you'd have to read in a companion book that came with the game or its expansion cartridges, while the second version allowed for a scrolling clue display, and is better received as a result.
* HomeParticipationSweepstakes:
** 1990 “Phone Jeopardy!” (See HomeGame above)
** The “Play and Win!” contest in 1998 sponsored by Sears, where home viewers were given a category (different ones each week) and a clue (different clues daily). Viewers who submitted correct responses were entered into a drawing where the grand prize was $1,000,000. (Wheel of Fortune also had this as well.)
*** In addition, the second and third place contestants during the two-week sweepstakes received Sears gift certificates.
** During season 26 (2009-2010), Sony invited viewers to join the “Jeopardy! Premier Club” to earn rewards points daily for submitting the correct Final Jeopardy! category. In addition, tournaments were held each weekend with clues taken from that week’s episodes. Weekly winners played in a quarterly tournament with a mixture of show material and fresh material. The three quarterly tournament winners played in a Final tournament with all fresh material. The eventual champion won $5,000 in cash ($10,000 if they were an active Sony Card holder) and a trip to Los Angeles for a taping of the show that would air in season 27 (2010-2011).
* HufflepuffHouse: Sometimes, one or two players CantCatchUp or otherwise have so much trouble keeping pace that they almost become irrelevant in the game. This was especially apparent in Ken Jennings' shows, particularly towards the end when he'd have upwards of 40+ total responses per show.
* HurricaneOfPuns: Variations on "The 'L' You Say" to indicate that correct responses will begin with L, are just one example of these.
* INeedAFreakingDrink:
** If a contestant mentions alcohol in any way during their interviews, Alex seems to take great notice.
** Subverted in a notorious clip that shows Trebek swearing like a sailor and supposedly drinking while trying to shoot a "Phone Jeopardy!" promo. Although the {{Cluster F Bomb}}s are real, Trebek was actually alternating between Diet Coke and a glass of water.
* InSeriesNickname: Occasionally, ''Jeopardy!'' contestants will play under a nickname rather than their first name, even if they're billed under their first name in the introductions. Notable examples include 1995 Tournament of Champions winner Ryan Holznagel (who played under his long-time nickname Fritz in 2014's Battle of the Decades), 2004 4 day champion Scott Renzoni (who played as "Renzo" for his appearances), and 2008 Teen Tournament finalist Rachel Cooke, who played as "Steve" for the whole tournament, luckily so when she faced Rachel Horn in the finals. Averted with 1988 Teen Tournament finalist David Javerbaum, who only played as "DJ" in the finals out of necessity, as another finalist was named David.
** Similarly, some ''Jeopardy!'' champions have made return appearances under a different variation of the first name they originally played under. Some examples include Dan Green (Danny in the 1986 TOC), Sandra Gore (Sandy in ''Super Jeopardy!''), Mike Day (Michael in the 1985 and Ultimate [=TOCs=]), Michael Dupee (Mike in the 1996 TOC and Battle of the Decades), Michael Thayer (Mike in the Ultimate TOC), Dave Traini (David in the Ultimate TOC), and Andy Westney (Andrew in the Ultimate TOC and Battle of the Decades).
** ''Sports Jeopardy!'' host Dan Patrick occasionally gives nicknames to successful repeat champions, like "The Duke of Earl" for season 3 8-time champion Earl Holland, and "Vinny V" for season 2 15-time champion Vinny Varadarajan.
* InflationNegation:
** The Fleming version used the same dollar figures in its entire run, with the lowest clue valued at a mere $10. At the time of its cancellation, other game shows were offering much larger purses, most notably ''[[Series/{{Pyramid}} The $10,000 Pyramid]]''.
** The minimum allowed wager on a Daily Double is still $5, which was half the value of the lowest valued clue on the board in the Fleming years. Nowadays, you only see a wager that small if a contestant isn't certain that they'll get it right, and don't feel like risking any money on it. One notable example was when Arthur Chu found a Daily Double in a sports category during his second game in January 2014.
* {{Irony}}:
** In the 2006 Teen Tournament semifinals, high school sophomore Papa Chakravarthy (who is of Indian descent) lost $1,000 on the first Daily Double in a clue about an Asian 2 word capital constructed in the 1910s and 1920s. He guessed Phnom Penh, Cambodia, but the correct question was "What is ''New Dehli''?" Despite the ironic miss, he only lost $1,000, and still won both the game and the tournament.
** On April 27, 2012, a contestant missed the last clue of the game, a Daily Double which presented lyrics to "I Lost on Jeopardy" by Music/WeirdAlYankovic ("My hope of winning sank, 'cause I got the Daily Double now, and then my mind went blank"). She didn't recognize the song and ended up losing in Final Jeopardy!
* ItRunsInTheFamily:
** With ''Jeopardy!'' being such a LongRunner, there have been a few contestants to be parents, siblings, and/or offspring to other contestants. For example, 1986 TOC finalist Marvin Shinkman's son Ron was a one day champion in 2001, while 2010 TOC finalist Stefan Goodreau competed on ''Jeopardy!'' just one season after his father John, who won $30,600 in his only win.
** For a majority of the Trebek era, it was not uncommon to see contestants who competed on either the original version or the short-lived 1978 version hosted by Art Fleming.
* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: IBM's Watson computer, an AI experiment, was a contestant February 14-16, 2011. If Watson managed to win, IBM would continue developing its artificial intelligence algorithms and sell them as a knowledge management platform. Watson won spectacularly, and thanks to this successful test it has branched out into an entire new product line from IBM.
* JustAKid: Played literally with the Kids/Back To School weeks from seasons 16-29 and 31, where 11-12 year old kids play standalone ''Jeopardy!'' games against each other. The clue difficulties are obviously easier than in regular games, but the performance of some can make fans wonder how they'd have done in regular games had they waited until they were older.
** When Teen Tournament winners were invited to the Tournament of Champions, this was often averted when said teenagers held their own against adults in their matches. Many Teen Tournament champs made TOC semifinals, with Eric Newhouse, Matt Zielenski, Sahir Islam, and Chacko George winning TOC quarterfinal games to get there (Chacko even defeated eventual finalist Steve Fried in their opening game), and The Final Wager's Keith Williams noted that Teen Tournament winners performed better on average than College Champions in the TOC. However, no Teen champions ever made the finals in their own right, a possible contributing factor to why they're no longer in the TOC field.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** 1986 contestant Barbara Lowe was said by many eyewitnesses to be a total {{Jerkass}}--she quibbled with Trebek on-camera when one of her answers was ruled wrong, and, according to ex-writer Harry Eisenberg, drew irate letters from fans for her behavior. Nonetheless, she retired undefeated. However, she had previously appeared on several game shows, most by using aliases, and had lied to ''Jeopardy!'' about how many she'd been on (at the time, you could only be on two in a five-year span). She was barred from appearing in the Tournament of Champions, and her winnings were withheld until she threatened them with a lawsuit.
** On [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3171 October 12, 2009]], one of the contestants was Jeff Kirby, who originally appeared on the show in December 1999. As stated at GameShowWinningsCap, Trebek-era contestants are not allowed to appear again, but Jeff somehow got through the audition process. He didn't get caught until someone on the show's message board pointed out that he was wearing ''the same tie'' he had worn in his 1999 appearance. (Either he has a spectacularly limited wardrobe, or he was thumbing his nose at the powers that be.) What makes him fit into this trope? He finished in third place on both shows (and of course, was denied the $1,000 third-place winnings from his 2009 episode).
* LegFocus: The "Long Lovely Ladies" category was about women who qualify for this trope.
* LighterAndSofter:
** The clues were initially far more straightforward, as compared to the show's current affinity for puns and {{Shout Out}}s. Whether or not this has dumbed down the show is up to the viewer.
** Alex Trebek himself. During the early seasons, Trebek was more akin to a very strict teacher: he would snap at the contestants if they forgot a rule (most commonly, phrasing with "What is ...?") or giving an answer that was inappropriate to the category (such as in a category about numbers, anything other than a numerical answer), and treated the show very seriously. Once the writers began loosening up with more esoteric and humorous categories, Trebek's hosting style became less formal with it. Particularly in the 2000s, it's now become very common for him to laugh, smile, and joke around with the contestants.
* LongSongShortScene: Since 1997, the opening themes for ''Jeopardy!'' are full two-to-three-minute orchestrations featuring a wide array of arrangements on a variety of instruments, from electric guitars to saxophones to brass. However, the opening introduction is only 45 seconds long, and with the closing credits shaved for time constraints over the years, most viewers will never hear the theme in full unless they go hunting for it online. Even the original synthesized theme fell into this, as the building opening notes were stretched out over the contestant introductions, but Alex would be introduced and the music stopped before the actual melody kicked in.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** Any time a contestant bends the "form of a question" rules by saying something like "Could that be ____?" or "Is that an ____?". The judges aren't terribly picky on what constitutes a question.
*** One contestant actually got credit for answering "Time Magazine. ''[{{beat}}]'' What's that?", and another got credit for just saying "Who?" when the correct response was "Who are Music/TheWho?"
*** 2021 ultrachamp Matt Amodio is known for abusing this by starting all of his responses with "What's (answer)" even when it's a person's name rather than a thing.
** If the response itself is a question, nothing more needs to be done.
** Ken Jennings had fun with this in his 46th game from September 2004, questioning an answer with "What be ebonics?", which was accepted.
** Picking clues out of order (known as the "Forrest Bounce") can be seen as this by many, although in many cases it may be strategically advantageous. It also seemed to become more commonplace after Arthur Chu used it to his advantage.
** One Final Jeopardy! had the correct response of "What is oxygen?" A contestant only got as far as writing "What is O?" before time ran out, but the judges accepted it because "O" is the periodic symbol for oxygen.
** Countless contestants have given an incorrect response, and quickly corrected themselves before Alex or the judges can rule them correct. As long as the correction is made before the ruling is given, then the response is valid.
** When tie games were allowed in regular play, a handful of contestants in the lead after ''Double Jeopardy!'' were known to play to tie games on purpose. Some would do so out of kindness (such as to allow a challenger to come back after the reigning champion's 5th and final win), but others like Arthur Chu used it as strategy, to allow a trailing contestant (that was perceived to be weaker) to tie them, come back the next day, and be outperformed again.
* LovelyAssistant: Downplayed example with the "Clue Crew", a cast of assistants who provide pre-recorded visual clues regularly.
* ManipulativeEditing: If a round ends with multiple clues on which no one rings in, then they are typically edited out. So to home viewers, it merely appears that they ran out of time instead.
* MoonLogicPuzzle: Commonly used, usually by putting a key word in quotes to hint at the right response, or wording the clue so that it mentions something else of an identical name. Referred to as the "[[http://www.j-archive.com/help.php#teaseoutmetric Tease-Out Metric]]" by the fandom, and lampshaded by the show with "Stupid Answers".
* MusicalGag: The fanfare at the end of the 2008-present theme is the same melody as the Daily Double jingle.
