YMMV / Jeopardy!

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• Adaptation Displacement: The current version has far outlasted the Art Fleming era, but the show clearly hasn't forgotten its roots; clues about the Art Fleming era appear now and then, and some contestants have appeared on both versions. This is likely because very few of these episodes survive, most having been wiped by NBC; most audiences are not aware of versions of the show preceding Trebek's run. "Weird Al" Yankovic has given the era some visibility, since his video for "I Lost on Jeopardy" was filmed on a replica of the original set with Fleming and Don Pardo making cameos (given the video was released a mere three months before the Trebek version began, it's understandable if people thought the video was responsible for the current version, but in truth Merv Griffin had been planning a revival for almost two years prior to the video).
• Americans Hate Tingle: Unlike many other game shows of American origin, Jeopardy! has mostly failed to catch on in other countries, with few foreign adaptations lasting more than a couple years. This is particularly surprising given many such attempts were in countries which have had trivia game shows which are mostly all-gameplay no-gimmick pretty much like Jeopardy is. Most people outside North America only know Jeopardy! and host Alex Trebek through references in American media. To compare, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has had over 120 international adaptations, many of which lasted one or two decades or are still ongoing.
• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • Jeopardy! started falling into this near the start of the 1997-98 season. It was at this point when the producers began videotaping celebrities, public figures (scientists, politicians, etc.), journalists, and prolific writers to deliver individual clues and, in less frequent cases, full categories. Not only do their clues tend to break the show's pacing, often taking up to 20 seconds to deliver, their utilization has become much more common in recent years—even going so far as to feature soap opera actors awkwardly delivering clues in character.
  • The introduction of the Clue Crew, a regular "feature" used from 2001 to 2022. It's bad enough that the clues presented by these assistants tend to eat up as much time as their celebrity counterparts. It gets even worse upon realizing that, if any member of the Clue Crew introduces a category, there's hardly any effort to speed the game up until after the crew's entire column has been cleared out. However, complaints have subsided in the years since as the crew settled into their roles, with both then-current members (Jimmy McGuire and Sarah Whitcomb-Foss) being brought up as potential replacements for Trebek after his death.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ken Jennings (2004). Either he's The Ace who knows a lot about many things (even drinks, despite being a teetotaler), or a Invincible Hero who proves why the "Unlimited win" rule is a bad idea. Many even found him increasingly cocky throughout his subsequent visits to tournaments (particularly the "Greatest of All Time"). Reception to him as the first Guest Host after Trebek's death was mixed; some loved him, while others were put off by his high voice and sense of humor, as well as his controversial tweeting history. This was averted when it was confirmed that he would become one of the two ongoing hosts for Season 38, owing not only to his becoming more comfortable in the hosting role, but also due to the controversies of former showrunner Mike Richards putting most of the other guest hosts in a more favorable light.
  • Colby Burnett, winner of the November 2012 Teachers Tournament and 2013 Tournament of Champions. On one hand, he was quite good at the game and quite savvy with his wagering in early games. On the other hand, he got increasingly cocky with each win. By the finals of the ToC, he was about on par with Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery on Saturday Night Live's Celebrity Jeopardy! skits.
  • Arthur Chu (2014). His nontraditional, game logic driven method of playing and winning Jeopardy! by choosing questions out of order to fish out Daily Doubles is either a refreshing change of pace in a stale formula, or ruins everything that made Jeopardy! great. About 95% of the people commenting about Arthur Chu on Facebook express outrage and hatred of him. On the other hand, a good chunk of the fanbase on Reddit loves his strategy. And for those who don't mind his strategy (it's also used by savvy players who are facing equally capable foes and especially by some during the Tournament of Champions ^note since everyone is an expert player in the tournament, it's beneficial to find the Daily Double just to negate others from using it, much like bonus space defense in Scrabble), Chu also grated due to his lack of contestant courtesy, often speaking over Trebek. Defenders of him often justify this as a way of speeding up gameplay, as viewers and Alex alike have often expressed disdain for games where clues are left unplayed due to time running out (which is often exacerbated by slow and/or overly-verbose contestants).
    • Chu's strategy is hardly new. The strategy is referred to as the "Forrest Bounce", named after Chuck Forrest, one of the show's early dominant players. However, even Alex himself has said that he doesn't think highly of the "Forrest Bounce".
  • 2015: 13-day champion Matt Jackson proved to be a base breaker for many of the same reasons as Arthur Chu (ultra-serious demeanor, Forrest bouncing, cutting off Alex), and also attracted negative attention for what some perceived as a creepy smile during introductions (even being parodied on The Soup). Conversely, many fans were impressed with his intelligence and strategy (especially given that he was only 23 years old during his appearances), and noted that during interviews and when the game wasn't in progress, he was very kind and respectful. Notably, on one of his episodes, he informed the judges that they had accidentally ruled an incorrect response from him as correct, and so his score was deducted accordingly.
  • 2016: 9-day champion Buzzy Cohen turned into this during his last five games. Some fans found him smug and cocky for running his hands through his hair and gesturing during introductions, and for distracting the game when referencing the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches in Final during his runaway wins (i.e. "What is See you tomorrow, Trebek!"), but others liked that he showed his personality and injected levity into the show. And his final response during the conclusion of the 2017 Tournament of Champions to Alex "What is LOVE YOU" redeemed him because that proved he was doing it all in good fun. Fittingly, he also won the tournament after clawing his way back from nothing on the first day, where the producers declared one of his earlier responses valid and bumped up his total winnings a little, and he then made a Herculean leap into the lead with a lucky Daily Double wager that gave him enough money to surpass his opponents even with their first day winning and second day winnings totaled together. Seeing his family cheer him on at the final day is also very uplifting because it all paid off in the end. Cohen became one of the more popular guest hosts in Season 37 thanks to his stint hosting that season's Tournament of Champions.
  • Austin Rogers quickly became one of these due of his wacky behavior on the show proper, which departed from the cordial atmosphere expected on Jeopardy! While some love his personality and big bets, others find him annoying and distracting or an Attention Whore. It didn't help that he managed to rack up $400,000+ final total over the course of two weeks. The show actually posted on their app a page about how he was miming drink mixing at the start of almost every episode (he's a bartender), and he appeared on The Tonight Show and became James Corden's "new bae" on The Late Late Show. His detractors have seen these as overexposure, even long after his run ended. However, his run wasn't over yet, so some would say that was just the beginning. He happened to be the last person to qualify for the 2017 Tournament of Champions, in which he became a wild card semi-finalist and made it as a finalist, then placed third and won $50,000, and somehow managed to infect the others and even Trebek with his antics, including Austin "Buzzy" Cohen, whose first name he shares. The fact that one of his responses was stricken along with Buzzy's for adding an "s" to the end of a phrase—done when the producers cut in to inform Alex about the penalization—also shows that the show is not playing favorites.
  • Emma Arnold, a finalist in the 2018 teen tournament. Proponents are won over by her cute, friendly demeanor and surprisingly high intelligence. Others hate her entirely for her high-pitched, childlike voice which draws similarities to Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory.
  • James Holzhauer proved to be this for some during his 32-day reign from April to June 2019. Some fans love him for his aggressive gameplay and ballsy wagers, and are impressed at his ability to keep setting new records. Others find him to be a Curb Stomping Invincible Hero not unlike Ken Jennings, which made some detractors stop watching the show entirely.
