Jeopardy / Tropes A to D

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#-A

• 15 Minutes of Fame: Often experienced by contestants who attract viral attention for winning a lot of games, a funny answer, their speech pattern, or their appearance. There have been inversions from notable contestants who used their Jeopardy! fame to further their public career, arguably none more than Ken Jennings, who parlayed his Jeopardy! success into a career as a best-selling author. Ken Jennings became a consulting producer in 2020, and he became the first guest host after Trebek's passing.
• Abuse of Return Policy: In the 2016 College Championship, contestant Sam Deutsch tells Alex during the interview that he kept the tags on his school sweater, so he can return it in the event he doesn't win the tournament.
• All or Nothing: The True Daily Double and wagering everything in Final Jeopardy! Giving the correct response doubles your money whereas a wrong response leaves you with nothing. A failed True Daily Double during the Jeopardy! round or early in Double Jeopardy! does leave the possibility of a comeback, however.
• Always Second Best:
  • Despite his immense Jeopardy! success in his original reign, Ken Jennings has finished in second place in all four of his return events, finishing in second to Brad Rutter in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Battle of the Decades, and the All-Star Games, and to Watson in the IBM Challenge. However, Ken did outrank Brad in the latter. This was finally subverted in the Greatest of All Time tournament as Ken managed to beat both Brad and James Holzhauer in three out of four matches^note The other match being won by James to achieve the title of "Greatest Jeopardy! Player of All Time."
  • A handful of other Jeopardy! champions have made it to the finals of two tournaments, only to lose in both, including Dave Traini (the 1987 TOC and Super Jeopardy!), David Javerbaum (the 1988 Teen Tournament and 1998 Teen Reunion tournament), and Jerome Vered (the 1992 TOC and the Ultimate TOC). Similarly, Elliot Shteir was a losing finalist in both the 1969 Tournament of Champions in the Art Fleming era, then a losing finalist during the July 1995 Seniors Tournament.
  • The show itself had this dubious distinction for a large chunk of its run, constantly placing second behind sister show Wheel of Fortune in daily syndication ratings. This started to change around the mid 2000s, when the winnings limit was lifted and Ken Jennings went on his run. The two shows would go back and forth between first and second place in ratings until around 2017, when Jeopardy! began to almost-always outperform Wheel of Fortune in syndication ratings (partially due to an increase of sporting events and pregame shows on broadcast television, many of which pre-empt Wheel in several markets), and as of the 2020s, with rare exception, Jeopardy! is still ahead of Wheel of Fortune in daily syndication ratings.
• The Announcer: Don Pardo for most of Fleming's run, John Harlan for the 1978-79 revival, Jay Stewart for the 1983 pilot, and Johnny Gilbert for nearly every Trebek episode since (if he misses a taping, he's added in post). During the 1997 International Tournament in Stockholm, Sweden, the Swedish announcer announced. Loretta Fox announced the first two seasons of Rock & Roll Jeopardy!, with Stew Herrera taking over for the last two. Clue Crew member Kelly Miyahara announces Sports Jeopardy!
• Animated Adaptation: Jeopardy! was the focus of the Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? episode "Total Jeopardy!" with a cartoon Alex Trebek. It was originally to air on Boomerang sometime in 2021, but Boomerang chose to air it the Friday following Trebek's passing.
• Animated Credits Opening: For most of the Trebek version, the intro has included an animation of the show's logo in some fashion (the most famous being a spinning globe with the show's logo on it, used from its premiere until 1996 and again starting in 2020). Since the beginning of the 21st century, the logo is often accompanied by graphics that involve pop culture or trivia in some fashion.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In the Jeopardy! round, you can get away with forgetting to phrase your response in the form of a question once (except if you're responding to that round's Daily Double). Averted in Jep! in which phrasing is enforced throughout the entire game.
  • Jep! had all three players involved in Super Jep! (that spin-off's title for Final Jeopardy), regardless of if someone had nothing or a negative score at the end of Hyper Jep!/Double Jeopardy. In that case, the player with the lowest score would have their score raised to 500 points, and the other players would receive additional points to match the amount that that player was given. For example, if someone had -100 going into Super Jep!, everyone would get an extra 600 points.
  • On Celebrity editions, players who don't have a positive score at the end of Double Jeopardy! are spotted money to wager with in Final Jeopardy!. In most cases, it's $1,000 or $2,000 after the clue values were doubled. Some players have instead gotten their negative total changed to positive.
• April Fools' Day:
  • In 1997, Pat Sajak hosted that day's Jeopardy! while Alex hosted the day's Wheel of Fortune (which also had Pat and Vanna as contestants, and Pat's wife at the puzzle board). Jeopardy! lampshaded the switch by including Wheel-themed category names in Round 1. For Round 2, all the categories were related to April or fools (or both), and the Final Jeopardy! category was "Trinidadian Amateur Ichthyologists".