* MustMakeAmends:
** It's not uncommon for scores to be changed within the course of the game. This is usually due to either the judges or Alex mishearing a response; Alex failing to explain a category with a gimmick; or an inaccurate or ambiguous clue misleading a contestant. Should a correction be needed, it will usually be given upon returning from commercial, or before a Daily Double.
** If a contestant is found to have lost a game via an unfair ruling on a question that impacted the outcome, or via a flaw in game mechanics, they're often brought back on later episodes as a concession. Contestants like India Cooper, Paul Croshier, Bob Mesko, Tom Nichols, and Claudia Perry have benefited from such re-invites to later secure Tournament of Champions slots.
*** Averted if a contestant is brought back after an aforementioned error, only to lose worse than they did originally. For example, October 2002 4 day champion Phillip Steele was brought back for a second shot at his 5th win (and a 2003 TOC berth) the following April after a technical error in his original 5th game, only for his return episode to be the day that Brian Weikle won a then-record ''$52,000'' in an absolute runaway.
** In a unique example from tournaments, high school senior Milo Dochow was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the February 1999 Teen Tournament, but after a questionable judges ruling was found to have possibly cost him a semifinal spot, he was brought back for the February 2000 College Championship (though he didn't make it any farther there).
** On December 29, 2015, Final Jeopardy! in the category "Famous Last Names" read, "The first woman space shuttle pilot shares this surname with a man on the 1st manned lunar landing 26 years earlier", with the intended response being "Who is Collins?" Contestant Ashley Wilson answered "Aldrin" and lost all of her $9,400. After the show, a clip was dubbed in of Alex explaining that the clue "should have referred to the entire Apollo 11 mission rather than to just the lunar landing part of it", so Wilson was brought back on the 31st and went on to become a two-day champion.
** This happened ''three times'' in Season 34:
*** Rebecca Zoshak lost on the January 11, 2018 episode, which had the Final Jeopardy! clue "It's the first Oscar nominee for Best Picture to be produced by an internet streaming service" with the correct response being "What is ''Film/ManchesterByTheSea''?" Rebecca wagered $7,575 and gave no response. In a dubbed-in clip during the credits, Alex pointed out that the clue was imprecise due to the film being ''distributed'', not ''produced'', by a streaming service. Zoshak was brought back for March 21, 2018, where she became a one-day champion with $14,407.
*** Ryan Fenster, on his fifth game airing February 2, 2018, picked the $1,200 clue in the category "Roamin' Catholics", which read: "St. Thomas Aquinas died traveling to Lyon, France while attempting to heal this rift between the Latin & Greek churches." He rang in with "What is the great schism?", which was deemed too precise for the intended response of just "schism", and he ended up losing the game. Later on, a former writer for the show contacted them and pointed out that "great schism" should've been accepted, so Fenster was brought back to defend in July 2018, where he went on to play for three more games.
*** Vincent Valenzuela was a challenger on the July 13, 2018 episode, where Final Jeopardy! was "This slang term for an environmentalist is literally true of groups that used passive resistance vs. deforestation, as in India in 1973." However, when the clue was displayed on the studio's monitors, the "T" was missing, causing it to say "''His'' slang term..." instead and misleading Vincent into crossing out the correct response of "What is a tree hugger?" in favor of a different response. Due to the typo, the producers agreed to bring Vincent back. He reappeared on the September 25, 2018 episode.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes N-Z]]
* NegatedMomentOfAwesome: On July 3, 2000, all three contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with $5,200. Alex brought up the possiblity of the game ending in a three-way tie, meaning they all play again on the next show. Each player got Final Jeopardy! right and the two challengers bet everything... but returning champion Jeeks Rajagopal only wagered $5,000 and finished $200 short of tying. She not only lost her right to keep playing, she spoiled what would have been the first three-way tie in the show's history. A three-way tie eventually did happen seven years later[[note]]and that's the only occurrence thanks to tiebreaker clues being introduced in Season 31[[/note]].
* NintendoHard: While many players at home will know at least a small handful of clues, being good at the game is another story entirely, as it requires very extensive knowledge across a ''very'' wide range of topics, many of which aren't always practical to know for everyday life. These include topics such as literature, cinema, television, world history, world geography, current events, opera, stage plays, science, English linguistics, famous figures, and everything in between. Many of these are topics that the contestants' age range learned once in school but haven't needed to know since then, further elevating the difficulty of the game, and even a profession that might help in one type of question (such as working in the science or writing fields) will still leave the other topics to be filled. The difficulty raises even higher if one watches an older episode of the show, which requires you to be familiar with what was in the news at the time.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: In Final Jeopardy! on March 15, 2007, reigning champion Scott Weiss was leading with his opponents, James Kirby and Anders Martinson, tied for second. Both James and Anders got FJ! right, and Scott wagered to tie, leading to the first non-zero three-way tie in Jeopardy! history. Scott lost the next game to James.
* NoIndoorVoice: Sportscaster Joe Buck’s guest hosting stint in August 2021, which received criticism from viewers on social media regarding his loud voice.
* ObligatoryJoke: The May 1, 2007 Final Jeopardy! answer of, "This character was mentioned in the first line of ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''" led to one contestant correctly asking, "[[CatchPhrase Who is John Galt?]]"
* ObviousBeta: Compared to the circulating 1964-75 Fleming episodes, the clips shown from the March 5, 1964 "test" episode look like one. The September 18, 1983 pilot is basically Alex Trebek in the Fleming era with a "personal computer"-themed set and [[Series/LetsMakeADeal Jay Stewart]] announcing.
** The March 5, 1964 “test” episode was uploaded to Website/YouTube in its entirety on March 30, 2022 as part of [=JeoparDay=], celebrating the show’s 58th overall anniversary.
* ObviousRulePatch:
** Very early in the original Fleming run, only the ''proper'' phrasing was ruled as correct — contestants phrasing a question incorrectly (e.g., "What is Abraham Lincoln?") were asked by Fleming to use the "proper" phrasing. After Merv Griffin discovered that this was slowing down gameplay, the rule was slightly altered to give credit for a correct response so long as it was phrased in the form of a question. As mentioned above, this rule often gets exploited to its limits.
** Early on, the Final Jeopardy! board was located to the ''left'' of the contestants; such a viewpoint not only hurt some necks, but also gave the contestants the ability to see their opponent jotting down their response during the 30-second writing time.
** For the first season of the Trebek era, contestants could ring in as soon as the clue was revealed, which was also true of the Fleming era. This often led to more than one podium lighting up at the same time, or contestants buzzing in so quickly that their time limit expired before Alex finished reading the clue. In addition, Alex himself said that he found the original buzzer system annoying and distracting to home viewers. From season 2 onward, the buzzers activate after the clue is finished (indicated by white flashing lights around the game board), and premature ring-ins are locked out for 1/8 of a second.
** After a contestant lost because she forgot to phrase her Final Jeopardy! response as a question, they changed the rules so that the contestants write the "What" or "Who" part on their screens during the commercial break along with their wager, as opposed to writing it concurrently with the response. This is why some contestants who fail to come up with a Final Jeopardy! response will have only the word "what" or "who" on their screen, while others will accidentally omit the "is".
** ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' games originally saw each contestant guaranteed $10,000 for their charity, unless they won more during the game, with the week's biggest winner having their cash total doubled. As a result, if a low-scoring game resulted in no one surpassing $10,000 after Final Jeopardy!, everyone left with the same amount of money no matter who won. After ''three'' of the five Celebrity games from November 1996 resulted in sub-$10,000 scores for winning contestants (including a triple zero finish when all three contestants went all-in on Final), the first place minimum was increased to $15,000 for future installments, later jumping to $50,000 after clue values were doubled in 2002, and the doubled cash bonus was also eliminated after 1996. As well, after the triple-zero game, the rules were changed so that the leader after Double Jeopardy! would be named the winner if everyone went all-in and lost on Final, as seen with the 1998 "Ladies Night" celebrity game.
** Money equal to their score was awarded to all contestants in the Art Fleming era, but that changed to a "winner-take-all" format for the Trebek version, which promotes more risk taking for a more exciting show, and prevents contestants from ending participation if they've reached some needed goal amount.
** The 1994-95 season saw Jeopardy! move their production from Hollywood to Culver City; and on the September 19, 1994 episode, the telewriter used to write the Final Jeopardy response wasn't working properly on the center podium, resulting in the response not appearing very legibly. On the September 20, 1994 episode, Alex opened by [[https://archive.org/details/capture-a-100 explaining the issues]] and noting that as a backup; contestants would be able to write the answers on a card using a magic marker in case of any further issues with the telewriter.
** According to 2002 1-day champion (and future Hollywood actor) Dileep Rao, he was told by ''Jeopardy!'' producers that if he had to miss a scheduled taping due to his then-illness, he'd be retired as champion (he made the taping as a result, and finished Double Jeopardy! in the red). Since then, the show's stance has mellowed, allowing then-champions Priscilla Ball (due to illness) and Claudia Corriere (due to work conflicts, which occurred only because Alex's knee surgery postponed tapings for a few weeks) to miss their next taping day and come back for a later taping when ready and able.
** In ''Jeopardy!'' tournaments with wild cards since (at least) February 2002, all clues are guaranteed to be cleared from the board in every quarterfinal round, no matter what happened during the game beforehand. This is to ensure an even playing field in regards to contestants competing for wild cards, so as not to disadvantage anyone just because their game went a little slower. The possible instigating moment was in game 4 of the 2002 Teen Tournament quarterfinals, where the losing contestants missed the last wild card slot by $807 and $1,207 respectively, and time ran out before the last $1,000 clue could be called in the first round. However, ensuring 100% of clues get revealed can lead to some awkward cuts and edits when the episode airs.
** In the 2013 Teen Tournament semifinals where all three contestants finished with no money, the tiebreaker rules in tournament play were changed so that every game would have a declared winner, as the previous method was unfair to other semifinalists who wouldn't know about an extra wild card spot. If a triple zero finish happens again in a tournament, a tiebreaker clue is played, similar to how every other tie is decided in tournament play.
** After a barrage of ties at the start of Season 31, the long-standing rule that ties for first place during regular play result in the tied players becoming co-champions was eliminated in November 2014. As is the case during tournaments, ties for first during regular play are now broken by a tiebreaker clue, though this scenario didn't occur until March 1, 2018.
** Averted with the 2004 addition of extra rehearsal time before games taped in season 21, which followed Ken Jennings' then-48 game winning streak to end season 20. (His first 38 games, plus the first two weeks of season 21, taped during season 20 as a precaution against a potential strike-related work stoppage.) With Ken's streak in full force, producers realized that new challengers might not have as much rehearsal time to effectively compete, hence the added rehearsal time. As a result, Ken ''only'' won 26 more games once season 21 tapings resumed that summer.