    • With the Greatest of All Time Tournament, James seems to have fully embraced the role of Jerkass Heel, complete with trash-talking his opponents on Twitter (with Ken Jennings a surprising Snark Knight foil on the platform). He even trolled Alex in one of the Final Jeopardy! responses, crossing out Pat Sajak's name as Greatest Host Of Syndicated TV before Alex caught on. ^note After it was shown that James bet a low amount, Alex joked that he wished James bet much more. A few of his taunts against Brad Rutter became particularly controversial after Brad's underperformance in the tournament, to the point where even Ken Jennings called him out on it. Some people thought he crossed the line into Kick the Dog territory while others said it was standard trash talk and that Brad being one of the best for 20 years.
  • 2021: 7-time champ Brian Chang (the first superchamp in the post-Trebek era) quickly became this during his run for his smug demeanor and Forrest-bouncing. It didn't help that he won his fourth game by beating an opponent on a tiebreaker clue.
  • 2021: 38-day champ Matt Amodio. Impressive for his ability to win many games under six different hosts and his gameplay style, or annoying for his tendency to say "What's" before every response, even people, as well as saying last names only? The producers had to clarify during his run that he did not violate any rules and that responses are always accepted as long as they're in the form of a question. However, many others credit him with making the show exciting again during the uneven period following Alex Trebek's passing.
  • With Trebek's passing came the decision to have guest hosts for the remainder of Season 37. Aside from the fanbase universally disliking Dr. Mehmet Oz, the merits of each have varied. Much like the Power Players weeks, some fans weren't comfortable with certain hosts on a bipartisan/nonpartisan series. Those who don't mind it have ignored the criticism at best and resorted to infighting at worst.
  • Perhaps the most contentious choice in the guest host rotation was LeVar Burton. A massive fan campaign to get him to host seemed to go for naught until his spot was confirmed near the end of Season 37. Unfortunately, his episodes were pre-empted in some markets in favor of the Tokyo Olympics which were postponed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. To make matters worse, Burton was one of five guest hosts who emceed for only one week^note (the others being George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts before Burton, and David Faber and Joe Buck after), while most of the other guest hosts were given two. Those who got to see him host have mixed opinions on how he did. His detractors thought he was ill-prepared, and he took too long to find his footing compared to other guest hosts from the same season. His defenders who agree with this said he deserved another chance at the podium to prove his worth. After Mike Richards negotiated (and was subsequently denied) to succeed Trebek full-time, Burton came back into the running. However, fans who preferred other hosts wondered if they wanted Burton because they're merely fans of Burton as opposed to being fans of Jeopardy!. This as best exemplified by an online petition to let Burton host garnering hundreds of thousands of signatures by the time Richards' only week as permanent host aired. Burton eventually admitted on The Daily Show that he wasn't interested in hosting full-time anyway, although he was thankful for the opportunity. His episodes (along with any other episodes of Season 37 not hosted by Mayim or Ken) have never appeared in reruns, either.
  • Mayim Bialik, a Season 37 guest host and one of the two rotating hosts. Depending on who is asked when she started out, she was either a pleasant host who brings some fun to the table or she's an annoyance who giggles too much and was only brought in for Stunt Casting. After Mike Richards was ousted, Ken Jennings and Bialik split hosting duties. Viewers then noticed a jarring difference between both hosting styles with each rotation. Bialik makes unnecessary pauses before ruling on a response, and she usually doesn't show emotion to anything exciting such as a huge Daily Double or Final Jeopardy! wager. Her robotic demeanor hasn't changed, usually opening the show with a quick recap of the previous game's events and using the same catchphrases such as "Unfortunately, that's not correct." during Final. While fans generally agree that Jennings has settled into the role, Bialik's inability to improve has made her stick out like a sore thumb to many, coming full circle when it was announced in December of 2023 that she would no longer host. Her last episode aired in April of that year, after which she stepped down to announce her solidarity with those taking part in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
  • Michael Davies, who replaced the fired Mike Richards in season 38, either brought the show out of the doldrums of the Richards era, or overexposes the show too much as opposed to improving the clue writing or updating the Tournament of Champions prizes (which have been the same since 2006). Although he did ditch the "more guest hosts" plan, his decision to have Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings split hosting duties still gave an awkward atmosphere, especially those who didn't approve of the former's hosting style. His decision to replace the longtime tournament format was either long overdue or too much of an overhaul at once. His introduction of more tournaments such as the Second Chance tournament either adds more opportunities or unnecessarily takes away slots from potential contestants and waters down the Tournament of Champions (which had long been the franchise's crown jewel). The postseason format he implemented for Season 40 (which had to be extended due to the WGA strike) also doesn't help matters. With an Invitational Tournament following the Tournament of Champions, two thirds of Season 40 consisted of tournaments, with regular play only resuming seven months into the season.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: After an inflatable shark was used in a video clue, said shark made an out-of-nowhere appearance going into commercial.
• Broken Base:
  • The removal of the five-game limit in 2003, which usually comes up when someone from Season 20 onward goes on a lengthy run. Fans who support this say it invites new viewership, because it makes people curious about the super-champion everybody's talking about. They have in turn speculated on how winners from before that era would have lasted had their streaks not been cut short. On the other hand, a comfortable super-champion risks a decreased play-along factor for fans who are forced to adapt to Forrest-bouncing or Daily Double hunting. It also results in more anti-climactic games that are put out of reach for opponents and render Final Jeoaprdy! meaningless. The division only increased with the sudden rise in super-champs since late Season 37 starting with Matt Amodio.
  • When Alex shaved off his mustache in 2001 fans seemed to have been fairly split as to whether they preferred him with or without it. When he re-grew the mustache in 2014 and polled fans as to whether he should keep it or not, support for and and against it was reportedly about fifty-fifty. (However, when he grew a full beard in 2018 and polled people about it again, 73% voted in favor of it - though as his wife preferred Alex clean-shaven, the beard didn't last).
  • While Ken Jennings' "What's a hoe?" response is regarded as one of the show's funniest moments, there's some debate as to whether it was justly declared an incorrect response, or whether the actually-intended response ("What's a rake?") was far too obscure and Jennings should have been given credit for a correct response. For his part, Jennings himself has said that he didn't feel cheated, knew the response probably wouldn't be accepted, and that "hoe" and "ho" are different enough spellings to justify rejecting his response.
  • The topic of who should succeed Alex Trebek as host was always thorny, even before Trebek's passing in 2020. Brad Rutter, Buzzy Cohen, and Ken Jennings were among the most common picks, with Mayim Bialik being touted among the 2021 interim hosts.
  • On September 15, 2020, the correct response to the Final Jeopardy! clue was Berry Gordy. The third place player's response of "Who is Barry Gordy?" was deemed incorrect. Although this didn't affect the outcome since the leading player had a lock game, fans had a field day over this ruling. The majority of the base claimed that she should have been given credit because most dialects pronounce "Berry" and "Barry" exactly the same. Those who agreed with the judges said there is enough of a difference when saying both names. It didn't help that this was only Mike Richards' second game as executive producer.
• Common Knowledge: It was long believed that this composition of the think music was used on the Fleming era. It never was, having circulated only since 1986 (two years into the Trebek run) when it was featured on the Television's Greatest Hits, Volume II album. Further complicating matters, for a long time that version was the one most TV shows/movies used in "thinking" scenes (including The Santa Clause, among others), and was also used heavily in the Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: For many years, the commonly accepted strategy for board clearing was to start from the top of a category and go straight down, as value correlates directly to clue difficulty and thus starting from the top helps ease the players into what the category is asking them before they get to the hard clues. However, this trend was slowly upended starting in the late 2010s as an indirect result of strings of successes from multiple super-champions using unorthodox board clearing strategies. This has resulted in the evolution of the modern board clearing strategy, which is to eliminate as many high-value clues from the board as possible at the start to prevent them being lost due to time at the end of a round and make late-round clues less impactful on the game state.