  • Years after shaving his mustache, Alex wore a phony one for the Jeopardy! round on April Fools Day, 2008.
  • In 2010, different hosts made random cameos for brief moments, including Pat Sajak, Neil Patrick Harris, Jeff Probst, and a clip of Will Ferrell's portrayal of Trebek from a Saturday Night Live "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch. There was also a category on notable April Fool's Day hoaxes.
  • On April Fools Day, 2016 (4 day champion Todd Giese's final win), ten easter eggs were inserted throughout the episode in post-production, including clips from archival episodes, cameos by Ken Jennings and Watson in gameplay, Wheel of Fortune sound effects, on-screen graphic errors, and even a clip from the Estonian version of Jeopardy!
  • In 2021, the Final Jeopardy! category was "Antidisestablishmentarianism".
• Arc Number: $9,812 was a common wager of James Holzhauer’s, referring to his wedding anniversary 9/8/12.
• Are We Getting This?: Alex Trebek has this response to a Final Jeopardy! response that could actually be interpreted as correct. ("Where are you?" "Indoors.")
• Artificial Stupidity: In the IBM Challenge (February 2011), Watson had a few cases where its imposing intelligence faltered:
  • In one instance, Ken Jennings got an answer wrong. Immediately afterward, Watson buzzed in with the same answer. Justified in that Watson was technically blind and deaf — the programmers didn't bother with visual or voice recognition. It was merely an analytical machine based on information through text received electronically.
  • The programmers had Watson put very low weight on categories as a clue to the answer itself. As a result...
    • In the category regarding decades in history, part of the clue mentioned a flight at Kitty Hawk. Watson guessed 1920. The answer was 1900s.
    • In the first day Final Jeopardy round, the category was "U.S. Cities". The clue was a city with an airport named after a famous World War II battle and combatant. Watson guessed Toronto (The answer was Chicago; Midway International Airport is the one named for the battle, O'Hare International Airport is named for a pilot). However, the programmers suggested that there were so many contextual ambiguities that Watson simply was confused: there are multiple cities in the U.S. also named Toronto, and Toronto in Canada has a baseball team that plays in the American MLB (the Toronto Blue Jays). In light of this, Trebek (a Canadian native) jokingly remarked that he learned that Toronto is now a U.S. city and one of the producers wore a Blue Jays jersey. Watson also placed a large number of question marks after this answer, which is apparently a gauge of how "unsure" it was about the answer. So the computer knew the answer was probably wrong, it just couldn't come up with anything better.
    • In the "Literary APB^note All Points Bulletin" category, the clue made it very obvious that it was looking for the main villain of the Harry Potter franchise (who is Voldemort?). Watson was stumped — it figured out that it was being asked for a Harry Potter character, but because it wasn't putting much weight on category name and didn't seem to make the connection that the police only issues APBs for criminals, it couldn't figure out which character it was being asked for.
    • The "Also on your computer keys" category tripped Watson up really badly. It was the only category where Watson got the wrong answer for every single question.
• Ascended Extra:
  • During a Fleming-era celebrity week in April 1974, one of the guests was a young Canadian named Alex Trebek.
  • Merv Griffin tapped Mike Reilly, a losing contestant from a November 1989 episode, to host his 1990 game show adaptation of Monopoly. It remains, to date, Reilly's only TV gig.
  • Rocky Schmidt was a contestant on the show in 1985, and went on to become one of the show's assistant producers five years later. He has been a supervising producer since 2007.
  • In June 1992, a college student named Matt Weiner was a one day Jeopardy! champion with $3,799. 24 years later, and now better known as Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, he returned as a contestant during the May 2016 Power Players Week, winning his game in a runaway and picking up $50,000 for his charity.
  • Over three years after competing on Celebrity Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak took over for Alex Trebek for the April Fools Day episode in 1997 (with Alex hosting Wheel that same day). Pat has since provided a few video clues, and he came full circle in 2010 by competing in two more celebrity games, winning the first with $55,300!
  • In 2011, sports anchor and radio host Dan Patrick introduced the clues for two full sports-centric categories, and has also provided scattered video clues as early as 2005. He'd later take this on full time as the host of Sports Jeopardy! on Crackle in 2014.
  • Despite only being a 3 day champion during her December 1996 run on Jeopardy! (and not qualifying for the next Tournament of Champions), Gay Mollette was invited as the American representative during the next year's International Jeopardy! tournament, surprisingly instead of 1996 TOC winner Michael Dupee (possibly averted if he couldn't make the trip to Sweden for the event, but Gay could). She didn't advance to the finals though, which were won by Canada's Michael Daunt, a 1996 TOC finalist.