* OffTheRails:
** A contestant who obviously doesn't know the right Final Jeopardy! sometimes draws a picture, makes {{Shout Out}}s, or openly writes "I don't know." On other occasions, a contestant knows the answer, but because the game has become a ForegoneConclusion in their favor (or, in some cases, it's to their advantage to bet $0 [[ViolationOfCommonSense even though they're not in the lead]]), just puts down something silly like "Hot Pastrami Sandwiches" or "Woo Hoo Yee Haw Yeah Baby".
** At least twice during Ken's run, a contestant wrote some variation on "What is Whatever Ken Wrote Down?", which also occurred during ''Sports Jeopardy!'' champion Vinny Varadarajan's ninth win. A couple others have written variants of "What is I have no idea?" Double subverted on Ken's 64th game. The middle contestant wrote "See next podium" with an arrow, only to point to the one on the right from the audience's point of view. It turned out that the contestant on the right gave a correct response while Ken did not, although Ken won anyway in a runaway.
** At least once, a contestant has proposed to his girlfriend in the audience via Final Jeopardy!
** And of course, if there's a list of things in the answer, giving a response of "[[Series/{{Cheers}} What are X things that have never been in my kitchen?]]"
** 1995 Tournament of Champions winner Ryan "Fritz" Holznagel liked wagering in palindromic numbers for Final Jeopardy! (anywhere from $888 to $7,887), only not doing so in two of his regular games and his Olympic Games Tournament semifinal. He also made similar wagers on Daily Doubles in game 2 of his TOC final and his reunion tournament appearances, even asking Alex if his $1,111 wager was possible the first time he tried it.
** On June 15th, 2007, 2 day champion Jared Cohen (who finished ''Double Jeopardy!'' with just $1) jokingly responded in ''Final'' with "What Is Kebert Xela", referencing the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' cutaway gag where Alex Trebek reciting his name backwards sent him back to his home dimension (though Alex amusingly forgot the reference, despite doing his own voice).
** November 4, 2011: In a Tournament of Champions quarterfinal, John Krizel and Tom Kunzen enter Final Jeopardy! trailing Joon Pahk by a wide margin. When it came time to reveal the responses, Krizel wrote "What is I have '''no''' idea?" and Kunzen [[https://static.parade.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/jeopardy-face-ftr.jpg drew a rage face]].
** 2015 ''Sports Jeopardy!'' 15-day champion Vinny Varadarajan made a habit of this on his ''Final'' responses during many of his runaway wins, especially as he was playing for points and had already sewn up the $5,000 winners prize in these games. Among the highlights: "What is Kcirtap Nad?" (trying to send host Dan Patrick to another dimension, though he too didn't get the reference), "Who are two people who have never been in my kitchen?" (referencing Cliff Clavin's ''Final'' response on ''Cheers''), "Who is the freeway I got stuck on today I really hate!" (he used ''Final'' as a platform to vent over being stuck on California's Interstate 405 that day, fittingly wagering $405), "What is IDK my BFF Jill?" (referencing a popular 2007 Cingular Wireless commercial), and "What is I award you this # of points, & may Dan have mercy on my soul" (referencing a line from the principal during the game show climax of ''Film/BillyMadison'').
** In the final episode of the IBM challenge, Ken Jennings wrote "I for one welcome our new computer overlords" with his answer and bet (see the ShoutOut entry, below). This itself got a ShoutOut on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3716 September 21, 2011]].
** In the 2015 Tournament of Champions semifinals, Alex Jacob responded to ''Final'' with "[[ProductPlacement What is Aleve]]", in reference their long-running sponsorship of the show, with "What is Aleve" often used in the plugs. As he was leading in a runaway, he wagered nothing. In that same tournament, he wagered $143 in his quarterfinal win, a common shorthand number for "I love you" popularized by Mr. Rogers. His Final Jeopardy! responses were tamer, complimenting his challengers and the show itself rather than answering (again, wagering nothing on both due to having massive leads).
** Leonard Cooper on the Final Jeopardy! at the end of the Teen Tournament in 2013: "Who is some guy in Normandy? But I just won $75,000!"
** 2004 College Champion Kermin Fleming memorably wagered $1,337 (in leetspeak) during his quarterfinal victory, which he won in a runaway.
** 2016 9 day champion Buzzy Cohen, obviously inspired by the ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'', turned into Sean Connery for his ''Final Jeopardy!'' responses in his three runwaway victories, answering with "See you tomorrow, Trebek!", "You aren't rid of me yet, Trebek!", and "Once more, Trebek... once more!" (The latter was particularly accurate, as he did lose his next game.)
* OhCrapSmile: Can happen when nobody rings in for certain clues. It happened to all three contestants simultaneously on June 15, 2011; the audience groaned when none of them could answer a clue about ''Series/HighRollers'', which even had a photo of Alex Trebek on the set.
* OldMaster: Any winner of Jeopardy!'s 10 Seniors Tournaments from 1987-1995 for contestants 50 and older, including two Tournament of Champions finalists (Lou Pryor and Marilyn Kneeland). Also applies to any older contestants in regular play that have long championship reigns on the show, and any past champions who do well in later Jeopardy! reunion tournaments, some over 20 years after their original runs.
* OneSteveLimit:
** Definitely utilized in regular play games to avoid confusion between contestants (hence why no one named Ken ever faced Ken Jennings). For example, after 13 day champion Matt Jackson's loss in October 2015, he was followed a few games later (on the same taping day) by a contestant named Matt Akridge, whose game would presumably have been postponed had Matt Jackson continued his reign that week.
** In tournament play, mostly instituted after the inaugural 1985 Tournament of Champions, which grouped contestants together chronologically via when their original reign on the show was. As a result, 5 day champions Paul Boymel and Paul Croshier were seeded together in the ''quarterfinals'', so Paul Croshier went by "SSGT Paul" for that game, referencing his post as a United States Marine Staff Sergeant. Paul Boymel won and advanced, and ''Jeopardy!'' has since seeded quarterfinal matchups without considering the contestants' chronological order. Now, producers avoid having same or similarly-named contestants in the same match where possible, hence why such conflicts only occur in tournament finals.
** In the 1996 Tournament of Champions, there were two contestants ''each'' named Michael (Dupee and Daunt), Bill (Sloan and Dickenson), and David (Sampugnaro and Cuneo), with Michael Dupee going as "Mike" for the tournament to avoid confusion. Both of the Davids went out in the quarterfinals, and ditto for the Bills in the semifinals, but both Michaels made the finals, where Dupee won the tournament. He played as Michael again for 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and then flipped back to Mike in 2014's Battle of the Decades.
*** In an earlier example, the 1988 Tournament of Champions had two contestants ''each'' named Bruce (Naegeli and Seymour) and Michael (Rankins and Block), as well as Steven Popper and Stephen Lebowitz, with their first names pronounced the same. In each case, one of the same-named pairs was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and the other made the semifinals (or in Bruce Naegeli's case, the finals).
*** The 1990 Tournament of Champions had Eric Terzuolo and Eri'''k''' Larsen, who were both semifinalists that year.
*** In the 1995 Tournament of Champions, two of the finalists were David Siegel and Isaac Segal, both last names pronounced the same way. Interestingly, David Siegel was Isaac Segal's immediate predecessor as champion, which Alex lampshaded in the latter's first 2 games.
** Two Teen Tournament finals have seen same-named contestants. The 1988 Teen Tournament finals featured finalists David Javerbaum and David Cook, with Javerbaum going by "DJ" for the finals (both lost to Michael Block). 20 years later, two of the competitors in the 2008 Teen Tournament, who both made the finals, were Rachel Horn (the eventual winner) and Rachel Cooke. In this case, Rachel Cooke was introduced as Rachel "[[GenderBlenderName Steve]]" Cooke, and played as Steve, which was a nickname she was referred to at school.
** This trope was especially needed in the 2003 Tournament of Champions, which had ''three'' contestants named Mark (Brown, Dawson, and Lee), and as they weren't seeded together, only three of that year's 10 TOC games didn't feature a contestant named Mark. Luckily, the scenario of a final round with three Marks didn't occur, as Mark Lee didn't make the semifinals, and Mark Brown didn't make the finals, while Mark Dawson eventually claimed first place in the tournament.
*** On a far bigger scale, 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions featured ''nine'' players that played as Michael during prior runs on the show, with only 1990 College Champion Michael Thayer opting to play as Mike this time around. Of the nine, both Michael Daunt and Michael Rooney advanced to the quarterfinals. Also, had Michael Block accepted his invite, there would have been ''ten'' Michaels in the field.
** Averted when there are contestants named Alex, as Alex Trebek has posed answers to a number of contestants with the same first name, most notably 2015 Tournament of Champions winner and 6 day champion Alex Jacob. Johnny Gilbert has announced contestants that went by the name Johnny (as opposed to John or Jonathan) on the show as well.
** In 2013, contestants named Tim Anderson and Stuart Anderson each became 3 day champions with winnings in the $50,000 range. Ironically, both lost their fourth game after missing Final Jeopardy! and wagering big in the process. The next time a 3 day champion with the last name Anderson competed on Jeopardy! (Sean Anderson in October 2015), he too lost after missing Final and wagering most of his money.
* OpeningNarration:
** The traditional narration by Johnny Gilbert. For the rest of Season 37 after Alex Trebek's passing, replace "the host of ''Jeopardy!''" with "the guest host of ''Jeopardy!''" or (in Mike Richards' case) "the executive producer of ''Jeopardy!''". Ken Jennings' Season 38 episodes use "hosting ''jeopardy!''" due to him filling in for Mayim Bialik.
--->'''Johnny Gilbert:''' This... is... ''Jeopardy!'' Introducing today's contestants: ''[lists off the two challengers and their occupations and city]'', AND our returning champion, ''[gives occupation, city, and name]'', whose [X] day ''cash'' winnings total [amount] dollars. And now, here is the host of ''Jeopardy!'', Alex Trebek!
** From 1997-2000, the line "From the Sony Pictures Studios..." was added to the above. Starting in the second episode of Season 38, "From the Alex Trebek Stage at Sony Pictures Studios..." was added.
** In the 2000s, the original "now entering the studio are today's contestants" is replaced with one of five slightly different intros, depending on the day. This coincided with the contestants no longer actually entering the studio, not coincidentally around the time Eddie Timanus, a blind man, was on the show.
* OnTheNext: Starting midway through Season 38, episodes end by showing the three contestants who will compete on the next episode.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: After Jeopardy! did away with the five-day limit on wins in 2004, two different champions surpassed five games fairly quickly. Too bad Ken Jennings came along later that same season, completely overshadowing either of them.
* PaintingTheMedium:
** March 9, 2005: A clue about fonts read "Bauhaus or Arial, for example", with the words "Bauhaus" and "Arial" written in those respective fonts.
** November 30, 2022: A clue about John Hancock ("Massachusetts elected its first governor in 1780--this man") had the last two words larger than the rest of the text, as a reference to Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence.
** February 8, 2023: As an extra hint, [[https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1623490360566509568 this clue]] about Creator/EECummings was rendered in [[AllLowercaseLetters lowercase]].
