History Trivia / Jeopardy

* CreatorBacklash: According to [[https://vault.si.com/vault/1989/05/01/television-for-1000-the-worlds-toughest-game-show-what-is-jeopardy- a 1989 interview]] in ''Sports Illustrated'', Art Fleming disliked many facets of the Trebek version, finding it too glitzy and dumbed-down compared to his versions, while also expressing disdain for only paying out to winners and giving parting gifts to losers.

** Heck, Alex got the name of his first American game show wrong, calling it ''The Wizard of Oz'' rather than ''Series/TheWizardOfOdds'' during a 2002 episode. He corrected his mistake before Double Jeopardy!, [[OldShame noting that it was "easily forgotten"]], and jokingly asked "Was it me or was it the show?" After audience laughter, he concluded that it was the show.

* OldShame:
** The series has all but distanced itself from Kids' Weeks due to sportsmanship incidents the last two times they were done. The first happened on the July 31, 2013 episode where media outlets and angry Facebook posts [[OvershadowedByControversy ignored a $66,600 win in favor of a judgment call that didn't affect the game]]. They tried another Kids' Week in December 2014 but a StageMom caused a stir with Trebek when her daughter finished with a negative score and he did not console her, and also acknowledged the loss the start of the next episode, causing the mother to demand that intro be re-shot. It didn't help that the latter fiasco was exposed by the Sony hacks. ''Jeopardy!'' hasn't done a Kids' Week since.
*** On another note, kiddie spin-off ''Jep!'' doesn't get that much recognition. Luckily, because of this, kids who competed on ''Jep!'' back in the day are allowed to apply for the main series as adults.
** The March 1986 five-day champion reign of Barbara Lowe is basically forgotten now, as she was considered by many fans to be a {{Jerkass}}, and she lied on her application as to her frequent past game show appearances under aliases, which violated her eligibility requirements. Her episodes have never rerun, either, despite her first win coming over Lionel Goldbart, a four-day champion and eventual Tournament of Champions competitor. They discovered the lies after her 5th and final game, and they barred her from the tournament. They also refused to pay her the money she won until [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem she threatened to sue the studio]].
*** Or at least, that was the story ''Jeopardy!'' producers repeatedly put forth, until [[https://www.theringer.com/tv/2023/5/2/23705821/jeopardy-lost-tapes-barbara-lowe-mystery-champion her episodes were found]] and she proved to be a very personable, average woman. Documents from the show reveal she had fully disclosed the other game shows she'd appeared on, as well, leaving the question of why ''Jeopardy!'' tried so hard to scrub her from its history. According to Lowe, the show tried to withhold her winnings because Trebek claimed a gastrointestinal issue she experienced had cost the production time and money; she eventually had to settle for half. If anything, it seems like Trebek personally disliked her (in addition to the bathroom emergency, she'd also corrected him on an answer immediately instead of waiting for a commercial break) and tried to be punitive, and that removing her episodes is less about her and more about protecting him.
** The same treatment has been given to Season 30 5-time champion Jerry Slowik, who '''did''' meet eligibility requirements, but got arrested for an unlawful sex act, prompting ''Jeopardy!'' to drop him from the 2014 Tournament Of Champions and replace him with Mark Japinga, the 4-time champion who had the most money in that cycle. (That said, his episodes haven't been barred from reruns; at least one aired during the 2014-15 weekend rerun cycle.)
** Averted with the Fleming era. Players from his tenure have appeared in the Trebek version with pictures if possible. Most notably, Burns Cameron, the biggest winner of the original NBC era ($11,110), was invited for the Super Jeopardy! tournament in 1990.
** Mike Richards' brief tenure as host has already become this. It's pretty safe to say that his two weeks from Season 37 and his five episodes from Season 38 are likely never going to see the light of day ever again.

*** At its logical extreme, infamous March 1986 five day champion Barbara Lowe's games were never re-aired after their original run in any form. Given her reputation, it's unlikely the episodes will be seen until a tape turns up in someone's collection, despite her first win coming over 4 day champion and TOC semifinalist Lionel Goldbart.