• Creator's Pet: The Clue Crew. For a few years after their introduction, they appeared in clues almost weekly, and the ceremonial 4,000th episode dedicated its entire last segment to them.
• Elimination Houdini:
  • Anurag Kashyap made it to the finals of the Season 25 Teen Tournament thanks to some close calls in Final Jeopardy! of his semi-final match. Both of his opponents finished Double Jeopardy! tied for the lead, and he was trailing by $1,200. He wagered everything and got the correct response of Anne Frank. One opponent also wrote the correct response but didn't wager enough to cover him. The other wrote "Who is Annie Frank?" which was ruled unacceptable after a stopdown. Anurag eventually won the tournament.
  • On February 8, 2013, during the Season 29 Teen Tournament, Leonard Cooper became the first and only wildcard finalist for having the highest non-winning semifinal score. This was necessitated due to a previous semifinal game where all three contestants wound up with $0 after Final Jeopardy! And guess what? Cooper won the tournament! The rules were changed immediately afterward so that semifinals that end with all three players at $0 are decided by a tiebreaker clue.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • One of the few big money winners from the 21st century is Brad Rutter. Despite never having lost an official match (save for the exhibition IBM Watson Challenge and the special Greatest of All Time tournament), Brad is well-liked for his Deadpan Snarker tendencies and has even had his name thrown out as a possible replacement for Alex Trebek even before Trebek's death.
  • Some of the guest hosts following Trebek's death have been warmly received despite their relative obscurity, most notably Buzzy Cohen and David Faber.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: It's common for casual fans and non-fans alike to assume that James Holzhauer threw his losing game due to his unusually small Final Jeopardy! wager of $1,399, but a minimal application of game theory is necessary to understand why he did this. The scores going into Final Jeopardy! were Emma at $26,600, James at $23,400, and Jay at $11,000. Emma made the ideal wager of $20,201, enough to put her $1 above double James' score on a correct response, therefore meaning that James could win only if Emma got it wrong or grossly under-wagered. His own wager of $1,399 would therefore leave him $1 above double Jay's score even on an incorrect response and still allow him to win if Emma had also gotten it wrong.
• Fandom Rivalry: When it comes to sister program Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! fans' mileage varies greatly. Some fans enjoy the show almost as much, or at least tolerate it, while others love to hate the show. Wheel fans mostly enjoy Jeopardy!; any distaste for Jeopardy! from the Wheel fandom is not so much for the show itself, but for the show "overshadowing" Wheel in more recent years (even after the messy and scandalous aftermath of Trebek's passing), and for much of the show's casual fanbase showing hate for Wheel seemingly for no reason other than because it's not Jeopardy!. For the first three decades or so, Wheel was the more popular of the two shows and is credited as the reason Jeopardy! was revived for syndication, but things quickly changed in the social media generation. It has become somewhat of a status quo that Wheel is "the poor man's Jeopardy!", which Wheel fans feel was fueled by Harry Friedman causing the show to become stagnant during his tenure.
  • Some Wheel fans blame vocal Jeopardy! fans for the termination of Mike Richards, whose contributions to Wheel were praised by game show fans as a whole and brought the show to new levels of prominence and relevancy not seen in years. His termination meant the quiet cancellation of what would have been Wheel's first tournament in over two decades. When Michael Davies was named his successor, it was reported that he would run both shows, but ended up never joining Wheel. While fans and former contestants of Wheel have been wishing for a "second chance" for years, Davies' announcement that Jeopardy! would be having one was met with shocked reaction; the concept of reviving tournaments or champions on Wheel has been continually derided by some fans and Pat Sajak for the game being too dependent on "the luck factor" (meaning a good puzzle solver could barely get a chance to play if they get poor spins), which Jeopardy! supposedly lacks by comparison. With Davies expanding the franchise in many ways, Wheel fans feel the dynamic of the two shows being sister programs has strayed even further that it did in the Richards era.
  • In terms of broadcast, Wheel is commonly the first target for pre-emptions from local stations due to contractual clauses forcing it to be aired in the coveted prime access hour, regardless of time zone (this is not necessarily true for Jeopardy!, which airs in the morning or afternoon in several markets), plus the fact that it no longer has returning champions (and Wheel fans have never let Friedman live it down for removing them shortly after he took over the show). In the rare case Jeopardy! does get pre-empted but Wheel doesn't, Jeopardy! fans tend to resent Wheel even more. Wheel fans argue that this is a major reason why Jeopardy! is now almost-always beating it in ratings.
  • Jeopardy! fans who live in markets where the two shows are paired together tend to poke fun at the "jarring" transition from one show to the other. In markets where Wheel airs first, fans tend to refer to Wheel as "the appetizer before the main course", an analogy that even Ken Jennings has used. Fans who live in markets where Jeopardy! airs in the afternoon tend to express jealousy that the show is on early when they have to be at work or school, while Wheel gets to air in the evening when they're home to watch, and insist it should be the other way around. Wheel fans argue that having Jeopardy! air in the afternoon at least means they get to see the show before other fans, and the show is less subject to pre-emptions. Some fans who hate Wheel have expressed wishes of Wheel being cancelled altogether and replaced with an additional run of Jeopardy!, or an hour-long version (some markets do air two runs of Jeopardy! back-to-back, separate from Wheel). Wheel fans have to remind these people that Jeopardy! would not have been revived for syndication if not for Wheel's immediate success in the 1983-84 season.
  • Many Jeopardy! fans find it unfair that second and third-place contestants do not get to keep the money they've accumulated during the game, unlike on Wheel, a fact that Pat Sajak maliciously pointed out to Johnny Gilbert on a 1995 episode where he guest-announced. While some Wheel fans agree with this, others insist that Jeopardy!'s competition is more about winning the right to go on a winning streak, rather than trying to win the most money in one game.
  • Comparisons between Jeopardy! and Wheel (almost-always in Jeopardy!'s favor) are a common subject among comedians. One such comedian, Matt Rogers, once called Wheel "a stupid game" on his podcast Las Culturistas, and added, "Jeopardy! is the real game." Fittingly, though likely unrelated to this, Rogers was invited to appear on the first season of Celebrity Jeopardy!, where he lost his quarterfinal by $900. Despite his harsh words about Wheel, he appeared on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune a year later and won over $260,000 for his preferred charity (the same one he played for on Jeopardy!), though he never retracted his statements.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Some of the sets have specific nicknames coined by fans (with the first set usually just being called "the original", lacking any distinct nicknames):
    • 1991-1996: The "Grid" set, named due to its heavy use of grid aesthetics
    • 1996-2002: The "Sushi Bar" set, named for its overall wooden and window-heavy aesthetic that looks a bit like a sushi bar
    • 2002-2009: The "Metallic" set, which makes heavy use of more shiny and metallic fixtures
    • 2009-2013: The "CES" set, due to this one debuting at the Consumer Electronics Show and becoming permanent afterwards
    • 2013-Present: The "30th Anniversary" set, named after the Milestone Celebration this set first debuted on
  • Fans have coined various techniques associated with the show, mostly applying to wagers in Final Jeopardy!. J! Archive has a glossary.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Several former Jeopardy! contestants have appeared on the show, and vice-versa. Civilian Millionaire was cancelled in 2019, but continues to see success internationally.
  • In Russia, there's an overlap between fandoms of Svoya igra (Jeopardy adapatation) and Chto? Gde? Kogda? (an original format that served as the model for Million Dollar Mind Game). Indeed, these games share a good number of notable players on television, and there's a good amount of shared participators in the "sport" versions (tournament quizzes using the respective formats).