* PantsFree: Alex Trebek, at the beginning of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zWagEnd9Xs this Tournament of Champions show]].
* PersonAsVerb: In the ''Cheers'' episode "What Is... Cliff Clavin?", postman Cliff Clavin appears on the show and racks up an insurmountable lead, but loses after he gets Final Jeopardy! wrong and wagers everything. Making such a wager is often called "pulling a Clavin".
* {{Pilot}}: There have been several over time.
** 1963-64: The original run-through used a board with ''ten'' categories containing ''ten'' clues each, which filled nearly all of the stage and jutted into the audience area. Seeing how problematic such a board was (and could be), Merv Griffin cut it down to the far more manageable six-by-five for each round.
** March 6, 1977: Used a revolving gameboard and a timed Super Jeopardy!, but otherwise faithful to the eventual series. This pilot was originally prepared for CBS.
** September 18, 1983: Alex Trebek with the 1978-79 set layout and music, now themed like a personal computer. Final Jeopardy! was reinstated, and Jay Stewart was the announcer.
** Early 1984: Similar to the eventual series, except 1) the dollar amounts were halved ($50-$250/$100-$500), 2) the contestant podiums had nameplates along with each contestant's personal signature, 3) the ''Jeopardy!'' logo on the board was very basic, 4) the theme music was a slightly different arrangement of what it would eventually become, and 5) Alex's podium looked remarkably like the "clicker podiums" (with the ''Jeopardy!'' logo on top) seen in various HomeGame adaptations.
* PlayerElimination: While most games see all three players last the whole game, any player who does not have a positive balance by Final Jeopardy is eliminated at that point, as they have nothing to wager.
* PlayerNudge:
** If a contestant hits a Daily Double, Alex will sometimes remind them of their score in comparison to their opponents — for instance, "You have exactly half of X's total", which pretty much translates to "I really hope you make it a true Daily Double". He sometimes gives similar score-related nudges going into Final Jeopardy!
** Sometimes subverted for laughs if a player with a significant lead hits a Daily Double, and Alex jokingly suggests that they make it a true Daily Double.
** Increasingly so in the 2000s, this is baked right into the clues themselves; where the game originally had straight-forward "answers" (ex. "He was the 40th president"), a bulk of the clues now give contextual hints in order to give players a hand (ex. "He was the 40th president, much to Doc Brown's disbelief 30 years earlier").
** If someone gives a response that doesn't fit the theme of the category the clue is in, and there are further clues to be played in that category, Alex will usually remind the players of it.
* PoliticianGuestStar: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director (and former Ohio Attorney General) Richard Cordray returned to ''Jeopardy!'' 27 years after his original 5 day championship reign and 1987 TOC semifinal run to compete in the Battle of the Decades tournament in 2014. However, he couldn't accept the opening round's $5,000 runner-up prize after losing his game, due to his appointment to the CFPB director post by President Obama. Cordray, however, did pay for the trip to Los Angeles to compete out of his own pocket.
** A handful of politicians have competed on ''Jeopardy!'' during their four Power Players Weeks, including former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, Minnesota Senator Al Franken, former RNC chairman Michael Steele, and multiple Congress members and White House Press Secretaries. As well, then-Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings competed during a regular Celebrity Jeopardy! week in 2006.
** During the Washington, D.C. tapings in season 32, ''Jeopardy!'' had two political figures read Final Jeopardy! clues live in studio: Dr. Jill Biden (wife of then-Vice President Joe Biden) in the first Teachers Tournament semifinal, and Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser in the last Power Players Week game.
* PopculturalOsmosis: You know this has happened when your once-niche favorite is a subject on ''Jeopardy!''
** WebVideo/{{Leeroy Jenkins|Video}}!
** On November 22, 2006, [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1390 there was a category featuring words from UrbanDictionary]].
** "I Can Has Cheezburger?" was a category on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3219 November 18, 2009]], but the category had to do with cheeseburgers, not WebOriginal/LOLCats.
** In a category about {{MMORPG}}s, ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', of all games, was one of them.
** The College Championship quarterfinal game on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3305 February 4, 2010]], featured the category "Internet Favorites" with clues about The Evolution of Dance, Keyboard Cat, [[Music/TheLonelyIsland "I'm On A Boat"]], and WebAnimation/CharlieTheUnicorn.
** Website/FourChan was part of a clue on February 23, 2010. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNaUiAVT0Ls No, seriously.]]
** There was also an episode where all the categories were named after "Weird Al" Yankovic songs.
** VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas was the subject of a clue on February 24, 2011.
** Failblog was the subject of a clue on March 14, 2011. Ironically, nobody got it right... [[DrosteImage and a video of the clue appeared on Failblog the very next day.]]
** Tumblr was the answer to a clue on December 16, 2011.
** A clue about planking was on February 2, 2012.
** A "Viral Videos" category was on February 13, 2012's episode (the first game of the 2012 Teen Tournament finals). There were clues about "Leave Music/{{Britney|Spears}} Alone", "Double Rainbow", "Charlie Bit My Finger", and "Numa Numa".
** The categories in the Jeopardy! Round on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=4073 February 6, 2013]] (a Teen Tournament episode) were as follows:
*** Hey, I Just Met You
*** This is Crazy
*** But Here's My Number
*** So Call Me...
*** May "B"
*** [[LampshadeHanging Yeah, We Went There]]
** Minecraft was the subject of a clue on February 5, 2013 (5th quarterfinal game of the 2013 Teen Tournament).
** "[[VideoGame/AmongUs Sus]]" was the correct response to a clue on April 7, 2022.
* PrecisionFStrike: Thrice, each getting beeped.
** On a Celebrity episode, [[Creator/PennAndTeller Penn Jillette]] did this when calling for the category "Bull ____" (where every correct response would have "bull" in it): "I'll take Bullshit for $200."
** Contestant Vincent Valenzuela on July 13, 2018, trying to give the response "known associates", blanks on the word and says "What are known... shit!"
** Ken does this in the exhibition game among Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, and Mattea Roach in the 2022 Tournament of Champions. He revealed the gimmick (namely, that all the correct answers were the lengths of all four of their winning streaks - 23, 37, 40, and 74) for that game’s "Number Please" category, not realizing that there was still a clue left in that category.
* PrisonersDilemma: Formerly invoked if contestants were tied for first going into Final Jeopardy! -- their only logical bets are AllOrNothing, depending on how much each trusts the other to bet $0. In the best-case scenario, both bet $0 and are declared co-champions regardless of whether they get Final Jeopardy! right or wrong; worst-case scenario is that they both zero out on an incorrect response and the third contestant wins (unless they too bet everything). To take this to the extreme, there have been instances where the two contestants were tied for first while the other player did not qualify for the Final Jeopardy! round[[note]](including June 12, 1998 and January 13, 2000)[[/note]], and there is also [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=911 one known instance of a three-way tie]] for first.
** Since ties for first place (and hence the co-champion rule) were abolished at the start of Season 31, this can no longer be achieved without leading to a Tiebreaker clue.
* ProductPlacement: In addition to the retired consolation prizes, some categories are sponsored by a company to either promote products or because the theme is relevant.[[labelnote:example]]such as an airline or tourism board sponsoring a trip for on-location shooting of video clues[[/labelnote]] For example, the July 31, 2012 Kids Week episode [[https://j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3965 had a category on]] ''Ride/TheWizardingWorldOfHarryPotter'' sponsored by Ride/UniversalStudios, where each answer about [[Franchise/WizardingWorld the franchise]] was directly tied to a feature or ride at the park.
* ProgressiveJackpot:
** Late in the original Fleming run, one was awarded to the first contestant to sweep a category. The jackpot started at $500 and increased by that amount each day until it was claimed.
** A somewhat unusual variant was part of the 1978 ''Super Jeopardy!'' endgame- $5,000 would be the amount for winning the first time, plus $2,500 per trip, up to $15,000 for the fifth (total of $50,000)- and it grew regardless of whether or not the contestant won that round.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "This! Is! ''Jeopardy!''" Also qualifies as a TitleScream.
** Amusingly, this got lampshaded on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3834 the February 22, 2012 episode]], which had a category where Johnny Gilbert delivered various "This is X" phrases in the style of the intro. Naturally, one of them was "[[Film/ThreeHundred This! Is! SPARTA!]]"
* PyrrhicVictory: Since consolation prizes were eliminated, a challenger who beats the champion with a final score of less than $1,000 actually ends up taking home the ''least'' money for the day (second place gets $2,000, third gets $1,000, and the champ keeps whatever he/she has already won). However, they do get to come back for another game to try and win more. One notable example was 9 day champion Dan Pawson's 7th game from January 2008, where he won with just ''$200'' after everyone wagered big and missed Final Jeopardy! (which he made up with back to back $7,000 Daily Doubles the next day).
** This also happened to Christine Black and Anna Rodriguez, who had very low winning totals on their first games ($600 and $799, respectively), then finished third on their second games, thus meaning they won ''less'' money than the second-placers they defeated.
* RatingsStunt:
** The {{Celebrity Edition}}s and the "IBM Challenge" (Ken Jennings vs. Brad Rutter vs. the IBM Watson supercomputer, the first-ever nonhuman to play a live game of ''Jeopardy!''). Truth be told, it's a legitimate method of research testing.
** Arguably, any of ''Jeopardy!'s'' reunion tournaments could be considered this, given the big cash prizes and popular past champions involved in them.
* ReactionShot: First used on Nancy Zerg when Ken Jennings came down to earth, it was dubbed the "Zerg Cam" by fans, and referred to as such by Trebek during a repeat showing of Ken's losing game.
* ReadTheFreakingManual:
** 1988 Seniors Tournament competitor D.J. Smith was abruptly disqualified from the event prior to the semifinals, after ''Jeopardy!'' producers discovered that he'd competed on ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' a few months prior, a violation of the show's eligibility requirements. Though D.J. had mentioned his ''Wheel'' appearance in his application forms, it somehow got by the show's staff until he'd already played in the quarterfinals, forcing producers to withhold his guaranteed $5,000 semifinal purse and replace him with the next-highest earning quarterfinal loser. Had he known about the rules regarding prior game show appearances, who knows how he'd have done as a contestant later on.
** Barbara Lowe may count here as well, but given her reputation as a professional contestant who competed under aliases, it's more likely that she ''disregarded'' the manual.
* RearrangeTheSong: Though they kept the original 1964 "Think!" recording for Final Jeopardy!, that same melody was used as the main theme once the 1984 version started up. At first, the main theme was performed with synthesizer and saxophone leads. The intro was truncated in 1991, and bongos were dubbed in a year later. Starting in 1997, both the main theme and the "Think!" music have received multiple orchestral re-arrangements. ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' used an electric guitar remix of the theme, and ''Sports Jeopardy!'' a more marching band-styled one. The main show used the ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' theme for many years during college tournaments, but switched to using the ''Sports Jeopardy!'' version in 2020.