*** Or at least, that was the story ''Jeopardy!'' producers repeatedly put forth, until [[https://www.theringer.com/tv/2023/5/2/23705821/jeopardy-lost-tapes-barbara-lowe-mystery-champion her episodes were found]] and she proved to be a very personable, average woman. Documents from the show reveal she had fully disclosed the other game shows she'd appeared on, as well, leaving the question of why ''Jeopardy!'' tried so hard to scrub her from its history. According to Lowe, the show tried to withhold her winnings because Trebek claimed a bathroom emergency had cost the production time and money; she eventually had to settle for half. If anything, it seems like Trebek personally disliked her and, as a producer, tried to be punitive, and that removing her episodes is less about her and more about protecting him.

** The same treatment has been given to Season 30 5-time champion Jerry Slowik, who ''did'' meet eligibility requirements, but got arrested for an unlawful sex act, prompting ''Jeopardy!'' to drop him from the 2014 Tournament Of Champions and replace him with Mark Japinga, the 4-time champion who had the most money in that cycle. (That said, his episodes haven't been barred from reruns; at least one aired during the 2014-15 weekend rerun cycle.)

* OlderThanTheyThink: What was the first game show to feature a video board of sports questions with 4 point values in each category, and three contestants buzzing in to answer questions on a sports bar-themed set? If you said ''Sports Jeopardy!'', you obviously aren't Canadian. ''Game On'', a Canadian game show that aired from 1998-2000 on Global, basically looks like an early prototype of ''Sports Jeopardy!'', just with a unique "Two Minute Warning" final round featuring a contracted (yet expensive) board, less categories, no need to phrase in the form of a question, and a far lower budget (a sports bar prize package toplined with a 56-inch TV was the ''top prize'' for the season-ending ''championship game''.) Other differences were cosmetic, notably including podiums replaced with lounge chairs and a wet bar.

** After ''The New Battlestars'' was cancelled, Alex Trebek considered giving up game shows for good. Suppose he stuck to his word when he got a telephone call from Merv...

* CreatorBacklash: According to a 1989 interview in ''Sports Illustrated'', Art Fleming disliked many facets of the Trebek version, finding it too glitzy and dumbed-down compared to his versions, while also expressing disdain for only paying out to winners and giving parting gifts to losers.

* DanBrowned:

** Before the November 9, 2020 episode, executive producer Mike Richards paid tribute to Trebek, who had died the previous day. The same episode, as well as all Trebek-hosted episodes after it, had a brief line of text at the end also mentioning it is dedicated to Trebek. Unfortunately, at least one affiliate (Detroit's WDIV-TV) did not air either tribute, lthough they did create their own text dedicated to Trebek that aired at the start of the first commercial break during their broadcast of the following day's episode.[[note]]November 9 was a Monday, and Monday episodes are fed to affiliates on the previous Friday. Since Trebek died on Sunday morning, the show had to quickly shoot and edit the tribute so Sony could do an emergency re-feed on Sunday night. Technical issues with getting the new feed, or simple ignorance about the new feed, could explain why a station like WDIV didn't air the tribute[[/note]] Trebek’s final episode ended with a series of clips from his tenure set to Creator/HughJackman‘s cover of “Once Before I Go”, originally by Peter Allen.

** The Final Jeopardy on November 17, 2022 read "Paul's letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations". The answer that was accepted, Hebrews, is frequently debated to this day by Biblical scholars and not generally accepted as one of Paul's letters.[[note]]All of the other Pauline letters are attributed to Paul within the text. Hebrews lacks this, so while it's frequently attributed to Paul it isn't considered a canonical Pauline epistle by most sects.[[/note]] The "correct" answer, Romans, was marked as wrong and resulted in the contestant that would have won ending in 3rd place. Adding to the controversy, this was a match in the Tournament of Champions. It's entirely possible that this one ruling changed how the whole tournament played out.