• Game-Breaker: Until 2003, Jeopardy! champions could win up to five games before being retired. Starting in the 2003-04 season, the producers instituted a "sky's the limit" rule, where champions could go on and on winning until being defeated. Towards the season's end, Ken Jennings came along and went on a 74-game win streak that lasted into the next season, earning well over $2 million.
  • James Holzhauer's 32-win streak in 2019 qualifies as well. Due to his frequent success rate on aggressive Daily Double wagers (including a series-high $25,000 wager on his fourth and tenth games), Holzhauer not only became the first contestant to top $100,000 in a single game (with a record $131,127 on April 17), he also topped $100,000 six different times during his reign and holds each and every one of the ten highest single-game scores in the show's history (10th place being a "paltry" $89,229).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Своя игра^note Svoya Igra, "One's Own Game" in English, a Russian adaptation, has run since 1994. Jeopardy! has also done reasonably well in Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and Turkey.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Alex jokingly called his first champion Greg Hopkins a "chicken" for wagering only $300 in Final Jeopardy!. Greg, possibly influenced by this, wagered his entire bank on the second Final Jeopardy!, which he missed. Even worse, it was the first triple-zero finish of the syndicated run.
  • The Final Jeopardy! clue on Ken Jennings' first episode in 2004 asked for the first-ever female Olympic athlete to win 5 gold medals in a single year; the correct response was Marion Jones, with Alex even remarking "and she's still going strong." A little over three years later, Jones was stripped of her medals after admitting to using steroids.
  • Alex telling a contestant in his final episode that he too owns more books than he could ever read in his life. Trebek would die two weeks after the episode was taped.
  • Richards using Alex's "kinder and gentler society" spiel from the beginning of his final week at the end of every episode from his guest-hosting stint becomes this after his actions were revealed in an incriminating exposé, costing Richards both his hosting and executive producing jobs.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The first episode of Trebek's Jeopardy! on September 10, 1984, had these two back-to-back questions — "Two Saturday Night alumni who tried Trading Places", the answer being "Who are Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy?", and "He may Never Say Never Again when asked to be Bond", with the answer obviously being "Who is Sean Connery?" That's right — Sean Connery and SNL have been part of Trebek's Jeopardy! since the beginning. And in Finding Forrester, there's a scene where William Forrester (Connery) watches a game of Jeopardy.
  • The "Readings From Homer" category in a 1999 episode in which Dan Castellaneta reads the works of Homer as Homer Simpson is this for two reasons:
    • Three years after this episode, The Simpsons episode "Tales From the Public Domain" had a segment in which Homer and the rest of the men of Springfield acted out The Odyssey, with Homer as Odysseus.
    • Hercules: The Animated Series had an episode in which the historical Homer appeared, voiced by...you guessed it, Dan Castellaneta.
  • On June 22, 1999, with a very close game for Final Jeopardy!, Alex tells the players "Someone asked me the other day if we've ever had a three-way tie...", to which he said no. On March 16, 2007, the first-ever^note and, since the co-champion rule has been eliminated as of 2017, likely the only ever nonzero three-way tie happened in Final Jeopardy.
  • January 2004 champion Tom Walsh mentions his home city of Washington DC not having a baseball team. One year later, the Montreal Expos moved there and became the Washington Nationals.
  • In the July 29, 2015, show, A question in the category of "Teams That Haven't Won a World Series", mentioned Troy Tulowitzki, a player for the Colorado Rockies, trying to lead his team to a championship^note The Rockies did reach the World Series in 2007, Tulowitzki's rookie season, but were swept by the Boston Red Sox in four games. While true at the time of taping^note nothing was displayed mentioning when the episode was taped, by the time the episode aired on TV, Tulowitzki had been traded to the Toronto Blue Jays ^note (a team that, for the record, has won the World Series twice—1992 and 1993).
  • Mayim Bialik being invited to guest host Jeopardy! in 2021 fits considering that one of the last episodes of her 1990s sitcom Blossom had a Dream Sequence where Blossom Russo, the title character played by Bialik, competed on Jeopardy! alongside Albert Einstein and Blossom's brother Joey.
  • A darkly humorous example, but it's oddly fitting that Alex passed a week after Sean Connery's death, given the relationship between two (or at least the versions played by Will Ferrell and Darrell Hammond) in Saturday Night Live's "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketches.
  • During a news segment about contestants showing up to audition and all aiming to beat then-Jeopardy champion James Holzhauer, sharp-eyed viewers can briefly spot Matt Amodio in the testing room (at :27 and :43). While Matt and James never faced off during regular season play, Matt went on to beat James in a manner of speaking about two years later when he won 38 games, briefly surpassing him as the player with the second-most wins in regular play (before being surpassed in turn by Amy Schneider).
• Just Here for Godzilla: This can occur when a champion goes on a lengthy run of 10+ days with many casual viewers who don't regularly (or ever) watch Jeopardy! tuning in to see the dominant champion everyone's talking about.
  • Best exemplified by Ken Jennings' 74-day run in 2004. At the midpoint of his run towards the end of Season 20, Jeopardy! overtook Wheel of Fortune in the Nielsen ratings for the first reported time ever.
  • It came out late in Matt Jackson's 13 day run in 2015 that advertisers were inquiring about how long he'd win for, so they could buy commercial time during his more-watched games (producers obviously declined, not wanting to leak episode results).
  • James Holzhauer's 33-game run in 2019 saw viewership grow by 32% in his first four weeks. The final game of his run was Jeopardy!'s highest rated episode in 14 years. The numbers blew Game of Thrones out of the water and almost matched the NBA finals that were happening around the same time (although the viewership spike of that episode likely came from its result being leaked).
  • This is the concept of the Greatest of All Time Tournament. Three of the most dominant players in the game's history playing Tournament Final matches until one of them won three matches^note Tournament Finals are played in two days and the winner is who has the highest combined total between both games. The one hour format basically plays both games in a one hour period.
  • Happened during Amy Schneider's run where viewership climbed close to 10 million viewers per show. At the midpoint of her run in late December 2021, Jeopardy! was beating 60 Minutes and Yellowstone in the ratings.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "What is ___?" ^ExplanationThe "answering with a question" format had so wormed its way into the brain of American audiences, as far back as the Fleming era, that practically any other game show that asks trivia will see multiple contestants answer with a question; that show's host may then remind them "this isn't Jeopardy!" with varying degrees of humor or irritation (most notably Win Ben Stein's Money, where offending contestants were forced to wear a Dunce Cap).
  • "Who are three people that have never been in my kitchen?" ^ExplanationIn the Cheers episode "What Is... Cliff Clavin?", Cliff appears on the show and, despite getting a runaway lead, wagers everything and gets Final Jeopardy! wrong. This episode has been referenced regularly on Jeopardy! — at least two contestants have copied his Final Jeopardy! response of "Who are three people that have never been in my kitchen?", and Trebek sometimes warns contestants with runaway leads not to "pull a Cliff Clavin" (i.e., wager everything—or even enough to let a player who's behind to catch up—and then get it wrong).
  • "Who is Kebert Xela?" ^ExplanationOn the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", Adam West uses his Final Jeopardy! response to trick Alex into saying his name backwards, sending him back to the fifth dimension. A contestant tried this on the real show on June 15, 2007.
  • Liederkranz ^ExplanationThe Jeopardy! fanbase has made a meme out of Liederkranz cheese, the answer to a notoriously difficult Final Jeopardy! question on the July 23, 2009 show; often considered the most obscure clue the show has ever had. Its notoriety was probably exacerbated by the fact that the champion a.) had an absolutely monstrous lead going into Final Jeopardy! (the scores were $22,800/$200/$200), and b.) is a prominent member of the fanbase.