* RetiredGameShowElement:
** In the Fleming era, all players kept their cash total at the end of the game with consolation prizes for those finishing with $0 or a negative score. When the show returned in 1984, the rule was changed to allow only the winner to keep the money they won. Merchandise prizes were awarded to contestants who finished in second and third. On May 16, 2002, the show replaced these with $1,000 for third place and $2,000 for second place.
** Many tournaments and special weeks have been held throughout the years.
*** The Seniors Tournament. Held annually from Season 3 through Season 12, this was open to people at least 50 years of age. It was originally held in May, but it moved to July in Season 5 to accommodate the College Championship. The last Seniors Tournament was held in December 1995.
*** "Back to School" weeks or other weeks where children aged 10-12 competed. The bulk of the material was elementary/early middle school academics and tween pop culture. The first one was held in 1999, and they were done twice a year in most of the TurnOfTheMillennium. ''Jeopardy!'' stopped doing them after a couple of sportsmanship incidents in the mid-2010s.
*** International Tournaments where contestants from foreign countries competed to test their wits. Three were held: two in the mid-90s and the third in 2001.
*** Celebrity shows, on the syndicated version at least. Special weeks were done annually in TheNineties with several one-offs scattered late in the decade. They were sporadically done in the TurnOfTheMillennium, culminating in a special $1,000,000 tournament in Season 26. The last celebrity week was held in Season 31, and none have been held since. A primetime tournament is being held in the 2022-2023 primetime season on ABC.
*** Power Players weeks, where the participants were journalists, politicians or other well-known figures in current events. Four were held from 1997-2016.
*** 2019 saw a radically different kind of tournament in the All-Star Games. Eighteen super-champs played in teams of three with one playing the Jeopardy! round, the second playing Double Jeopardy! and the third playing Final. This tournament had two play-in matches with the third berth being decided among three of the top wildcard teams. Needless to say, this didn't go over so well. During the brief period where Mike Richards was executive producer, he planned on introducing a second tournament with this format. It got scrapped when he was let go.
*** The Teen Tournament which was held on a rotational basis from 1986-2019. Prior to 2001, the Teen Tournament winner was guaranteed a spot in the Tournament of Champions. While no official Teen Tournaments have been held since the COVID-19 pandemic cut Season 36 short, a High School Reunion Tournament is being planned for Season 39. This event will be composed of 27 past Teen Tournament players with $100,000 and a Tournament of Champions berth for the winner.
** From 1985-2021, every two-week tournament with the exceptions of the above events played out the same way. It began with five quarterfinal matches with the winners advancing to the semifinals. The remaining four spots went to the highest scoring non-winners. After the three semifinals, the three winners faced off in a two-game final. After 2021, wildcards were removed from tournament play.
*** A new tournament format was tested for the National College Championship. 12 quarterfinal matches were followed by four semifinals. The two-game final consisted of the three highest scoring winners of the semifinals. With the outcry that followed the inevitability of a semifinalist winning a game and not qualifying for the finals, it's unlikely that this format will ever be used again. Thankfully, the show allowed the eliminated semifinalist to compete in a Second Chance Tournament.
*** The Tournament of Champions received an overhaul in Season 39. The qualifying field now consists of 21 entrants with the three who had the longest streaks since the last tournament receiving semifinal byes. The remaining 18 contestants play six quarterfinal games. After the semifinals, the three finalists play until someone wins three matches.
** During Season 14 (1997-1998), the show briefly tried "bonus" categories — clues with two correct responses. If a contestant gave one response, s/he could try for the second response for the same amount of money, or leave the second one free for another contestant to ring in. It only lasted from December 1997 to February 1998, and even then was used in only ''three'' games.
** At about the same time, the show used categories where, because of some sort of narrative used by the category, the clues were required to be chosen in order (as if they wouldn't be taken in order anyway). These also faded out of fashion in a few weeks.
** From Season 14 through Season 19, any undefeated five-day champ won a new car.
** In 2003 (Season 20), [[GameShowWinningsCap the five-day limit for champions]] was lifted as well...just in time for Ken Jennings to make his legendary 75-game run.
** In the Fleming version and the first 30 years of the Trebek run, players who finished tied for the lead were declared co-champions and played again on the next show. Since November 2014, ties have been decided by tiebreaker clues. The winner becomes the returning champion on the next show, and the loser is given the $2,000 prize for second place.
** For the entire Fleming run and for season 1 of the Trebek version, contestants ringing in had their podium light up, followed by a buzzer noise. Trebek found the noise distracting, so it was eliminated starting in season 2. Some international versions of the program continued having the buzzer noise with ringing in.
** Prior to the show beginning, Alex Trebek would "put the board in motion," which was followed by the famous "swooshing" noise and the dollar values "popping" into place. As time constraints became an issue, this was modified and now a shorter version of this happens with a new, modern "popping" noise and no board "going into motion" action.
* RougeAnglesOfSatin:
** Sometimes shows up in Final Jeopardy!: so long as the misspelling does not alter the pronunciation, it will be accepted. This was invoked in the notorious "What is the Emanciptation [''sic''] Proclamation?" during a Kids' Week.
** On [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3842 March 14, 2012]], the category "They Go by Their First Initial" had "Their" misspelled as "Thier".
** The opening graphics for Season 34, which show a bunch of handwritten responses and appropriate graphics, had "What is the Declaration of Independ'''a'''nce?" for the first week. This was quickly corrected.
* RuleOfThree: This is used in closed captioning to distinguish between when time runs out to answer a question ("(Beep)") and when time runs out to complete the Jeopardy or Double Jeopardy rounds ("(Beep beep beep)").
* TheRunnerUpTakesItAll:
** Though Brad Rutter defeated Ken Jennings in both of the final rounds of their million dollar reunion tournaments, Ken is still far more recognizable from both his ''Jeopardy!'' run (74 wins > 5 wins) and from his post-show career, with Brad's acting and producing credits not as recognizable as Ken's work as a best-selling author.
** Though not out-earned in later events, 1990 ''Super Jeopardy!'' winner Bruce Seymour has absolutely been overshadowed since, as he's never returned for later reunion tournaments, whereas numerous losing competitors in that tournament have returned, with Bob Blake, Frank Spangenberg, and Eric Newhouse all winning later ''Jeopardy!'' tournaments despite not even making the ''Super Jeopardy!'' finals.
** 1990 Tournament of Champions winner Bob Blake was the winningest ''Jeopardy!'' contestant in career earnings throughout the 1990s, but fan favourite champion Frank Spangenberg (a losing semifinalist that year) has been far more recognizable since, with the transit cop appearing in all 5 of the show's reunion tournaments (winning the 10th Anniversary Championship in 1993) compared to just 2 for Bob.
** Jim Scott won 1991's Tournament of Champions, but Leslie Frates (who he defeated in the semifinals) has proven to be the favourite contestant from season 7, appearing in all of the show's later reunion tournaments, where she became the only woman to make the finals of one during 1993's Tenth Anniversary Tournament.
** Leszek Pawlowicz handily defeated Jerome Vered in 1992's Tournament of Champions, and made it two rounds further than him in 2014's Battle of the Decades, but Jerome leads for career earnings, having won well over $300,000 during his finals run in 2005's massive Ultimate Tournament of Champions (where Leszek didn't advance out of the first round).
** Despite Dan Melia's impressive Tournament of Champions run in 1998, losing finalists Bob Harris and Kim Worth (coincidentally, both comedians) stole the show with their witty and self-deprecating remarks during the finals, especially in game 2 after Bob's all-in Final response didn't work out. By the time of 2002's Million Dollar Masters tournament, Bob and fellow 1998 TOC fan favourite Claudia Perry both made the field, even though Dan defeated both in 1998.
** Michael Falk may have won 2006's Tournament of Champions, but it's hard to overshadow 19 day champion David Madden, who defeated Falk in the quarterfinals. When David declined his Battle of the Decades invite due to conflict of interest concerns, it warranted an acknowledgement on-air by Alex Trebek, which definitely says something.
* RunningGag:
** The various derogatory names given to the opera categories ("Uh-Oh, Opera", "Oh No, It's Opera!", "The Dreaded Opera Category") count.
** "Potent Potables", a category dedicated to alcohol. On the original series, Art Fleming regularly said it was Don Pardo's favorite category.
** "Those Darn Etruscans" was another early recurring category on the Trebek version.
** "The Dreaded Spelling Category" wherein you have to spell the response, usually in Teen Tournaments.
** "Stupid Answers": The correct response is ''in the clue'', although sometimes not as obviously as you might think (e.g., "Now named for James Brady, this room in the White House is where the briefing of the press takes place." [[spoiler:What is the Briefing Room?]]).
** "Rhyme Time", a category where the correct response has two words that rhyme. ''Wheel'' adopted this category eventually.
** "In Other Words". This category takes a notable saying or title and the displayed clue is a reworded version of that saying/title, with the contestant needing to provide the original. One notable example from a fake Disney memo regarding ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'': ''The Girl With The See-Through Shoes''. Correct response: [[spoiler:What is ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}''?]]
** "Before and After" and "Before, During, and After"; see "ShoutOut", below.
** Season 17 of ''Jeopardy!'' in 2000/2001 had a RunningGag in the form of a season-exclusive category called "''Jeopardy! Place''", where the clues were written in a soap opera style. Later "episodes" of the category had Johnny narrate the clues like a soap opera. The last episode with the category had it worded as "''Jeopardy! Place: The Final Episode''".
* SchmuckBait:
** Frequently, a clue is written so that it may hint at one answer but then throws in a key word at the last second to negate what would seem like the more sensible answer. For example, "His efforts to hold the Union together were ineffectual; 7 states seceded on his watch." Luckily, the contestant avoided the SchmuckBait response and gave the correct one (James Buchanan, ''not'' Abe Lincoln).
** There's no way the writers didn't expect someone to say it, but there's almost no way they expected ''Ken Jennings'' to say "What's a ho[e]?" to "This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker." (The correct response, "rake", was given by another contestant.) Judging by Ken's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJO7hcinS-U massive grin]] and how ridiculously far ahead he was at the time, he likely threw the question intentionally just to be funny.
** An example from [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=455 July 20, 2005]] had eventual 19 day champion David Madden win after trailing $200 at the end of Double Jeopardy! because he didn't fall for the SchmuckBait in Final Jeopardy. The clue alluded to the "Ode to Joy" in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, but the use of "70-minute work" meant that the correct response specifically meant the entire symphony. The player in the lead put "Ode to Joy" and wagered to cover if David doubled up, costing her the game.
** At least three contestants have missed a response related to ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' because when asked to give the name of the series they had simply responded with "Zelda" instead of "The Legend of Zelda"[[note]]It is common in fanspeak to simply shorten the series name to "Zelda", but "Zelda" can also ambiguously refer to the character Princess Zelda, hence creating a technicality in which the exact full title ''must'' be given if the clue is referring to the series name[[/note]].