** To prevent the entire season being buried by Sunday Night Football, ABC padded ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'s'' first season by intentionally placing first-run episodes on a hiatus for the month of December 2022, at which point only the first 8 of 13 episodes had aired. Its gaps were filled with sporadic repeats, plus additional episodes of ''Celebrity Wheel of Fortune'' and ''The Rookie''. Following this hiatus, the show will permanently move from Sundays to Thursdays, traditionally the best day of the week for ratings. The show's new time slot was also the original time slot for ''Celebrity Wheel'' during its first season, where it was frequently the top-rated show of the night. Aside from some sporadic weeknight airings of both new episodes and repeats, ''Wheel'' remains mostly on Sundays for now.

** On January 28, 2023, most East Coast CBS airings were pre-empted by the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament. However, Tampa Bay affiliate WTSP opted to cut off the tournament coverage half an hour early at 7:30 PM to air that day's ''Jeopardy!'' episode at its normal time, likely due to the returning champion on that episode being from the area (''Wheel'' was not aired that day, but did not feature anyone local).

** ''Jeopardy!'' is often highly regarded by its affiliates due to its high ratings and high viewer interest in the returning champions. If a "superchamp" is currently reigning, stations will go out of their way to make sure the show is not pre-empted. This was especially true during James Holzhauer's run. When the April 26, 2019 episode got pre-empted on all ABC affiliates by the NFL Draft, WABC-TV posted multiple announcements and ran several promos announcing that episode would air Saturday, April 27 at 7:30 PM, the time slot normally used for reruns of ''Wheel''. ABC O&O KGO-TV in San Francisco aired the April 25 and 26 episodes in their entirety shortly after the Draft coverage signed off (and still at a reasonable hour, while ''Wheel'' was bumped overnight), then aired those episodes ''again'' the following Sunday night in primetime, pre-empting a ''new episode of Shark Tank''. On June 3, 2019, Pennsylvania affiliate WBRE-TV was scheduled to pre-empt ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' for an hour-long local telethon. However, once it was leaked that Holzhauer would be defeated on that day, WBRE shortened the telethon broadcast to half an hour to allow that episode to air at its regular time. During this time, Philadelphia ABC O&O WPVI-TV even bragged on their social media that their broadcasts of ''Jeopardy!'' were getting higher ratings than ''Series/GameOfThrones''.

** Some West Coast affiliates such as KRQE in Albuquerque, New Mexico will insist on running ''Jeopardy!'' in its entirety when it is slotted immediately following a sporting or political event that ends up running long, joining ''Wheel'' (or other programs) in progress immediately after the credits roll. They even do this with the shows' Saturday repeats. This is also common during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which frequently run over. Pacific Time Zone affiliates typically move ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' to the 10 PM hour (since that hour is vacated due to being the spot in the primetime lineup where the Convention airs on the East Coast), but will always run the 8 and 9 PM primetime shows in their entirety following the Convention, and do ''not'' run the 10 PM hour programming in its entirety in order to start the 11:00 news on time. Most affiliates that schedule ''Jeopardy!'' at 10 choose to air it in its entirety following network primetime and join ''Wheel'' in progress afterwards. KABC-TV in Los Angeles even switched their usual order of the two game shows so that ''Wheel'' would air first at 10 (it normally airs second), and would get joined in progress or skipped following the conclusion of ABC primetime if those programs slid back. Despite these efforts, both game shows are usually in reruns during these events. If the event's overrun is more than 30 minutes (but less than 60), ''Jeopardy!'' will get joined in progress afterward and fill the rest of the half-hour slot, with ''Wheel'' (or whatever program was meant for that slot) getting skipped over.
** Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV-TV often prioritizes ''Jeopardy!'' over all of their other programming, even NBC network shows at times. Any time the 7:30 PM slot is pre-empted (including when Thursday Night Football aired on NBC, and during the Summer and Winter Olympics for pre-show ''The Olympic Zone''), ''Jeopardy!'' moves to 7:00 PM, pre-empting ''Wheel of Fortune''. At least once, this even happened on a day where ''Wheel'' had a contestant from Detroit. There were also at least two instances of WDIV airing ''Jeopardy!'' in primetime slots, pre-empting the NBC network feed. At one point in May 2019, during James Holzhauer's run, WDIV aired a one-hour local special at 7:00 and aired ''Wheel'' and ''Jeopardy!'' at 8:00 and 8:30 PM, pre-empting a new episode of ''Series/TheBlacklist''. On June 2, 2022, when a speech from President Joe Biden pre-empted most of ''Jeopardy!'s'' slot, WDIV ran the show in its entirety following the speech, pre-empting about half of a repeat of ''Series/LawAndOrder''.