  • Dankey Kang ^ExplanationA faked Final Jeopardy! clue read, "This video game character is blue, collects Rings, and goes fast." One contestant got it right, but the other two answered "Who is Dankey Kang?" and "Who is Princess Zorldo?"
  • SHIT TYRONE GET IT TOGETHER ^ExplanationAn Image Macro using a screencap from a June 2009 episode showing contestant Tyrone in a distant third place with -$1,600. The phrase later became popular to mock stupid acts by other people and characters named Tyrone.
  • "All in!" ^ExplanationDuring superchamp James Holzhauer's run, James would pantomime pushing poker chips before saying "All in!" to announce a True Daily Double. Soon after, other contestants did this if they were gutsy enough to do the same.
  • STAY CLAM. ^ExplanationA misspelling from a forum post made by a contestant who played on Kids' Week in 2002. The fandom has since accepted the term as helpful strategy; if you're unsure of the answer, it's better to clam up and not ring in than risk losing money on an incorrect response.
  • Jeopardy! Thinking Music ^ExplanationAmong other things, Jeopardy! is well-known for its thinking music which plays during Final Jeopardy! It is quite common to hum the show's think theme if someone is struggling to answer a question. The music has been used extensively in other works referring to Jeopardy! to the point where it has been played at sporting events.
  • "What's a hoe?" ^ExplanationKen Jennings gave this answer to the clue "This long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker." The answer was "rake" and Trebek and the audience got a good laugh from Ken's answer. Several fans however have protested the answer saying that Ken technically wasn't wrong and/or they've never heard the term "rake" used in that context in their life.
  • Mike Richards as the Delta Variant ^ExplanationAugust 2021 saw fans applying the "My fall plans/The Delta Variant" COVID-19 Pandemic meme to Jeopardy! when Mike Richards was announced as the permanent host (at first) for Season 38. The first part had the memer's preferred choice of host, most commonly Ken Jennings, LeVar Burton or even Alex Trebek. The second universally had Mike Richards' picture.
  • "What are frogs?" ^ExplanationAfter Stephen King answers "What are frogs?", opponent David Duchovny ponders what frogs are, sounding a lot like Agent Mulder in that moment. This clip is followed by a montage of frogs (including Kermit) set to the X-Files theme song.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The board fill sound at the beginning of the round (retired in July 2008 and, after a season wherein the board did not make a noise, replaced with a relaxing six-tone chime from 2009 to 2016 that Trebek has said that he likes, and the current sound since 2016). The 1984-2008 board fill sound would be reused for the intro to Jeopardy! Masters.
  • The Daily Double trill.
  • The simple one-note chime when the Final Jeopardy! category and clue are revealed.
• No Problem with Licensed Games:
  • Computer releases throughout the years have been praised for allowing responses to be typed as opposed to moving a cursor between letters. This allows for a much faster pace than video game releases in the same era, and the time limit for typing is usually generous.
  • The NES versions developed by Rare (yes, that Rare; these versions include the original, Junior Edition, and 25th Anniversary) were widely praised in their prime for their solid pacing, faithfulness to the show, and on-screen keyboard that was in grid form to make sure typing could be as efficient as possible on otherwise limited hardware. Unlike the computer versions it is derived from (which were released on PC, Apple II, and Commodore 64), it also doesn't require you to pick the correct question phrasing first, making it the first release to do this. Obviously there are many better choices now, but for those who wanted a way to play at home electronically back in the day, this was a solid outing.
  • The two Hasbro Interactive versions released for PC and PS1 (the second of which was labelled "Second Edition") were some of the first to really get it right. Not to say there weren't good versions before, but the move to CD based storage meant that packing the game full of voice clips and FMV made it truly feel like being on the show for the first time, with FMV clips for Alex hosting. While Alex doesn't read the clues, the games do compensate and provide the next best thing by having Johnny Gilbert read them. The pacing is also flawless between versions, no matter what platform you are playing on, and on console an auto-complete feature is provided to alleviate the otherwise slow typing speed. They also include save features to ensure the player doesn't get any repeats.
  • The 2011 game from THQ was well-received, for its multiple options to answer questions to speed up gameplay and/or make it more accessible to those who may not be as skilled (such as multiple choice) as well as being the only Jeopardy! game to feature full participation of Alex Trebek reading all the clues (prior games would have the clues either in silence or read by Johnny Gilbert while Alex would perform standard hosting lines in-between).
• Older Than They Think:
  • The format of contestants being supplied the answers and having to come up with the questions was the basis for the first regularly scheduled quiz show CBS Television Quiz. For the record, Merv Griffin was likely unaware of that show since he was a teenager living in San Francisco when that show (which originated from WCBW in New York) was on the air, although his future wife Julann (who gave Merv the idea of switching the questions and answers around) probably was.
  • J! Archive was not the first fansite to archive the clues. Before them, a prior Jeopardy! archive existed on an AOL site known as the Jeoparchive. This site archived clues for Jeopardy! for season 20, but it was taken down in 2004 when founder Ronnie O'Rourke (a former Jeopardy! champion) grew disillusioned with the show once Ken Jennings started winning game after game. However, a mirror of the site has since been revived, and most of its games are in J! Archive now anyway.
  • Michael Davies considered, but never implemented, a cash bonus for sweeping a category. Said cash bonus was previously offered during the later years of the original Fleming version.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • The October 12, 2009, game was the third game for 5-time champion Terry Linwood. However, one of his opponents was Jeff Kirby, who'd previously played on Jeopardy in 1999, even though Trebek-era contestants are not allowed to appear again in the regular series (the only exceptions either being for Tournament of Champions, or the contestant being invited again due to a production error). The producers hadn't realized this until someone on the show's message board pointed out that he was wearing the exact same tie he had worn in his 1999 appearance. Because of this, the episode is barred from reruns (For those curious, not only did Kirby fail Final Jeopardy! and finish in last place, but he was denied his $1,000 third-place prize because of his ineligibility).
  • On July 31, 2013, a player on Kids' Week absolutely owned the game to the tune of $66,600, which was the fifth-highest one-day total at the time. What do people best remember about this episode? One of his opponents was penalized for misspelling "Emancipation Proclamation" as "Emanciptation Proclamation" in his Final Jeopardy! response. In the days that followed, angry posts flooded the show's Facebook page, stating that the judges should have been more lenient since the contestants were children, not adults. Even journalists and news websites chimed in on the issue, and the contestant said that he was robbed because of his spelling error (never mind that he would've been in second place regardless of the outcome). This mess had a massive impact on the final fate of the Kids' Week games: after the next one got caught up in the Sony hack and exposed a Stage Mom incident, not a single Kids' Week has been held since, and the show has all but distanced itself from them.
  • The Mike Richards era started with two of these moments, both happening within one week of each other.
    • September 15, 2020: A contestant in Final Jeopardy!, Betsy Reisz, was penalized for misspelling the response "Berry Gordy" as "Barry Gordy". Even though she would have lost regardless of the outcome, fans were outraged over her being penalized for this mistake, as the words "Berry" and "Barry" are pronounced almost identically in most English dialects^note Traditionally, judging only penalizes misspellings if the word would be pronounced differently.
    • September 22, 2020: A Final Jeopardy! clue read "The book 'The Eagle & the Elephant' is about the relationship between the U.S. & this Asian country beginning in 1833." Tyler Brill's response of "What is India?" was ruled incorrect, and the correct response was "What is Thailand?". The problem here is there are two books with that title, and one of them is about diplomatic relations between the United States and India. The fan outcry was fierce, as Brill would have won the game had he answered "correctly".