  • After 5 day champion Barbara Lowe's removal from the 1986 Tournament of Champions field for violating contestant eligibility requirements, 4 day champion Gary Palmer made the tournament in her place, despite winning just $18,400, a record low for a TOC qualifier (even when adjusted for inflation). He had a good run though, giving eventual finalist Marvin Shinkman a late challenge in the semifinals.
  • As 2001 College Champion Vinita Kailasanath was unable to attend the next Tournament of Champions in 2003 due to final exams occurring during tapings, her spot instead went to 4 day champion Kathy Cassity, making her the first ever TOC qualifier from Hawaii. (Vinita would eventually compete in the 2004 TOC, making the semifinals.)
  • With four invited champions (Michael Block, Amanda Goad, Larry Mcknight, and Leslie Shannon) not able to compete in 2005's massive Ultimate Tournament of Champions, the next four highest earning 5 day champions gained their spots in the 145-person field, those being Jay Rosenberg, Dan Katz, Steve Berman, and Bill Dickenson, who all earned between $48,000 and $49,000 in their unadjusted reigns. Of those four, only Berman won his first round game, though he eventually lost in the next round. It helped that Steve Berman had been a finalist in his Tournament of Champions, as well.
  • As 74 day champion Ken Jennings gave up his place in the 2006 Tournament of Champions in lieu of the finals bye in 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, his spot in the 2006 TOC went to 3 day champion Aaron Thompson, who won just $57,899 in his reign. He had a good run, leading for long stretches of Double Jeopardy! in his two games, and advancing to the semifinals as a wild card, but he was eliminated there by eventual finalist Vik Vaz.
  • Similarly to Vinita Kailasanath a few years prior, 2008 College Champion Joey Beachum couldn't attend 2009's TOC due to military obligations, with his spot going to 4 day champion Deborah Fitzgerald in what would be the first Tournament of Champions with no regular annual tournament winners since the show introduced them in 1987. Joey would compete in 2010's TOC, which uniquely featured three College Champions.
  • Due to 5 day champion Jerry Slowik's legal issues, he was replaced in the 2014 Tournament of Champions by 4 day champion Mark Japinga, becoming the only regular play competitor in the field who hadn't won at least 5 games. He too performed well, leading through all of Double Jeopardy! in his quarterfinal game, and advancing to the semifinals as a wild card, though he met his end there via finalist Arthur Chu.
  • Jennings himself was promoted to Consulting Producer in Season 37, and also reads clues on a recurring basis. He also became the first guest host after Alex Trebek's passing.
• Ascended Meme:
  • One Double Jeopardy! round had categories that all referred to the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch on Saturday Night Live, including "Sean Connery", "Surprise Me, Trebek", "Therapists" (Not "The Rapists"), "The Number After 2", and "Rhymes With 'Dog'". Another Double Jeopardy! round had "States That Begin with Californ", "Is This a Hat", "Catch These Men", "A Petite D+ejeuner", "'S' Words" and "SNL Cracks Us Up" as its categories. Other categories from the sketch (including "Japan-U.S. Relations", "Things You Shouldn't Put in Your Mouth", and "An Album Cover") have made appearances on the show as well.
  • "Who are three people that have never been in my kitchen?", from the Cheers episode where Cliff Clavin competes on the show and writes that down as his Final Jeopardy! response, became a popular joke answer on the actual show.
• Asian and Nerdy:
  • Kelly Miyahara, formerly of the Clue Crew, also the announcer of Sports Jeopardy!
  • 2011 9 day champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist Joon Pahk, a regular poster to the show's unofficial forums, and one of the 10 highest earning Jeopardy! contestants ever in regular games.
  • 2014 11 day champion and Tournament of Champions finalst Arthur Chu, who is one of only five contestants to win that many games in their regular run, and attracted a great deal of notoriety among fans for his gameplay strategy and on-camera demeanor.
  • Bruce Ikawa, whose $80,699 total as a 5 day champion in November 1990 was the third highest in Jeopardy! regular play history at that time, and is 10th under the show's original dollar amounts.
  • 2001 5 day champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist Lan Djang, who later made the quarterfinals in 2005's Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and was the last 4 or 5 day champion from Canada for fourteen years.
  • 2017 5 day champion and runner up of the Season 33 Tournament of Champions Alan Lin.
  • 2019 super-streaker James Holzhauer (who has mentioned he is half-Japanese via his mother), known for being an extremely dominant player and winning almost as much money in 32 games as Ken Jennings did in 74.
  • 2021 5 day champion and runner up in the 2022 Tournament of Champions Andrew He.