** In 2022, Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI-TV announced they would be swapping ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel's'' time slots starting July 4, with the former now at 7:30 PM instead of 7:00. Although local ''Jeopardy!'' fans were annoyed with this move, the station insisted that this was done for ''Jeopardy!'s'' benefit due to its increasing ratings and expected it to do even better as a lead-in to NBC primetime. On Saturdays during NFL season, the 7:30 time slot is pre-empted by local Steelers program ''The Jerome Bettis Show''. Since the game shows' swap, WPXI accommodates ''Jeopardy!'s'' Saturday repeats by moving them up to 7:00 during the season, bumping ''Wheel'' to 4:30 AM Saturday morning. This also happens on days where NBC airs Notre Dame College's football games, which usually begin at 7:30; in these cases, WPXI prioritizes ''Jeopardy!'' over ''its own program'' by keeping it at 7:00 as a lead-in to the game and bumping ''Jerome Bettis'' to early Saturday morning preceding [=E/I=] programming. Also, whenever WPXI locally airs Steelers games, they refuse to touch the ''Wheel/Jeopardy!'' block for pregame, so any pregame shows air at 6:00 PM (pre-empting local news and ''NBC Nightly News''), followed by the game shows, and ''then'' the game.

* NamesTheSame:
** One Celebrity Edition with sports anchors featured this clue: "From 1952 to 1955 this Phillie led the National League in wins, complete games & innings pitched". Both Bob Costas and Keith Olbermann deferred to the third contestant: Then-Creator/{{ESPN}} anchor and future ''Good Morning America'' anchor[[note]]and ''Jeopardy!'' guest host[[/note]] Robin Roberts, who guessed correctly that the answer was Phillie great...Robin Roberts.
** High school teacher Patrick Quinn won Season 28's Teacher's Tournament, but he's of no relation to Kerry Ketcham, who infamously appeared on ''[[Series/{{Password}} Super Password]]'' in 1988 as a fugitive under a fake alias. His assumed name? Patrick Quinn.
** Partly owing to its status as a LongRunner, there have been many ''Jeopardy!'' contestants who share the same name but are otherwise unrelated, like the two contestants named Michael Falk from 1992 and 2006 (though only the latter won any games, let alone the TOC). A few of these same-named pairings were each champions on the show, like 1992 5 day champion John Kelly (followed 13 years later by a one day champ of the same name.)
** Though both had success on their respective shows, 2004 four-time champion Anne Boyd is ''not'' the same Anne Boyd who won $100,000 on ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'' in 2007.
** Despite sharing the same last name, ethnicity, and profession (high school teacher), 2001 5 day champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist Babu Srinivasan is ''not'' related to 2009 4 day champion and 2010 TOC semifinalist Andy Srinivasan.
** The Season 5 premiere had a contestant by the name of Vernon Jones, not to be confused with the politician of the same name.
** Season 37 seven-time champion Brian Chang shares his name with another contestant who played 11 years prior. Coincidentally, both players are from the Chicago metropolitan area.