** An excellent one on June 18, 1987 that happened entirely by accident. The clue in "South Africa" for $500 read, "Of go in or go elsewhere, what to do when you see a restroom marked 'Here'." Marty rings in and says "What is go elsewhere?" which is ruled wrong. Kathleen then rings in and says "What is go in?", which is also ruled wrong. A confused Bob Verini doesn't ring in, at which point Alex reveals that "Here" means "men", so either Bob or Marty would've been ruled right for saying "go in", and Kathleen right for "go elsewhere". Former clue-writer Carlo Panno later [[http://ken-jennings.com/blog/archives/776 revealed]] in an interview with Ken Jennings that this was one of his favorite clues.
** On January 13, 2000, there was a category called Nymph-O-Rama. It only seemed natural that someone would misread it as "[[FreudianSlip Nymph-O-Mania]]", and that's exactly what happened.
* SeasonFinale: Very literally taken for the first nine seasons, as the last game of each season (in June until 1986, July afterward) was also the last game to qualify for that year's Tournament of Champions in November of the next season (which later recurred in season 30 due to the 2014 TOC's scheduling delay). With qualifying periods now running between [=TOCs=], new seasons just continue the existing timeline in the lead-up to the next event.
** The last games of a ''Jeopardy!'' season are usually regular games, but from 1989-1995, the season always ended with the annual Seniors Tournament, before being moved to December for its last installment. Since then, the only season-ending special events have been two Teen Tournaments, two Kids Weeks, and 1996's Olympic Games Tournament (though its four episode run time meant that season 12 ended with a regular Friday episode).
* SelfDeprecation: Alex has occasionally dipped into this.
** February 19, 1997: Before the episode's Final Jeopardy, Alex remarks about having given incorrect information beforehand.
--->'''Alex:''' A little while ago, a clue referred to three atoms, and then I come along and give "[=NH4=]" as the formula for ammonia. Why would I do that instead of saying "[=NH3=]"? Just plain stupid, I guess.
* SeriousBusiness:
** Many fans who play from home use a scoring system developed by former 2-time champion Karl Coryat, which eliminates wagering, scores Daily Doubles by their clue value only, and doesn't penalize wrong answers on Daily Doubles due to it being a forced guess. What's more, there is a [[http://www.j-archive.com/help.php large lexicon]] of terminology used by the fanbase, including several terms coined by (and named after) former contestants.
** 2003 College Champion Keith Williams keeps the serious business going on his website [[http://thefinalwager.co The Final Wager]], which applies game theory and mathematics to wagering strategy on Final Jeopardy!, breaking down numerous scenarios that contestants should and shouldn't take, and giving colour grades (from green to grey) based on how well they wagered.
** Averted in most of the CelebrityEdition games. Celebs often insist on ChewingTheScenery, ringing in on clues they obviously didn't know with an "Oh, I know this! What is it?" attitude, and otherwise clowning around. It didn't help that the game threw in unnecessary diversions (such as having a [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1382 singer perform before a Daily Double!]]) which led to as few as ''14'' clues being revealed in each round. Fortunately, the Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament of the 2009–10 season was taken far more seriously, with more focused (and generally sharper) celebs who treated their games with respect.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Some categories use long words to obfuscate what would be otherwise be a simple clue. In fact, it's the whole point of any category that ends with "In Other Words".
** Arguably taken to its extreme on the April 1st, 1997 episode (guest hosted by ''Wheel of Fortune'''s Pat Sajak), where the Final Jeopardy! category was "Trinidadian Amateur Ichthyologists". Pat added after the category reveal "Don't let it throw you, folks!", but none of the contestants got it right anyway.
* ShoutOut:
** One recurring category is "Before & After", which works the same way as its ''Wheel of Fortune'' counterpart. This category debuted on the AprilFoolsDay 1997 episode of ''Jeopardy!'', when Pat Sajak hosted.
** They have further lampshaded this Trope on rare instances since October 2001 with a category called "Before, During, and After", which fuses three ideas together with two linking words. ''Wheel'' has yet to adopt this category, even as a joke.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in the late 1990s, when ''Wheel'' introduced a category called Rhyme Time based on the ''Jeopardy!'' category of the same name.
** On April 1, 2010, the reigning champion mentioned during his interview, that he considered ''Series/{{Pitfall}}'' (another Trebek-hosted game) "the best thing ever" when he was young. Alex [[OldShame couldn't disagree more,]] pointing out that it was the only time he was ever "stiffed" for his salary.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': At the end of his match against IBM's Watson, Ken Jennings paraphrased Kent Brockman by writing under his Final Jeopardy question "I for one welcome our new Computer Overlords".
** And continuing in that same vein, 2011 9 day champion Jason Keller copied Watson's "What is Toronto?" in his ninth game.
** The "[[JustForFun/XMeetsY Wheel of Jeopardy!]]" category. They show a partially-solved ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' puzzle and give a clue about the answer on the board. And in April 2013, the category "I'd like to solve the puzzle... fast!" had more detailed clues but very few letters revealed in each more difficult puzzle (such as Q[[spoiler:UET]]Z[[spoiler:ALCOATL]]).
** Some of the categories on the Celebrity Jeopardy! segments of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' have later been used as actual categories on the show, such as [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1071 "Japan-US Relations" on the June 27, 2006 episode]] or [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1872 "I'm Not Wearing Any Pants" on the May 25, 2007 episode]].
** One contestant is obviously a ''Family Guy'' fan, as he wrote down "Who is Kebert Xela?" for his Final ''Jeopardy!'' response. (Also an example of OffTheRails, since he went into Final Jeopardy! with only $1 thanks to a Daily Double gone wrong.) One category during the 2015 Teacher's Tournament was "Two D's and an F".
** Likewise, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubklvxNtdDw&t=1m22s this contestant]] knows his ''Cheers.''
** ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': As Jane Curtin builds up a big lead during a Celebrity Jeopardy episode in 1998, [[Music/TheJudds Naomi Judd]] refers to an old SNL CatchPhrase of Dan Aykroyd [[PhraseCatcher towards Jane]]...
---> '''Naomi Judd:''' Well, Jane, I guess you're NOT such an ignorant slut, after all!
** Several references have been made to the ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' crossover episode.
** March 13, 1991: In the category "Reference Books", "''Beat the Odds'', ''Music Bingo'' & ''Fast Draw'' are entries in an encyclopedia of these by Schwartz, Ryan, & Wostbrock."[[note]]What are game shows?[[/note]] As a double example, all three of these were hosted by Johnny Gilbert!
** At least twice, Johnny Gilbert has been the correct response:
*** September 8, 1989: Here's "Johnny" for $100 was "This former nightclub singer is the announcer on 'Jeopardy!'"
*** February 21, 2006: He Was in That? for $200 was "In 1961 this future 'Jeopardy!' announcer hit the big screen in ''Gidget Goes Hawaiian''."
** The January 14, 2020 episode in the Greatest of All Time event featured a slate of categories referencing Creator/{{ABC}} shows, with "Series/ModernFamily", "Series/TheBachelor", "Series/TheGoodDoctor" "[[Series/BlackIsh Blank-'ish']]", "[[Series/Stumptown2019 Stump Town]]", and "Knight-line".
* TheShowMustGoOn: In one episode, a contestant fainted during Final Jeopardy! Alex roused the contestant and asked him to write down his Final Jeopardy! response. Apparently, the contestant was on a crash diet and had not eaten in almost two days. This did not affect the final outcome, as the incumbent champion in this match already had a "lock" game and gave a correct response, while the other player was essentially locked into third place and gave an incorrect response while the fainting contestant got it right.
* TheSingingMute: Sort of referenced/averted in a Final Jeopardy question early in the Trebek era. The question asked how many characters in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs sang "Hi Ho, Hi Ho". All of the contestants answered with seven, but Alex pointed out that the answer was actually six because Dopey couldn't talk.
* SophisticatedAsHell: Trebek can seamlessly jump from a sophisticated, professional tone to offbeat, wry, and often [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] humor, then throw in a timely pop-culture reference just for fun. Announcer Johnny Gilbert also does much the same in categories that require him to speak the category questions... or sing.
* SoreLoser: Kids' Week contestant Thomas Hurley was penalized for misspelling "emancipation"[[note]]which he spelled as ''emancip'''t'''ation''[[/note]] for his Final Jeopardy! response. He refuses to take part in the post game conversation, angrily looking at the floor with his arms crossed.
* SpinOff: The 1970s syndicated version, ''Super Jeopardy!'', ''Jep!'', ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' and ''Sports Jeopardy!''
* {{Spoiler}}: In the era of uncapped winning streaks, inevitably a major winning streak getting snapped will leak to the media (and then social media and everywhere else) before airtime. However, this is actually a ''positive'' trope for the show, as it builds an anticipatory buzz for the episode that night that would not have otherwise been there. James Holzhauer's final game in 2019, which was leaked prior to air that he would finally bow out with the second-highest win and cash totals in ''Jeopardy!'' history, was watched by 14.5 million viewers, the best viewership since Ken Jennings finished up his record run in 2004, with 18 million viewers.
** Tournaments are usually immune to this, as the audience for those is by invitation only. With James Holzhauer competing in the 2019 Tournament of Champions, the producers took extra measures to [[DefiedTrope defy]] this trope by having the ''audience members'' sign [=NDAs=], an unprecedented precaution (usually they're just asked to keep quiet). Holzhauer eventually won the tournament.
** The first three quarterfinal winners of the first ABC season of ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' were spoiled when the first semifinal was added to TV listings and the title had the names of the three participants, as they do with the quarterfinals. The names were eventually removed, but not before some fans saw it and already knew the first three winners before any of their episodes aired.
* StatusQuoGameShow: A few games have ended in a three-way tie at $0, due to all three players wagering everything on Final Jeopardy! and getting it wrong. The first time it happened in Trebek's tenure was his second episode.
* StoppedNumberingSequels: A variant. Partway through Ken Jennings' run, Johnny Gilbert stopped declaring how many days he had been champion at the start of each episode, believed to be a result of the date of Ken's last game being leaked online, so that viewers would have a harder time knowing that day's result. For his 75th and last game, they announced his 74 day reign again like normal at the show's beginning.
* SublimeRhyme: The June 12, 1998 show had 12 of the 13 categories ending in "-ation(s)". The only exception was the Double Jeopardy! category "Crustaceans", though that is still a homonym of the other clues. The pattern may have cursed the contestants though, as it was a rare game with no contestants finishing Final Jeopardy! with money.
* SubvertedCatchPhrase: A few contestants have said "I'd like to solve the puzzle" or "I'd like to buy a vowel" on a Daily Double, often to Trebek's amusement and mock derision.
* SuddenDeath: If Final Jeopardy! ends in a tie for first place, an additional clue is played between the tied contestants, and giving a correct response wins the game. This was previously the case only in tournaments, but it also became the rule for regular games in 2014.
* SynchroVox: Done on the February 18, 2003 episode with the category "History Speaks!". It involved portraits of historic people with superimposed lips to make it look like they were talking.