• Audience Participation: Averted during the brief return of Alex Trebek's mustache in the fall of 2014, where he mentioned during opening remarks on episodes that fans could vote online as to whether he should keep the mustache or shave it again. Though Alex indicated on air that the response was about 50/50 in favour of keeping or shaving it, these episodes were pre-taped, and many of the mustache's return episodes aired after he chose to shave it again (partially at the wishes of his wife). Also averted when Alex Trebek grew a beard in Season 35 (he intended to regrow his mustache, but, as Trebek put it, "those hairs kept attracting friends"), where he mentioned during opening remarks on episodes that fans could vote online as to whether he should keep the beard or shave it. The response was mostly in favor of keeping the beard, though Trebek shaved it off again.
• Auto-Tune: Played for Laughs on the June 23, 2010 show, which had the category "Alex Meets Auto-Tune".

B-C

• Badass Boast: In commercials advertising his 2000s Week game in 2014's Battle of the Decades, Ken Jennings said of his opponents in a commercial, "They actually think they can win." He backed it up with a lock-win, helped by wagering over $12,000 on two correct Daily Doubles.
• Bash Brothers: Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, the two super-champions who have each won over $3,000,000 on Jeopardy! (No other human player broke the $1,000,000 barrier until 2019, when James Holzhauer began his run as champ.) Elite though they may be at trivia, the real skill comes from their reaction times and wagering skills. The IBM Challenge proved they were both equally inferior to computers, and while this was an exhibition event, Watson is the only opponent to ever defeat Brad at least until 2020's Greatest of All Time had him finish a distant third to both Ken and Houlzhauer.
• Battle Couple: Justin and Kristin Sausville, the only known married couple to have each won 5 games on Jeopardy! Justin was a 6 day champion in July and September 2011 and was a wild card semifinalist in that year's Tournament of Champions, while Kristin followed as a 5 day champion in March 2015 (complete with a rare one-person Final Jeopardy! in her second win) and competed in that year's TOC as well.
• Bonus Round: Two were used.
  • The Jackpot Board: Used for the first half of the 1974-1975 syndicated version, this was somewhat of a knockoff of the Gambit Board from Gambit- the winner selected a number off the board from 1-30, revealing a bonus prize (car, trip, more cash), or half of "$25,000" (which earned one more pick to find the other half- in that sense it resembled the Big Match from Three on a Match).
  • Super Jeopardy!: Not to be confused with the 1990 tournament, this was used for the 1978-79 version. It was basically J! Bingo; five categories, must make a line across/up and down/diagonally before getting three wrong. $100/pop, a win earns a Progressive Jackpot.^note Similar bonus games would later be used on Catchphrase and on Trump Card, an adaptation of the UK game show Bob's Full House (a revival of that format in the UK, Lucky Numbers, would reuse that bonus round)
• Bonus Space: The Daily Doubles. Also the very short-lived Bonus categories listed below.
• Bookends: Matt Amodio's run began when he wagered his entire score on Final Jeopardy and defeated the reigning champion, Josh Saak. His run ended when Jonathan Fisher wagered his entire score and defeated Matt. Though unlike Josh, Matt got his FJ clue wrong.
• Bootstrapped Theme: This show has quite possibly the most well-known game show theme ever, the "Think!" music was originally just used for the Final Jeopardy question rather than the opening of the show itself. (In a lesser example of this trope, the 1978-79 version's opening theme was used as a prize cue on Wheel for several seasons.)
• Bow Chicka Wow Wow: This was used to set the mood for "The Sexiest Potpourri Category Ever."
• Brick Joke: Some Rule of Funny categories will have counterparts in the Double Jeopardy! round; for instance, on the January 18th, 2011 show, the sixth category in the first round was "Team Jacob" and the sixth category of Double Jeopardy! was titled "Team Edward".
• Brief Accent Imitation: 2015-16 Sports Jeopardy! superchamp Vinny Varadarajan liked to give certain category names and questions in the voice of sports announcers (or at least, an attempt of them) for comic effect.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: On November 30, 2004, Nancy Zerg ended Ken Jennings' 74 game winning streak...and lost the following night. She has stated that all the backstage fuss over Ken finally being taken down left her disoriented and unable to focus on the next game. Any subsequent instance of a contestant overthrowing a superchampion only to lose their next game has been referred to as the "giant-killer curse" by the fandom.