** In July 2022, Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI-TV announced they would be swapping ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel's'' time slots, with the former now at 7:30 PM instead of 7:00. Although local ''Jeopardy!'' fans were annoyed with this move, the station insisted that this was done for ''Jeopardy!'s'' benefit due to its increasing ratings and expected it to do even better as a lead-in to NBC primetime. On Saturdays during NFL season, the 7:30 time slot is pre-empted by local Steelers program ''The Jerome Bettis Show''. Since the game shows' swap, WPXI accommodates ''Jeopardy!'s'' Saturday repeats by moving them up to 7:00 during the season, bumping ''Wheel'' to 4:30 AM Saturday morning. This also happens on days where NBC airs Notre Dame College's football games, which usually begin at 7:30; in these cases, WPXI prioritizes ''Jeopardy!'' over ''its own program'' by keeping it at 7:00 as a lead-in to the game and bumping ''Jerome Bettis'' to early Saturday morning preceding [=E/I=] programming.

* RoleEndingMisdemeanor:
** Mike Richards resigned from being the full-time new host just a week after he was officially announced to be taking the job. His selection as host was almost uniformly rejected by fans amid allegations that he perverted the host selection process to give himself the job, so after sexist behavior during his time on ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'', including a lawsuit over demeaning comments and harassments toward the show's models as well as provocative statements he made on his old podcast ''The Randumb Show'' were brought to light, it was game over. He was fired from the show (as well as ''Series/WheelOfFortune'') entirely just another week later.

** Being a pre-taped syndicated program, local affiliates will occasionally make a mistake and schedule the wrong episode to air, usually a repeat of the previous weekday's episode, or the episode meant for the secondary "Daytime ''Jeopardy!''" run. For a show as continuity-driven as ''Jeopardy!'', these mixups do not go unnoticed by fans. Of all days, South Carolina affiliate WBTW made this mistake on the day Matt Amodio's 39-game run came to an end, accidentally rerunning the previous Friday's episode. They properly aired the episode the next day. This would happen again later that season when Nebraska affiliates KOLN and KGIN made this mistake on the day Amy Schneider's 41-game run came to an end, accidentially rerunning the previous day's episode (they properly aired the episode later that night at 12:37 AM, announcing such on a crawl during that night's ''Wheel of Fortune'').
** On Denver Creator/{{FOX}} affiliate KDVR, any time the FOX network carries a Major League Baseball game from 7-10 PM Eastern Time (5-8 PM Mountain Time locally), ''Jeopardy!'' is scheduled immediately afterward. Because MLB is notorious for its slow game pace (and almost always running longer than its three-hour time slot allotted by FOX), ''Jeopardy!'' has never aired in its entirety when scheduled in this fashion. The first two Thursday episodes of Season 39 suffered from this, with the first only seeing the tail end aired, and the second not airing at all due to the game running into ''Wheel of Fortune's'' time slot afterward. Game 3 of the first Second Chance Tournament was also pre-empted on this affiliate thanks to being scheduled half an hour after Game 2 of the 2022 National League Championship Series. The latter overran by over an hour, resulting in none of ''Jeopardy!'' and only the second half of ''Wheel'' airing that day.

** ''Jeopardy!'' is often highly regarded by its affiliates due to its high ratings and high viewer interest in the returning champions. If a "superchamp" is currently reigning, stations will go out of their way to make sure the show is not pre-empted. This was especially true during James Holzhauer's run. At one point, ABC O&O KGO-TV in San Francisco re-aired two of his episodes the following Sunday night in primetime (but did not do the same for ''Wheel of Fortune''). When the April 26, 2019 episode got pre-empted on all ABC affiliates by the NFL Draft, WABC-TV posted multiple announcements and ran several promos announcing that episode would air Saturday, April 27 at 7:30 PM, the time slot normally used for reruns of ''Wheel''. On June 3, 2019, Pennsylvania affiliate WBRE-TV was scheduled to pre-empt ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' for an hour-long local telethon. However, once it was leaked that Holzhauer would be defeated on that day, WBRE shortened the telethon broadcast to half an hour to allow that episode to air at its regular time.