  • April 27, 2021: Three-day champion Kelly Donohue's intros had him count the number of games won with his fingers throughout his run. On his fourth game, however, Donohue's hand gesture in the intro was accused of resembling an upside-down "ok" symbol used by white supremacy groups. Needless to say, the show's producers were immediately criticized for retaining this, despite the fact that Donohue confirmed that he was merely making a "three-game" signal with his hand.
• Periphery Demographic: The show is popular among people who speak English as a second language. Contestant interviews and foreign fan bases have credited Alex and the show in general for helping them learn English.
• Pop Culture Holiday: Beginning in 2022, the show celebrates March 30th — the anniversary of the show's debut — as "Jeoparday". On this day, prospective contestants who took the Anytime Test within the past year can take it again. The show donates $5.80 each to the Alex Trebek Fund at Stand Up to Cancer for the first 10,000 submitted tests. On the first Jeoparday, the 1964 unaired pilot was streamed on YouTube.
• The Problem with Licensed Games:
  • For many years the show suffered from inadequate home game adaptations. The box games produced by Milton Bradley recycled the board from their adaptation of Concentration, resulting in only five categories a game, with one of the spaces in Double Jeopardy having to be reserved for Final. The Pressman adaptations beginning in the mid-1980s inexplicably carried this forward (through as late as 2003!). Tyco/Mattel released a somewhat unusual version in the early 90s, which had all six categories, but were cards placed on stands so as many as six players could participate, each acting as host for their own category; Final Jeopardy was completely absent here. Not only that, Daily Doubles were randomly placed among the categories so you might have as many as six, or none at all. Parker Brothers released an adaptation in 1999 which many feel is the best, having a single gameboard with six categories and a reserved space below the board for Final. The 2016 version from Outset Media takes a cue from the Tyco version, having category cards placed into holders mounted to stands, but has the typical three-person play pattern akin to the other versions.
  • For video game adaptations that fall into this category, earlier releases are bogged down by sluggish game play caused by moving between characters when entering responses, especially if the letters, numbers and punctuation marks are all on one row (as is the case on the SNES, Genesis, first PS1, and PS2 versions). Later games, starting with the Nintendo 64 adaptation, alleviate this by offering an auto-complete feature that will give different options after entering a few letters. The GameTek ports (encompassing everything up to the Nintendo 64 version) have notorious Rubber-Band A.I. which will allow computer players to prevent you from running away with the game. More specific examples can be seen case by case:
    • The Game Boy version suffers a multitude of problems. The biggest two are the delayed controls (it takes nearly half a second between a button press and for the actual action to occur, making it feel like operating a cable box menu) and the unbelievably slow pacing. It takes nearly a solid 30 seconds between picking a question and answering if you know the answer right away, leading to rounds that drag on and on. Astoundingly, this got no fewer than three installments (the original, Teen Tournament, and Platinum), and not one of them addressed any of these problems.
    • The Nintendo 64 version, despite including neat innovations like FMV (a huge rarity for the console) and the first one to have an auto-complete, is a pretty blatant Obvious Beta. The replica of the set is pretty sloppy and the player avatars continuing to be digitized sprites of real humans was an extremely dated and frowned upon practice come 1997. The game also doesn't have any save feature to avoid repeat questions either, not even to the Controller Pak (especially ridiculous considering the prior version released in 1994 for PC and Sega CD had one). If you are aware that GameTek was on the verge of bankruptcy when this version came out, you wouldn't be too surprised the end product turned out so mediocre. Tellingly, the next version to release (the 1998 Hasbro Interactive version for PC and PS1) was a Surprisingly Improved Sequel all around that suffered none of these problems.
    • The 2017 Ubisoft version was maligned upon release. Instead of trying to replicate a Jeopardy broadcast, like the Wheel game it was bundled with, the game opts for a Flash-style text-and-graphics look that gave it a cheap and No Budget feel, while being so sloppily programmed that Daily Doubles could appear in the top, lowest-value clue, and even two Daily Doubles could appear in the same category, pitfalls even the 8- and 16-bit versions avoided.
• Questionable Casting:
  • The announcement that Dr. Mehmet Oz would be a guest host received near-universal backlash from fans and former contestants due to his controversial reputation.
  • Joe Buck, the final guest host of Season 37, was seen as this before his guest-hosting stint aired due to his contentious history as a sportscaster. Despite this, he was generally considered by the fandom to have done a good job as guest host.
  • Then-executive producer Mike Richards, who was the initially-announced host for Season 38; this resulted in the largest amount of backlash against the show to date.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Alex was initially perceived as this by fans of the Fleming version due to his stricter hosting style, but over time, fans began to warm up to him more, especially as he toned down his style a bit.
  • Mike Richards, who replaced the retiring Friedman starting with Season 37. While his tenure in the same position on The Price Is Right from 2009-2019 has been divisive, particularly among fans who prefer the Bob Barker years, his run on that series still has a lot of fans, and unlike Friedman, has been somewhat commended for his job on Wheel. On Jeopardy!, however, fans were quick to call him out for approving some of the most controversial Final Jeopardy! clues in the show's history so far, as well as other misleading clues. The report that he was in "advanced negotiations" to become the permanent host was met with near-universal backlash, especially given allegations of age and sex discrimination towards staffers on both Jeopardy! and Price. Worsening the backlash was that, according to two sources in an article on The Ringer, another guest host (later confirmed to be Ken Jennings by a former staffer on The Price Is Right) had a "minor scheduling conflict". While the staff was more than willing to work around it, Richards decided to step in himself, completely contradicting his claims about only being a substitute last-minute host and losing whatever goodwill he had gained from that, furthering the growing narrative that Richards was abusing his authority as executive producer to make himself the host. Once journalists unearthed a podcast Richards had hosted in 2013-14 where he commonly made off-color and even offensive comments, the situation became untenable and Richards announced on August 20th, 2021 that he would step down and allow someone else to become the permanent host (which delayed production of the 2021-22 season). He would lose his job as executive producer by month's end.
  • Some of the guest hosts also managed to become this to Trebek (depending on who is asked), but it's widely agreed that these two guest hosts were the worst:
    • Dr. Mehmet Oz was announced as one of the guest hosts after Trebek's passing. Due to his controversial reputation, many fans, some former champions, and even some contestants who played during his run were angered to the point of boycotting his shows and encouraging loyal viewers to do the same, while 32-game champion James Holzhauer issued a Take That! towards Oz in the form of a retweet. It didn't help that the announcement that he would host took place after his shows were taped. Even without all that, Oz's hosting has been divisive at best, and at least one contestant who played on an Oz episode even accused him of mocking her between tapings, as well as stumbling several clues by mispronouncing them. The backlash against Oz guest hosting was so extreme that his appearance on The $100,000 Pyramid later in 2021 went largely unnoticed.
    • Bill Whitaker has also received flak from fans due to his dull, monotone delivery. Not helping is that his first episode took two hours to tape according to the production staff and some contestants.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Eventual United States senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain was a one-time champion back in 1965.
  • Future game show producer and screenwriter Jay Wolpert retired undefeated in 1969 and won that year's Tournament of Champions.
  • Greg Proops, known for his tenure on the US and UK versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, appeared as a one-time contestant in the syndicated revival's first season in November 1984, in which he placed second during John Genova's 2nd game of his 5-day run. He would later record two clues for the show in 2000 and 2001.
  • Peter Sagal, best known as the host of the NPR radio quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, appeared as a one-time contestant during the revival's fourth season in April 1988, placing second.
  • Author Arthur Phillips retired undefeated in June 1997, several years before he would become an acclaimed novelist.
  • Author, academic, sociopolitical analyst and columnist for The Atlantic Tom Nichols retired undefeated in 1994 and later participated in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005.