• The Cameo: It's not uncommon to see celebrities or politicians deliver pre-recorded clues. Often, Celebrity Jeopardy! contestants will record clues for future episodes during their taping.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • 1990's Super Jeopardy! tournament on ABC is not considered canon when Jeopardy! tabulates contestant winnings and records, though whether it's due to its special rules and scoring, its overall lack of success, or not taking place during the regular syndicated run is up for debate. Notably, Bruce Seymour (who won the $250,000 Super Jeopardy! top prize) wasn't considered the modern show's all-time winnings leader (Chuck Forrest, Bob Blake, and Robin Carroll instead led in winnings before Brad Rutter took the record on any level in 2002), and as Seymour was only a four day champion and Tournament of Champions quarterfinalist in regular play, he has never been invited back for later reunion tournaments.
  • 1998's "Battle of the Bay Area Brains" episode is also not canon for past contestant winnings, likely as it was a charity game that only aired in the San Francisco market. Notably, the $7,700 prize package won by Michael Rankins for that game is not counted among his official winnings.
  • Infamous 1986 5-day champion Barbara Lowe is nowhere to be seen on official Jeopardy! records, was not invited to that year's Tournament of Champions, and her games never re-aired after the fact.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Let's make it a true Daily Double."
  • "I'll take [category] for [dollar amount], Alex".
  • Thanks to James Holzhauer, "All in" is becoming popular for true Daily Doubles.
  • The February 21, 2020, episode made a board out of Alex's catchphrases on the show, with the first category titled "Familiar Phrases". From there, the categories were "Ooo, Sorry"^note Alex's sympathetic response usually to a missed Daily Double, "You're Out Of The Hole"^note when a contestant's response pulls them out of the red, "Make A Selection"^note Alex starting or re-starting gameplay, and "And Finally...".^note Alex's segue to the last category during the board rundown The final category admitted: "The Writers Are Trying To Be Clever".
• Celebrity Edition:
  • One of the most famous in the game show industry. The concept is well-known through Saturday Night Live's "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketches, with Will Ferrell as Trebek. Four variants featuring politicians and newsmakers have also been held under the "Power Players Week" branding, all as taped at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. during U.S. election years, while a Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational tournament was held from 2010-2011.
  • Rock & Roll Jeopardy! had a number of celebrity games, typically featuring popular musicians, though episodes also took place featuring recent Survivor castmates, as Jeff Probst hosted both shows. Similarly, Sports Jeopardy! featured two celebrity editions in its second season, including one with "The Danettes" (on-air personalities from host Dan Patrick's radio show) and a Super Bowl-week episode featuring NFL Network personalities, with a Danettes rematch opening season 3 as well.
• Clip Show: Fleming #2,753, plus Trebek #3,000 and #4,000. The first two had the clips interspersed amongst the gameplay, while #4,000 was purely a clip show.
• Closet Geek:
  • Often seen when a high winning or earning contestant comes on that doesn't look the part of a trivia aficionado, or is in a profession that doesn't seem like an obvious source for a Jeopardy! champion (one notable example: New York transit cop Frank Spangenberg)
  • Celebrity Jeopardy! is often a source for this, too. If you weren't familiar with their prior Jeopardy! games, would you have predicted that the standouts of 2011's Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament would be comedic actors like winner Michael McKean and $68,000 one game-winner Andy Richter?
• Company Cross References: As this show and Wheel of Fortune are considered sister shows — both were created by Merv Griffin, are usually packaged together for most markets, and share a distributor (CBS Television Distribution) and production company (Sony) — both shows have made references to each other over the years. For example, "Before & After" was a recurring Wheel category before it was adopted for Jeopardy!, and "Rhyme Time" was a Jeopardy! category long before it was adopted for Wheel. At one point, they featured a category called "Wheel of Jeopardy!" where the clue was given in the form of an unsolved Wheel of Fortune puzzle.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:invoked As with many other game shows, contestants invoke this frequently.
  • As the Fleming version paid full winnings to every contestant, some contestants intentionally stopped ringing in if they felt that they had earned enough money, or if an opponent had picked up an insurmountable lead. The Trebek era gave this an Obvious Rule Patch by offering the full winnings only to the winner, to create more of an incentive to compete. Losing contestants initially got parting gifts, but starting on May 16, 2002, these were replaced with cash prizes. Second and third place originally won $2,000 and $1,000 respectively, and these were updated on April 10, 2024 to $3,000 and $2,000 (if there is a tie for second following Final Jeopardy, it is broken in favor of whoever brought more money forward).
  • The vast majority of contestants pick clues from top to bottom within each category, even in cases where it might be advisable to do otherwise (for example, if Alex has said "Less than a minute" and several high-value clues are still on the board and/or a Daily Double hasn't yet been uncovered — the Daily Doubles are almost never in the top two rows). To be fair, this is often enforced by the producers to help maintain the flow of the game better and decrease the likelihood of the board operators revealing the wrong clue by mistake.