* TalkAboutTheWeather: Was the name of a category on weather phenomena on the June 17, 2013, show.
* TemptingFate:
** Averted in the Teen Tournament finals on February 12, 2013. Wild card finalist Leonard Cooper wrote "Who is some guy in Normandy, but I just won $75,000!" despite ''not'' having a "lock" tournament. [[note]]Similar to a "lock" game in that neither trailing contestant can cover a wager of $0 by the leading contestant.[[/note]][[note]] In this case, finalist Nilai Sarda made a $7,000 wager, and a correct response would have given Nilai a higher 2-day total than Leonard.[[/note]] Because finalist Nilai Sarda gave an incorrect response, Leonard did win the $75,000.
** In a reverse example from the deciding game of the 2007 Teen Tournament, finalist Ben Schenkel noted in his Final Jeopardy! response "Who is ATLAS (congrats, David!!)", essentially conceding the tournament to David Walter, who gave the same response and won the tournament. However, Ben actually ''led'' going into Final after finishing with $40,000 the previous game, and would still have won the tournament had David missed Final.
** During the 2013 Kids' Week, 12-year-old Kentuckian Skyler Homback wagered a $30,000 (of his $36,600) on a "Civil War" Final Jeopardy! clue. This wager was even more dangerous when you take into considering his nearest opponent had $9,600, so a wager of anything $17,399 or lower would have secure a win. Fortunately, Skyler was not caught off-guard with the final, and he ended up winning a kids' record of $66,600.
* That One Level: Sports categories are typically loathed by contestants, and in many episodes where they are featured, it's obvious that contestants avoid them and reluctantly pick answers from the category when there is no other choice. Alex Trebek has teased contestants in the past when sports categories are featured, as he knows they are not popular categories on the show. It is not unusual for all five answers in the entire category to result in a "triple stumper."
* ThatsWhatSheSaid: A category on the March 16, 2011 game.
* ThemeNaming: Sometimes done with the categories, where two or more may play off each other. These most commonly are clustered to the right side of the board; one case is a series of categories named "Hook", "Line", and "Sinker". In ''very'' rare cases, the ''entire set'' will follow Theme Naming, such as an episode from January 31, 2001 that named every single category in the first round after other game shows.
* ThinkMusic: The 30-second melody used during Final Jeopardy (which is actually called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXGhvoekY44 Think!]]") may be the best known example in the genre. ''TV Guide'' called it "the ''Beethoven's Fifth'' of game show music." It was so popular it became a Bootstrapped Theme, as seen below.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings regularly played off each other, with several recurring "bits".
** The two trying to figure out what to discuss in Ken's interview. By about the 25th or so episode they were getting into more obscure facets of Ken's life; by the end, the two just had small, random conversations.
** Whenever Ken Jennings hit a Daily Double, Alex would try to "read Ken's mind" and anticipate what he would wager; Ken would sometimes switch it up and bid a few dollars more or less.
** Alex's various monologues at the top of each show referred to Ken's winning streak; once, he walked out and stated that, since Ken had been returning champion for so long, he was essentially working at the show — and held up one of the show's timecards with Ken's name written on it.
** Ken himself [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] this in his book, where he said that the end of his streak surely broke the hearts of countless [[HoYay Alex/Ken]] [[{{Shipping}} Shippers]].
** Also seen with Dan Patrick and 2015-16 superchamp Vinny Varadarajan, who increasingly bantered during the interview portion, joked about how long Vinny's been on, held a staring contest, and by his thirteenth win, traded places so Vinny could ask Dan questions. Dan's opening monologues also saw gentle ribbing of Vinny for his shirts and his replies cutting into Dan's airtime.
** Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer also developed a bit of a rapport/banter between each other, that started during their appearances in Jeopardy! tournaments and continued on social media, as well as on ''The Chase.'' Jennings in a later interview said that he and Holzhauer became good friends and he also stated that when he was promoted to be full-time co-host with Mayim Bialik, that he was discouraged by producers from being too friendly with contestants, past or present.
* TickTockTune: The Final Jeopardy! music.
* TitleDrop: In the first season, Alex would "caution [the players] about the Jeopardy!" — i.e., that they would lose money on an incorrect response.
* TournamentArc: Seen annually (more or less) with the Tournament of Champions, College Championship, and the Teen, Teachers, and (formerly) Seniors Tournaments. Regular gameplay stops while these tournaments occur, with contestants competing for big cash prizes, and utilizing strategies not seen in regular games in order to secure wild card semifinal berths, and stockpile cash in the two-day, total point finals.
* TransatlanticEquivalent:
** Numerous, which led the American version to host three one-week International Jeopardy! tournaments in 1996, 1997, and 2001, and even travel to Sweden to tape the second on that version's set. Each featured English-fluent champions from 8 or 9 different international versions of the show. Swedish champion Ulf Jensen won the first international tournament in 1996 (defeating American champ Ryan Holznagel along the way), while the other two were won by champions of the American version: Canada's Michael Daunt and the U.S.A.'s Robin Carroll.
** Among other countries, the UK had three different versions between 1983 and 1996, none lasting more than three seasons. Though the last version produced the 1996 international tournament's runner up (Mandi Hale), none of them really caught on domestically. In contrast to GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff[[invoked]], Britons are ''aware'' of ''Jeopardy!'', but are mostly nonplussed by how mainstream its influence is on American culture and stock phrases.
** Averted in Canada, aside from a short lived French-language version filmed in Quebec in the early 1990s. Though there's no English language domestic version of ''Jeopardy!'', Canadian viewers can easily watch the US version on American over-the-air channels and on some local Canadian networks. With the exception of the 2016 exclusion of Canadians from the online test due to new domestic internet privacy laws, Canadians are welcome to compete on the American ''Jeopardy!'', with notable examples including 1990 Tournament of Champions winner Bob Blake, TOC finalists Bruce Fauman, Michael Daunt, and Doug Hicton, and 5 day champions Barbara-Anne Eddy, Robert Slaven, Lan Djang, and Andrew Haringer.
* {{Troll}}: The writers sometimes like to troll the contestants with misleading clues or gimmicks, such as a category where every clue except the last has the same response (e.g., "Treaties" on [[http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1310 October 25, 2006]]).
* TruckDriversGearChange: The "Think!" music used in Final Jeopardy! has always gone up a minor third in the second verse. Also, every variation of the current version's theme tune has used several key changes; the 1984 version in particular was all over the place.
* UnPerson:
** Not only do players who finish Double Jeopardy! with no money not stick around for Final Jeopardy!, they don't always get to participate in the credits sequence of the players chatting with Alex.
** 5 day champions Barbara Lowe and Jerry Slowik became these, the former for being a JerkAss who violated contestant eligibility requirements[[note]]She appeared on another game show during the probationary period where contestants are not allowed to do so[[/note]], and the latter for being arrested on sexual abuse charges[[note]]He later pleaded guilty[[/note]]. Neither was invited to their respective Tournament of Champions, and in Lowe's case, her games have never been rerun. (Even GSN skipped them when they aired season 2.) Lowe's winnings and reign aren't even listed on official ''Jeopardy!'' records, and with tapes of her games not known to circulate, fan sites aren't able to include them yet either.
* UnsportsmanlikeGloating: James Holzhauer was particularly fond of this, to the point where it rubbed both Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings the wrong way in the ''Greatest of All Time'' tournament. James slipped in a "Ha-ha!" when he beat Brad to a clue about his home city, to which Brad shot back with "No need to rub it in!"
* UranusIsShowing: Stealth example by contestant Lawrence "Indy" Indyk on the May 28, 2012, show (6 day champion Joel Pool's last victory) in the category "It'll End with 'Us'":
-->'''Alex:''' It takes 84 Earth years for it to go around the sun.\\
'''Indy:''' What is Uranus?\\
'''Alex:''' Yes, the planet.
* UrbanLegend: The 1978-79 version was supposedly canned because Merv, returning from a vacation in Europe, saw the format changes and demanded that NBC cancel the show '''immediately''' (and only hastened its demise, as NBC was already planning to cancel it). The legend falls apart because the first pilot for this version, with a slightly different format, was taped on March 6, 1977... followed by ''another'' in mid-1978.
* VacationEpisode: From seasons 13-25, ''Jeopardy!'' held at least one week of shows a year on the road, starting with the 1997 International Tournament in Sweden, though all later road tapings were within the United States. With the exception of a 1998 week of regular shows from Boston and a 2004 Kids Week in Washington, all of the road trip shows were tied with celebrity games and/or a tournament (including the Million Dollar Masters and the 2000 and 2009 Tournaments of Champions), while all but one College Championship from 1998-2008 was held on the road, typically at college campuses. Though no longer an annual occurrence, ''Jeopardy'' has hosted road games at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. during the 2004, 2012, and 2016 election years, always including a Power Players Week and at least one week of tournament play.
* VampireVords:
** If the correct response was Dracula, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzC1hD2NuPU Trebek could be counted on to say his name in this fashion]].
** In a 1996 episode, Alex read "Creator/WimWenders' ''Film/WingsOfDesire''" in one clue as "Vim Venders' ''Vings of Desire''".
* VetinariJobSecurity: For Trebek, who ''Jeopardy!'' has so far struggled to find a permanent replacement for.
* ViewersAreGeniuses: One of the main reasons that game shows are popular is because they allow people to "play along" from home. But considering the vast amount of sometimes-obscure clues that are given every day...
* ViolationOfCommonSense: Some wagering situations in Final Jeopardy! are not immediately intuitive. There are situations where it's actually advantageous for a player who's behind to bet nothing[[note]]If the second-place player has between 2/3 and 3/4 of the first-place player's dollar amount; the J-Archive fan site explains the logic.[[/note]] or, in a related situation, the first-place player does ''not'' bet to cover the second-place player's largest possible wager.
* VisualPun:
** July 13, 2012: [[http://i.imgur.com/8kFP4.jpg A clue about the Luxor pyramid]] has a pyramidal shape.
** October 22, 2012: The entire category "They Drive On The Left In..." had all of its clues formatted left-justified.
* WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties:
** Happened during the 2012 Teen Tournament semifinals on a video clue about the MVP of the Super Bowl XLVI. The home audience saw the picture of the MVP [[note]] Who was Eli Manning?[[/note]], but there was a technical glitch during the game which resulted with the contestants not seeing the picture of the MVP. Contestant Kevin Yang got it wrong, but after the break, Alex decided that it wasn't his fault, seeing how there was technical glitches, and the penalty was redacted.
** Another glitch interfered with a playing of Final Jeopardy!; the light pen of one of the contestants wasn't writing properly. The contestant held up the pen to indicate this, and he was granted a card to write his answer in with a regular pen. The contestant won the game (and the partially-written answer on the light board seemed to indicate that he knew the correct answer all along, and that there actually ''was'' a problem with the pen), but because of the special treatment, both he ''and'' the second-place contestant for that game appeared in the next game. The marker and card are now standard equipment for all players.