  • Actor Dileep Rao, known for playing the Bollywood Nerd in the blockbuster films Avatar and Inception, won $34,400 in a single win in 2002.
  • Paris Themmen, best known for his role as Mike Teavee in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, appeared as a one-time contestant in Season 34 in March 2018, placing second. His wife, Nikki Grillos (whom he married in 2014), previously appeared as a contestant in October 2015 during Season 32, returning twice as a champion before being defeated on her third appearance.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Clue Crew, first introduced in 2001. While generally averted as the years passed, many disliked the fact that their video clues tended to be overly long and distracting, causing them to become so long-winded that the contestants and viewers lose track of both the clue and the category. Also, since they chewed up so much airtime when they appear, there was greater potential for clues going unrevealed at the end of the round.
  • Since the 1997-98 season, any clue or whole categories of clues read by a celebrity—or worse, given by casts of TV shows where the clues are given in-character. Almost all of them tend to involve very long clues read very slowly which gets worse when a Daily Double is hidden there. These are hated for dragging down the game and creating a greater risk of leaving clues on the board. Many contestants have caught onto these, which is why they almost always get picked last.
  • Kids or Back to School Week games, which not only make the Teen Tournament feel redundant, but include questions that are too easy, even for that demographic, or too focused on child-appropriate topics (such as contemporary cartoons, children's literature, tweenage pop music, etc.) to allow older generations to play along. They stopped doing them after Season 31.
  • The Teachers Tournament has been seen as this. It has supporters who like tournament play and the respect and praise shown to teachers with the event, but others see the competition as being weaker in general than regular games (even though players are picked from regular play applications), and it takes away a TOC spot from a regular contestant, especially considering that teachers are historically not dominant in regular games or in tournaments. Only Colby Burnett has ever made the semifinals of a TOC (let alone win it, or qualify for the Battle of the Decades), and only one Teachers Tournament player (2011 semifinalist Charley Tinkham) has ever had a Coryat score of at least $25,000 in that event.
  • Similar opinions followed the former Seniors Tournament to some viewers, as contestants over 50 years of age have never been barred from regular play, the competition could be slower-paced, and of the 10 winners of that event, none ever won a TOC quarterfinal game (though two did advance to the finals, and another three advanced as wildcards.) Its 1995 demotion from July to December (outside of a sweeps period) seems to have been a move to ultimately kill it off.
  • Celebrity games (done from 1992 to 2015 and in prime time starting in 2022) usually have this reputation too— stereotypically, the celebrity games are constantly dragged down by the players not taking the game seriously, thus leading to constant smartass remarks, ringing in with an "Ooh, I know this, what is it?"-type quip, ego-stroking categories/clues, elongated introductions and interviews to promote the charities being played for, and general buffoonery. The 2006 episodes from Radio City Music Hall made this even worse by having singers perform during Daily Doubles, thus eating up even more time to the point that as many as fifteen clues were unplayed in each round. The 2022 episodes are considered not much better.
    • The four Power Players Weeks (held between 1998 and 2016) were maligned by some fans even more than regular Celebrity Jeopardy! games, due to what some perceive as generally weaker competition and a relative lack of "star power" (as contestants are usually journalists, pundits, news anchors, and politicians). There are also fans who dislike Power Players games due to the inclusion of left-leaning and/or right-leaning political figures, on what is otherwise a bipartisan/nonpartisan series.
  • Tiebreaker clues after Final Jeopardy! in non-tournament play, as the co-champion rule worked nicely for 50 years, and fans noticed it as a cheap way to save money after the 2014 Sony hacking incident. This is mainly due to the losing contestant not being able to keep their winnings, as well as the tiebreaker round amounting to "hit the buzzer and get the clue right".
  • Despite being exclusively for children contestants, Jep! was the most strict about phrasing responses in the form of a question. If a kid failed to do so at any point in the game, they were penalized, whereas the adult version lets you off with a warning in the first round (except on a Daily Double).
  • The bracketing format of Jeopardy! National College Championship was immediately criticized by fans. Although four semifinal games are played with a total of 12 contestants following the quarterfinals, whichever semifinalist winner finishes with the lowest score in their semifinals game (regardless of their performance or score from the quarterfinals) is eliminated and does not move on to the finals (this despite the fact that 1998's Teen Reunion Tournament used the exact same semifinal format, which was not unlike Wheel of Fortune's "Friday Finals" format at the time). In a case of Author's Saving Throw, Davies announced that the eliminated semifinalist would be invited to the Second Chance Tournament.
• Scrub: Many fans complain that champions who fish for Daily Doubles to deny them from their opponents is cheating. There's no rule against it, and show staff make it clear to contestants that such a strategy is perfectly legal. Arthur Chu is the first contestant to get this treatment, though several contestants have done so in regular play and the Tournament of Champions, and Watson did this during the IBM Challenge. The main reason why hasn't become common until James Holzhauer's run is because it's high risk to choose the lower row questions early, the wordplay in the clues sometimes build top to bottom (which makes the lower row questions easier in context), and because most players would much rather use the Daily Double than waste it.
  • When he recaps pre-2003 shows when the 5-win limit was in effect, Keith Williams from The Final Wager sometimes frowns upon the 5-time champions who wagered an extra dollar to cover their opponents rather than simply tying with them and letting them become a champion, since they're not facing them again.
• Spoiled by the Format: Netflix currently has three collections available for viewing, two of which are named the "Seth Wilson Collection" and the "Cindy Stowell Tribute." The names of these collections and the format of the streaming service give away who will win the first episode of the respective collection, the fact that these two named players were long-running champions, and the fact that they will be defeated in the final episode of their collection.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The current version was a major leap from Art Fleming's three versions, which used a much simpler set and pull-cards for the clues instead of the large, electronic set and wall of monitors.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The show's "think" music ends with a coda that matches perfectly with the end of the children's song "I'm a Little Teapot" leading many people to sing "tip me over / and pour me out" at the end.
• That One Level:
  • Opera, ballet, or spelling categories, which are almost always saved for last. The dislike for opera as a category gets Lampshaded several times with opera themed categories called "The Dreaded Opera Category", "Oh No, It's Opera" or "Uh Oh, Opera".
  • "Before, During, And After" in the Tournaments of Champions. It's similar to the standard "Before And After" from Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, but there are three parts with two links rather than two parts with one link, and everything has to be provided to be correct.
  • In recent seasons, categories about Broadway musicals have been given this treatment. The most egregious example was on the January 2, 2013 episode where the category "Broadway Lyrics" not only had each clue go without a correct response, no one even rang in to guess!
  • Sports-specific categories often befall this fate. One early example comes from a first-round Bowling category in 1986, from which only the $100 and $200 clues are played. Alex promptly assumes none of that episode's contestants have ever bowled and, in a sharp ad-lib, suggests simply chatting for what little time remained in the round. More famously, the February 1, 2018 show had a "Talkin' Football" category where none of the contestants rang in on any of the clues. Alex gave plenty of one-liners along the way, such as "If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die."
  • More recently, "Video Games" or any variant of the category usually gets a wide berth from players. The same can be said of categories dedicated to anime and manga.
  • Jep! as a whole may qualify — despite the subject matter, contestant ages, and format changes, its policy on phrasing responses was the strictest of all seven versions!
• That One Rule: Final Jeopardy! is responsible for "Those two rules":
  • One aspect is spelling. The general rule is that a response is considered correct as long as the spelling doesn't affect the pronunciation. Alex usually points this out when the judges rule in favor of a contestant, saying, "We don't penalize for spelling." Any moment where a contestant loses credit on even a slight pronunciation difference is bound to result in angry tweets or Facebook posts, even if it doesn't affect the outcome.