  • 9 times out of 10, the leader going into Final Jeopardy will wager the double of what second place has minus what they have plus one, so if both get it right and second place wagered everything, the leader will win by a dollar. For example, if first place has $12,400 and second place has $7,000, first place will wager $1,601 (2 times $7,000, minus $12,400, plus 1).
  • If a Daily Double is hit early in the Jeopardy! round, the contestant who found it will often make it a True Daily Double (or wager $1,000 if the player has less than that).
• Compound Title: Sometimes, the categories for each show may be related to each other (for example, in episode 4456, Genesis, In the Big Inning, God, Created, The Heavens, and The "Earth") even if the actual questions aren't.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Zig-Zagged with IBM computer Watson. He is not connected to the internet (or the outside world in any way) when competing, relying on his data in memory^note Although considering his data memory consisted largely of Wikipedia.... It still turned into a Curb-Stomp Battle in short order, however, largely because Computers Are Fast. Ken Jennings himself later made some suggestions to level the playing field.
• Consolation Prize:
  • In the original Fleming era, all contestants received their cash earnings win or lose; however, contestants who finished with $0 or a negative score received parting gifts.
  • In the Trebek era, only the winning contestant received his or her full cash winnings. Initially, departing contestants received non-monetary prizes, usually a vacation package for second and merchandise for third; however, starting in 2002, second and third place received a flat $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. For Season 40, $1,000 will be added to each consolation prize.
• Couch Gag: In season 34, different objects surrounded by written responses (being written in like as in Final Jeopardy!) are shown in the intro. Season 36 has different topics shown in the intro as well, and Season 37 uses different clips from throughout the show’s history.
• Crossword Puzzle: A recurring category is "Crossword Clues [letter]", where the clues are phrased as crossword puzzle clues.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Chuck Forrest, one of the first big champions, won all five of his games in lock fashion (including a lock-tie on his fifth game). This continued the following fall where his quarterfinal and semifinal games were also runaway victories. He did so well in the finals that his two opponents, Paul Rouffa and Marvin Shinkman, won fewer than the guaranteed prize for semifinalists. They appealed and were each given $5,000.
  • January 29, 1986: Returning champion Beryl Arbit finished the game with $8,600 ($17,200 in post-doubling play), while both her opponents finished in the red. It's not entirely clear if they even played Final Jeopardy.
  • The opening game of season 26's Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament episode with Andy Richter and Wolf Blitzer from September 2009. The score as they were going into Final Jeopardy! - Andy, $39,000; Wolf, negative $4,600. (In celebrity games, any contestant with a negative score is automatically given $1,000 to participate in Final Jeopardy!) Andy would end up with $68,000, among the best one day scores on any episode of Jeopardy, thus meaning that the comedian beat the everloving crap out of the journalist.
  • The majority of Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter's games were these, which helps explain why they've won millions of dollars through the show and related tournaments. Good examples for each would include Ken's 38th win from July 2004 (where he won a then record $75,000), and Brad's 2001 TOC quarterfinal game (which he dominated from beginning to end, finishing with $18,000, or $36,000 in today's values)
  • Thanks to jumping across categories, hunting for Daily Doubles in the higher dollar amounts from the bottom up, and often going all in on Daily Doubles, notable Jeopardy! contestants like Roger Craig, Alex Jacob, and Arthur Chu made a habit of curb stomping contestants during their runs on the show. However, the high risk of this gameplay strategy backfired on all of them at least once in later tournaments.
  • Mark McGrath (of Sugar Ray)'s appearances on Rock & Roll Jeopardy!, where it became less of a game and more of "How much will he win by?" (even voiced by his opponents themselves). Say what you will about Sugar Ray, but the man knows his rock and roll inside and out.
  • Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Like Mark above, he has an incredible knowledge of music (fellow contestant Moon Unit Zappa even comments at one point "How do you even know that?"). Any fan of Megadeth would know Dave is an incredibly intelligent person, but anyone who just saw him as some kind of dumb metal guy would probably be surprised how he runs away with the game.
  • The first game of the two-game IBM Challenge (February 14-15, 2011) saw IBM's Watson computer finish with $35,734 (even after a wrong Final Jeopardy answer). Ken Jennings ($4,800) and Brad Rutter ($10,400), Jeopardy's two most successful players, weren't even as close as the score made it seem — they both doubled up in Final Jeopardy.
  • In the March 16, 2011 game, eventual 5 day champion Tom Kunzen absolutely owned his opponents who struggled to even remain on the plus side: the scores at the end of DJ! were $29,200 for Tom and -$3,600 and -$1,400 for his opponents respectively, leading to only the fifth (at least) single-player Final Jeopardy! in the Trebek era.