** Cleveland, Ohio CBS affiliate WOIO airs ''Wheel'' at around 2:45 in the morning followed by ''Jeopardy!'' at around 3:15 in the spring when CBS coverage of March Madness preempts both shows in the evening timeslot. In addition, at the time CBS was carrying Thursday Night NFL football, the station would air ''Jeopardy'' at 7:00 and run ''Wheel'' at 3:00 in the morning preempting an infomercial.

** Boston affiliate WBZ-TV is notorious for pre-empting ''Jeopardy!'' (and ''Wheel of Fortune'') almost every Friday during NFL season for local program ''Patriots All Access''. If ''Jeopardy!'' is a regular episode on a day where it is pre-empted, it airs at 2:37 AM following ''Wheel''. If it's a tournament finals episode, it usually airs at its regular time of 7:30 PM on sister station WSBK-TV (''Wheel'' still airs at 2:07 AM regardless, since that show has not had a tournament of any kind since 1999). However, they did not do this with the 2021 Professors Tournament finals, to local fans' disappointment.
** In May 2022, ABC picked up a primetime version of ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' to air alongside the third season of ''Celebrity Wheel of Fortune''. Its intended timeslot will be Sunday nights at 8:00 pm in the fall, against ''Sunday Night Football'' on NBC and part of ''Series/SixtyMinutes'' following NFL on CBS.

** Ken Jennings was also said to have lost his chance to become the new host, despite being an incredibly popular choice, due to controversial statements he'd made on Twitter, as well as his association with John Roderick, who at the time of Jennings' guest hosting tenure was involved in a social media controversy as "Bean Dad". However, that hasn't stopped the producers from bringing Jennings back as a substitute host starting in November 2021, nor has it stopped many people from pegging him as the full-time host.

** The Final Jeopardy on November 17, 2022 read "Paul's letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations". The answer that was accepted, Hebrews, is frequently debated to this day by Biblical scholars and not generally accepted as one of Paul's letters.[[note]]All of the other Pauline letters are attributed to Paul within the text. Hebrews lacks this, so while it's frequently attributed to Paul it isn't considered a canonical Pauline epistle by most sects.[[/note]] The "correct" answer, Romans, was marked as wrong and resulted in the contestant that would have won ending in 3rd place. Adding to the controversy, this was a match in the Tournament of Champions.

** When the show announced a guest host rotation for post-Trebek episodes of Season 37, Meredith Vieira expressed interest in being a possible candidate. She was turned down because of her contract with ''Series/TwentyFiveWordsOrLess''.
** Around the same time, Bob Costas was offered the chance to guest host. He rejected the position because of COVID-19 concerns. Likewise, Sunny Hostin negotiated to guest host but was rejected for being "too controversial".

** Around the same time, Bob Costas was offered the chance to guest host. He rejected the position because of COVID-19 concerns.

** Cleveland, Ohio CBS affiliate WOIO airs ''Wheel'' at around 2:45 in the morning followed by ''Jeopardy!'' at around 3:15 in the spring when CBS coverage of March Madness preempts both shows in the evening timeslot. In addition, at the time CBS was carrying Thursday Night NFL football, the station would air ''Jeopardy'' at 7:00 and run ''WHeel'' at 3:00 in the morning preempting an infomercial.

** On Denver Creator/{{FOX}} affiliate KDVR, any time the FOX network carries a Major League Baseball game from 7-10 PM Eastern Time (5-8 PM Mountain Time locally), ''Jeopardy!'' is scheduled immediately afterward. Because MLB is notorious for its slow game pace (and almost always running longer than its three-hour time slot allotted by FOX), ''Jeopardy!'' has never aired in its entirety when scheduled in this fashion. The first two Thursday episodes of Season 39 suffered from this, with the first only seeing the tail end aired, and the second not airing at all due to the game running into ''Wheel of Fortune's'' time slot afterward. Unlike on other affiliates, ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' do not "slide" to air after the game in their entirety due to KDVR's local newscast at 9:00 PM Mountain Time.