** Averted in the 2015 Tournament of Champions quarterfinals, where 5 day champion (and eventual wild card semifinalist) John Schultz accidentally ''broke'' his signaling device early in the ''Jeopardy!'' round (a tale he recounted on Twitter). Once brought to attention, his signaling device was replaced, the clues where John couldn't ring in were re-shot, and the final episode aired as if nothing happened.
** In July 2018, the in-studio display for the Final Jeopardy! clue omitted the initial letter, turning it from "This slang term for an environmentalist..." to "''His'' slang term for an environmentalist...." One contestant changed his answer from the correct answer ("tree-hugger") to respond to the clue as displayed with "What is Carl Sagan?" He was invited back in the next season because of the error.
* WhamLine: 11/30/2004. Nancy Zerg has just delivered the correct response "What is H & R Block?" to the Final Jeopardy question to take a one dollar lead over Ken Jennings. His response to Final Jeopardy?
-->'''Jennings:''' What is [=FedEx=]? ''[the entire audience gasps and Nancy covers her mouth in shock as everyone realizes Jennings' 74-game winning streak is finally dead]''
** Alex's cancer announcement in 2019, as well as Mike Richards reporting his death a year later.
* WhoWritesThisCrap: Though uncommon, this is how Alex tends to react whenever the writers are getting a little ''too'' clever. Case in point, the "Irish People?" category from March 27, 2019:
-->'''Alex:''' These are not real Irish people. Let me give you an example: "Irish cigarette salesman." "Who is [[PunnyName Nick O'Tine]]?" ''{[[{{Beat}} Alex pauses for a few seconds]], then looks to the camera)'' Yeah.
* WrittenRoar: On September 24, 2007, a contestant who had only $400 to wager wrote "Who is AARGHH!!!" as his Final Jeopardy! response.
* YeahShot: One promo for the Teacher's Tournament ended with a shot of the contestants raising their hands.
* YouAnsweredYourOwnQuestion: The occasional ''Stupid Answers'' category.
* YouGoGirl: Male contestants tend to outnumber women on ''Jeopardy!'', especially in earlier seasons, but there have been a number of high profile female contestants, such as Tournament of Champions winners Rachael Schwartz, Robin Carroll, and Celeste Dinucci, 10th Anniversary Tournament finalist Leslie Frates, high-earning regular play contestants like Julia Collins, Larissa Kelly, and Amy Fine, ''four-time'' Jeopardy! tournament semifinalist Pam Mueller, and record-setting champion dethroners Nancy Zerg (Ken Jennings) and Emma Boettcher (James Holzhauer), among others.
** The ''1993'' Tournament of Champions was notable for having 7 women players, with all 4 wildcard spots going to 4 of them, and featuring two female finalists, Bev Schwartzberg and Seniors Tournament winner Marilyn Kneeland. However, both lost to Tom Nosek, and ''Jeopardy!'' had to wait another year for a woman (Rachael Schwartz) to win the whole thing.
* YoungerAndHipper:
** ''Jep!'', the 1997-1998 GSN spinoff of ''Jeopardy!'' for kids, and a companion to ''Wheel 2000'' (though that show also aired on CBS and is better remembered today). Elements including randomized clue amounts, stuff falling on contestants missing three questions, and "radical" category names like "Super Jep!" and "Hyper Jep!" didn't add up to a long running hit series in this case.
** Averted with Jeopardy!'s annual Kids Weeks (a.k.a. Back to School Weeks) from 1999-2014, which featured contestants of the same age range and clue difficulty, but otherwise doing so on the regular set with the regular rules and staff. It may not be "radical" or "hip", but it had a lot more success and staying power than ''Jep!'' had.
** ''Rock & Roll Jeopardy!'' and ''Sports Jeopardy!'' can also be seen as this, given their more informal and casual nature and generally less-serious clue content.
* YourMom: "Your Momma" was a category on December 16, 2010. Of ''course'', the first thing out of the contestant's mouth was "I'll take Your Momma for $400, Alex."
[[/folder]]

** According to 2002 1 day champion (and future Hollywood actor) Dileep Rao, he was told by ''Jeopardy!'' producers that if he had to miss a scheduled taping due to his then-illness, he'd be retired as champion (he made the taping as a result, and finished Double Jeopardy! in the red). Since then, the show's stance has mellowed, allowing then-champions Priscilla Ball (due to illness) and Claudia Corriere (due to work conflicts, which occurred only because Alex's knee surgery postponed tapings for a few weeks) to miss their next taping day and come back for a later taping when ready and able.

** For the first season of the Trebek era, contestants could ring in as soon as the clue was revealed, which was also true of the Fleming era. This often led to more than one podium lighting up at the same time, or contestants buzzing in so quickly that their time limit expired before Alex finished reading the clue. In addition, Alex himself said that he found the original buzzer system annoying and distracting to home viewers. From season 2 onward, the buzzers activate after the clue is finished, and premature ring-ins are locked out for 1/8 of a second.

** February 8, 2023: As an extra hint, [[https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1623490360566509568 this clue]] about Creator/EECummings was rendered in [[lowercase AllLowercaseLetters]].

** One Double Jeopardy! round had categories that all referred to the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', including "Creator/SeanConnery", "Surprise Me, Trebek", "Therapists" (Not "The Rapists"), "The Number After 2", and "Rhymes With 'Dog'". Another Double Jeopardy! round had "States That Begin with Californ", "Is This a Hat", "Catch These Men", "A Petite Dejeuner", "'S' Words" and "SNL Cracks Us Up" as its categories. Other categories from the sketch (including "Japan-U.S. Relations", "Things You Shouldn't Put in Your Mouth", and "An Album Cover") have made appearances on the show as well.

* DanBrowned:
** June 11, 2012: Final Jeopardy! asked "[[Literature/TheBible Acts 1:13]] says this event occurred in 'an upper room'." They were looking for "The Last Supper", and initially ruled the champion's response of "Pentecost" wrong, but Alex later acknowledged the latter as right in a dubbed-in clip and mentioned that, starting with the next game, his score would be adjusted accordingly. The truth is, there ''is'' no right answer — Acts 1:13 makes no mention of any "act" besides the disciples meeting there, and Pentecost doesn't show up until Acts 2. Furthermore, the exact location of the Last Supper is unknown; it is believed to have happened in an upper room simply because that was tradition. Fortunately, this did not affect the outcome, since only two players were present at Final Jeopardy! and the champion, who answered "Pentecost", had a "lock" game.
** April 3rd, 2015: One clue asked for the Catholic sacrament that allows a person to take Communion. They were looking for the response "What is Confirmation?" Communion is a sacrament in and of itself, the initiation of it is just called "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin First Communion]]", and the "Confirmation before Communion" concept is generally found in Protestant churches. At the end of the show, Alex took a moment to acknowledge the mistake and promise they would be more careful in the future.
** October 8, 2019: One clue asked for a video game whose rotatable blocks have names such as "Orange Ricky, Hero, and Smashboy". While a contestant does provide the correct reponse of ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'', the names are actually incorrect, having originated from a [[https://twitter.com/vecchitto/status/1099748313862234114 Twitter meme post]] showing these names in a supposed copy of the NES version's manual. Even the game's official Twitter account [[https://twitter.com/Tetris_Official/status/1181323129110646784 called the show out on it.]]
** November 30, 2021: The Daily Double clue in the Double Jeopardy! "Ends in 'Ex'" reads "In math, these 2 words are often used interchangeably for the top point of a figure, like a cone". The response they were looking for was "the apex and the vertex", even though mathematically, a vertex is not correct and an apex is not a mathematical term.
** February 18, 2022: One Daily Double, "In 2019 China's Chang'e 4 probe made the first landing here, a place not even glimpsed by humanity until 1959" called for the far side of the moon. However, the contestant was ruled correct for saying "the ''dark'' side of the moon", even though the "dark" side is whatever side of the moon the sun doesn't hit and is constantly changing.
** March 4, 2022: One clue misgenders Music/SamSmith as "he", even though they came out as non-binary in 2019. Making this error worse is that the May 11, 2021 episode correctly used "they/them" pronouns for Smith (the clue referred to them coming out as non-binary).
** November 16, 2022: The Final Jeopardy! clue in the third finals game asked, "Paul's letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations"; this is a disputed claim, with a June 2021 clue saying that Barnabas is sometimes credited for writing. According to Brittanica, it is “now widely believed to be the work of another Jewish Christian”.
** December 12, 2022: One clue claims that the Japanese title for ''Film/LeavingLasVegas'' is "I'm Drunk And You're A Prostitute", which was made up for a spoof article in 1998 and was erroneously reported by several news outlets before it was debunked. The actual Japanese title for said film is a katakana version of the English title.
** The NES game has a blatant one that the WebVideo/GameGrumps discovered. A clue asked for the Disney Princess cursed by "Queen Malificent" to which both [[Creator/{{Egoraptor}} Arin]] and WebVideo/{{Jon|Tron}} correctly claimed was WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty. They were surprised to discover the game was saying that was wrong, and they both gave a BigWhat when the "correct" response was revealed to be '''[[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs Snow White]]'''.

** The first time was on the Trebek version's ''second episode'', with all three giving the same incorrect day the 20th Century began — all three responded with "January 1, 1900", but the correct response was January 1, 190''1''.
** It happened again on April 8, 1985 when all three contestants missed a ''Final'' response on the date that college football bowl games took place. The correct response was January 2, 1984, and all three contestants wrote "January 1, 1984".

** In the inaugural season of the current version, all three players ended Final Jeopardy! with scores of $0 in ''two'' different games after giving an incorrect answer and wagering everything. The first time was on the Trebek version's ''second episode'', with all three giving the same incorrect day the 20th Century began — all three responded with "January 1, 1900", but the correct response was January 1, 190''1''. It happened again on April 8, 1985 when all three contestants missed a ''Final'' response on the date that college football bowl games took place.

* ShesGotLegs: The "Long Lovely Ladies" category was about women who qualify for this trope.

** Alex's cancer announcement in 2019.

* FifteenMinutesOfFame: Often experienced by contestants who attract viral attention for winning a lot of games, a funny answer, their speech pattern, or their appearance. There have been inversions from notable contestants who used their ''Jeopardy!'' fame to further their public career, arguably none more than Ken Jennings, who parlayed his ''Jeopardy!'' success into a career as a best-selling author. Ken Jennings became a consulting producer in 2020, and he became to the first guest host after Trebek's passing.

** December 13, 2022: A Double Jeopardy! clue asked "After [[Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies Jed Clampett]] discovered oil on his Appalachian property, he loaded up his family & moved to this more affluent locale"... except it was the ''Ozarks'' where Jed's property was located, not Appalachia.

** November 16, 2022: The Final Jeopardy! clue in the third finals game asked, "Paul's letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations"; this is a disputed claim, with a June 2021 clue saying that Barnabas is sometimes credited for writing. According to Brittanica, it is “now widely believed to be the work of another Jewish Christian”