  • The 2015 Tournament Of Champions turned into this for 6 day champion Alex Jacob at every stage. He doubled up his opponents in all four games, largely prevented 5 day champ Brennan Bushee from ringing in at all in the Jeopardy! round in the semifinals, and pulled off 3 all-in Daily Doubles in the finals to help lock out no less than Matt Jackson and Kerry Greene. When all was said and done, he was guaranteed to win by over $30,000 in the finals no matter what either opponent wagered, and Alex Trebek referred to Jacob's performance as "the most dominant performance by anyone in any of our tournaments."
  • Harking back to the original NBC version, one of the era's most biggest winners was Burns Cameron, who won a record $11,000 during his five-day romp. In one game, he played against two contestants who were said to be inebriated during their show; they were so drunk they struggled to even press the lock-out buzzer (leading Cameron to at times intentionally delay ringing in to give his opponents a chance to answer). Unsurprisingly, he was the only one around for "Final Jeopardy!" (This was at a time when the values went $10 to $50 in the Jeopardy round, which means that after adjusting for the change in clue values, his five-day score actually beats that of Frank Spangenberg.)
  • James Holzhauer did this a lot in the spring of 2019. Thanks to his background as a professional gambler, his gameplay was dominated by playing the higher-value clues first, seeking out Daily Doubles, and wagering aggressively. As a result, most of his games were blowouts. Of his 32 wins, only four saw the second place contestant finish within $30,000 of Holzhauer. The closest call was in Holzhauer's 18th game, when he beat Adam Levin by only $18. Four of Holzhauer's wins were by more than $100,000 over the second place contestant. He also blew past the previous one-day winnings records (Roger Craig's $77,000 mark from 2010) no fewer than ten times (Holzhauer's score of $89,229 from May 20, 2019, is the tenth-highest single-day score in the show's history).
  • Matt Amodio's 2021 run was characterized by these. The Double Jeopardy round in one of his later games ended with one of his opponents having $2200, one having $4200...and Matt having $46,000. He ended the game with $83,000, making him only the second player to break the 80k barrier...while one of his opponents had $4401 and the other had $200.

D

• Dark Horse Victory:
  • December, 1984, 5 day champion Jerry Frankel was the second lowest earner in the inaugural 1985 TOC field, and only advanced to the semifinals as a wild card after finishing in third place in his opening game. Then, he beat two of season 1's top four earners (Ron Black and the top-ranked Paul Boymel) in a runaway in the semifinals, and won a competitive final round to become the show's first ever TOC winner, and the show's biggest overall cash winner at the time.
  • Going into the finals of 1990's Super Jeopardy! tournament, Bob Verini was the understandable favourite, having won the 1987 Tournament of Champions, and having defeated fellow Super Jeopardy! finalist Dave Traini in the 1987 finals too. However, both were upset by Bruce Seymour, a 4 day champion who didn't make it out of the 1988 TOC quarterfinals, and who hasn't been invited to any reunion tournaments since.
  • 1994's Tournament of Champions' top three earners were Steve Chernicoff and John Cuthbertson (future standouts of 2005's Ultimate TOC) and Amy Fine (the winningest woman in regular play of the pre-doubled era), but Fine was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and Cuthbertson and Chernicoff were upset in the semifinals by College Champion Jeff Stewart. The finals that year would see Stewart square off with 4 day champions Rachael Schwartz and David Hillinck (the first time that the TOC didn't have at least one 5-time champion in the finals), the lowest earners to qualify for that TOC, and who had both lost to Cuthbertson in the quarterfinals. When all was said and done, Schwartz edged out Stewart by $1 to become the first woman and 4 day champ to win a TOC.
  • The obvious favourite in the 2004 Tournament of Champions was Tom Walsh, the show's first ever 7 day champion, but he fell in a finals upset to Russ Schumacher, who was the lowest earning 4 day champion in the field, had only gotten seven clues right in his quarterfinal loss, and was in a $10,100 hole going into the second game of the finals. However, he proved his TOC win was no fluke by making the Battle of the Decades semifinals a decade later.
    • In the same tournament, Tom Baker became the first 3 day champion to ever win a Tournament of Champions game when he defeated Russ Schumacher and eventual Ultimate TOC semifinalist Chris Miller in a quarterfinal runaway. Arguably, any 3-time champion that wins in a TOC can be seen in this light, especially given that they didn't run as long or win as much as their opponents in the field, as later seen with Michael Falk, Vik Vaz, and Doug Hicton's TOC final runs.