  • The other is whether or not a response is "complete". A response is considered unacceptable if it's cut off by time expiring. To determine this, the judges not only look at the response but also the movement of the pen. Social media was up in arms about two different responses in Season 38: one where the last word of "Who is Harriet Tubman" was deemed incomplete and the other where "Waiting for Godot?" was accepted despite "Godot" not looking legible enough. Thankfully, the contestant who lost on the Harriet Tubman ruling was invited to the Second Chance Tournament.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As with nearly any Long Runner Game Show, fan opinion is sharply divided on many changes:
  • On the 1978-79 revival, the lowest-scoring contestant was eliminated after each round, and the winner of Double Jeopardy! played a Bingo-style Bonus Round. Since Final Jeopardy! was gone from the show, this was the only incarnation without the legendary thinking music.
  • Season 14 (1997-98) not only rearranged the thinking music used since 1964 and the synthesizer theme used since 1984 (which was updated with bongo and shaker tracks in 1992), but saw the first use of clues read by celebrities, as well as even more punny categories and travel shows than ever before. There was also the removal of podium microphones.
    • Signs of this set two months into the previous season with the infamous "Sushi Bar" set replacing the previous sets which used a "Jeopardy!" logo with flashing lights, and the removal of the "Reverse Shatter" clue transition (see Visual Effects of Awesome below).
    • Prior to this season, the Tournament of Champions (and Celebrity Jeopardy!), Teen Tournament, College Championship, and Seniors Tournament were respectively held in the sweeps periods of November, February, May, and July. ^note During season 12, tournaments began being shifted to a fluid, irregular schedule, with the Teen and College tournaments switching places, the Seniors Tournament being demoted to December for its final installment, and the first International Tournament debuting that July. Tournaments continue to be booked on a fluid basis, though almost always during sweeps periods.
  • Starting in Season 17 (2000-01), players no longer walked onstage in their introductions (partly due to blind 5-day champion Eddie Timanus' run), and the Teen Tournament winner was no longer invited to the Tournament of Champions, due to Teen Tournament winners having to deal with overly difficult material in the ToC compared to said tournament.
  • Season 18 (2001-02) introduced the "Clue Crew", a group of Lovely Assistants who present even more video clues, and also the doubling of clue values, which some believe is unfair in regards to ranking all of the show's top money winners, and Alex Trebek shaved off his iconic mustache.
  • Season 20 (2003-04) removed the 5-game limit for winners, which led to Ken Jennings' 74-game winning streak lasting into the next season.
  • Season 25 (2008-09) removed the classic "clue pop-in" sound, and after a season without any popping-in effect, was replaced by another sound effect the following season.
  • Some also complain that the show has gotten easier over time, thus overlapping with It's Easy, So It Sucks!. To be fair, this one is very much justified; anyone who's watched the show for a long period of time is pretty much guaranteed to find it gradually easier to play along, because they'll constantly be learning from it.
  • Another major complaint is that the writing has gotten too convoluted and "cutesy", with clues often trying way too hard to "tease out" the right answer by way of wordplay. Other clues seem to be written too vaguely, leading viewers to question whether or not another answer might be acceptable. The decline in clue quality is often thought by older fans to have started when longtime clue writer Steven Dorfman died in 2004, but for many, it went downhill after Harry Friedman's retirement and especially Alex Trebek's death.
  • Season 31 (2014-15) removed the co-champion rule, where players tied for first place could each return the next day to play. All ties are now decided by tiebreaker clues, though the first instance didn't occur until March 1, 2018. The new rule was presumably introduced because co-champions take spots away from potential contestants. Said rule was still criticized by fans, mainly because the contestant who loses the tiebreaker doesn't keep their winnings.
  • Season 37 (2020-21), the only full season with Mike Richards as executive producer, is widely considered the show's worst season in its entire history. Among other things, the clue writing and judging went downhill with an increase in Product Placement and mistakes throughout the clues (an issue that would worsen after Trebek's death as he reviewed clues before taping and would request edits to clues he didn't feel were right), and many of the guest hosts after Trebek's death were considered very lackluster or forgettable (and the less said about Dr. Mehmet Oz, the better). Some people have even called for the show's cancellation after Trebek's death, despite his wishes for the show to continue.
  • The announcement that Richards himself would become the new permanent host for Season 38 was met with arguably even more backlash than the Dr. Oz debacle. Especially since it was also announced that Mayim Bialik (herself a divisive host, but she at least had her fans) would host primetime specials and spin-offs. This decision angered fans who felt Ken Jennings^note the first guest host to replace Trebek, and one of the most popular names that came to mind replacing him as emcee, Buzzy Cohen^note whom fans felt did a terrific job during his stint as guest hosting the Tournament of Champions during Season 37, LeVar Burton^note whom fans felt was never given a fair chance and got shafted due to coverage of the Olympics pre-empting his week in many markets; there are even theories that he was deliberately sabotaged due to only being given one week and many mistakes being left in that they perceived could've easily been edited out, David Faber^note an Ensemble Dark Horse among the guest hosts for his smooth and personable style, Brad Rutter^note who, like Jennings, is a former champion, but has hosting experience and never got a shot as a guest host, Jimmy McGuire, Sarah Whitcomb-Foss^note longtime Clue Crew members who host mock games and also never came into the running as guest hosts, Alex Faust, Laura Coates, and Ben Mankiewicz ^note who were people Trebek threw around as possible successors and were never guest hosts got snubbed. The decision to use Bialik for primetime shows led to accusations that Sony only selected her as a secondary host to distract from Richards' sexual harassment allegations during his tenure on The Price is Right resurfacing. Them resurfacing along with an old Richards-hosted podcast where he commonly made off-color remarks created an untenable situation that not only forced Richards to relinquish hosting duties but cost him his role as executive producer as well.
  • The rearranged Theme Tune introduced in Season 38. While most agreed it was a good idea to change it (given the previous version had been in use for 13 years), it's generally agreed that it sounds more like a MIDI arrangement or a ringtone (apart from the opening part), though an alternate version heard in Celebrity Jeopardy! with a guitar added was better received. The Final Jeopardy! music was unchanged.
  • Season 39 ended the tradition of the opening sequence and graphics changing every season, with Season 40 following suit despite being a milestone season. Even after the intro was changed, the other Season 38 graphics were retained.
  • Detractors of the postseason format introduced in Season 40 consider it this for taking away slots from hundreds of potential contestants, as well as watering down the Tournament of Champions. Along with Second Chance tournaments and play-ins for the Invitational Tournament, regular game play finally resumed in April.
  • Midway through the same season, the Season 38 intro was replaced with a new one focusing on the behind-the-scenes aspects, which was criticized for being too generic, as previous intros used clips or visual representations of clues.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Alex Trebek got this reaction when he started hosting the syndicated revival, after Art Fleming helmed two versions of the show for 11 years combined. As Trebek settled into the role, the comparisons died down.
  • This will most likely be the case for any prospective replacement host after Trebek’s death, having hosted the show for nearly four decades. Ken Jennings acknowledged this in his first show as guest host, saying that no one can replace Alex but he will honor him by continuing the game.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: From 1992-1996, the categories were displayed on monitors with a broken/shattered glass effect which would be undone when Alex announced their names. Many fans are in agreement that this was the best way to introduce their categories as it was advanced for its time and still looks cool even decades after they stopped doing it.
• Vindicated by History: The think theme introduced in 1997 immediately attained Replacement Scrappy status for swapping out an iconic tune that had been in use since the Fleming years. These days, fans appreciate it more for being a welcome rearrangement. Likewise the current think theme, introduced in 2008.

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