  • The 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions was littered with upsets and dark horse victories in the early rounds. Of the "Nifty Nine" champions that were byed to the second round following their record setting and accomplished prior runs on the show, seven of them lost their opening game, with only Brad Rutter and Frank Spangenberg advancing to the quarterfinals (and only one other TOC winner, Dan Melia, joining them there). On the flip side, the UTOC was a great showcase for John Cuthbertson, Chris Miller, and Pam Mueller, who won their own share of upsets on their route to the semifinals, after ending their previous Jeopardy! runs as semifinalists in their regular TOCs. Cuthbertson, in particular, impressed many by knocking off TOC winners Bob Verini and Bob Blake, plus TOC finalist Tad Carithers in the first two rounds alone, and got very close to defeating Rutter himself during the Round 4 semifinals.
  • In the 2006 Tournament of Champions, 6+ day champions David Madden, Tom Kavanaugh, and Kevin Marshall were understandable favorites to take the $250,000 top prize, only for all to fall in the opening rounds at the hands of 4 day champion Bill Macdonald... and all in runaway fashion, no less! However, Bill's Cinderella run met its end in the finals at the hands of two even bigger underdogs: 3 day champions Vik Vaz (who had ended Bill's regular reign the previous year) and eventual winner Michael Falk, who rallied from Vik's $13,400 lead after the first day to become the only 3 day champion to win a TOC.
  • Much of the chatter surrounding the 2014 Tournament of Champions finals revolved around who'd win between 20 day champion Julia Collins and 11 day champion Arthur Chu (far and away the top winners of season 30), but both lost in the finals to 8 day champion Ben Ingram after he opened up a $10,000 lead going into day 2. Ben was the biggest winner of season 29, and the fourth highest earning qualifier in the field, but anyone in that TOC would have been a dark horse against the Julia/Arthur pairing.
  • As hard to believe as it is, Brad Rutter was once a dark horse. He was only the 9th highest earner in the 2001 TOC field, but he proved himself on the big stage by defeating the field's biggest winner (Doug Lach, who won over $30,000 more than Brad) in a runaway in the quarterfinals. The rest is history.
  • Any defeat of a lengthy, seemingly unstoppable Jeopardy! champion could be considered this, particularly Nancy Zerg's defeat of Ken Jennings in his 75th game in November 2004. Averted when said champion loses to someone who goes on a long reign of their own, like when 9 day champion Jason Keller lost to eventual 6 day champion Dave Leach in December 2011.
  • The 1991 Tournament of Champions was notable for being the first time that all 3 finalists, Jim Scott (the eventual winner), Steve Robin, and Lou Pryor, were wildcard semifinalists. Jim Scott and Steve Robin both lost to Mark Born (season 7's top winner) in the quarterfinals, who was defeated by Lou Pryor in the semifinals. Lou, in turn, lost to Leslie Frates in the quarterfinals, who was defeated by Jim in the semifinals.
• Deadpan Snarker: Who is Alex Trebek?
• Death or Glory Attack: A True Daily Double (or close to it) in Double Jeopardy!, which was Roger Craig's signature strategy. Get it right, and you double your score, potentially securing victory or denying an opponent a lock-win. Miss, and you drop to $0 with little to no time to recover.
  • 1988 3 day champion Bob Beers wagered $6,000 on the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy! from his first game, then followed up six clues later with a a whopping $10,000 wager, which remained a Jeopardy! record (when adjusted for inflation) until 2019. A miss on either would have likely cost him the game, especially as he missed Final.
  • Three of Isaac Segal's opponents in July 1995 did this.
    • July 5, 1995: Dan Schay was a very distant third when he wagered his entire $2,500. He would end up taking the lead from Isaac going into Final Jeopardy.
    • July 6, 1995: James Greenberg wagered his entire $2,900, saying "I'm a gambling man, let's bet it all" beforehand. He (briefly) narrowed the gap Isaac had throughout much of the game.
    • July 7, 1995: Beverly Adams entered Double Jeopardy leading over Isaac, who hurriedly retook the lead when she uncovered one of the DDs. She wagered $3,000 of her $5,200, but got it wrong. After recovering to $3,200, she found the second DD, and wagered $3,000 again, but missed it too. That, along with another incorrect answer, threw her into negative score territory which she was unable to get out of before time ran out.
  • Happened in two of 4 day champion Barbara Walker's games in January 1996:
    • Barbara herself did this in her second game. She found the second Daily Double at the end of Double Jeopardy! and wagered $4,500 of her $4,900. She got it right, putting her in second place with only $1,200 separating her from the then-first place player.
    • Done by one of her opponents in her fourth. Nick Lamelza had $4,800 when he hit the second Daily Double at the end of Double Jeopardy!, with Barbara at $10,400 and the other player John Zappacosta at $9,100. He risked $4,000 but got it wrong, leaving him with only $800 for Final.
  • June 25, 1996: Karl Coryat was victimized by one of his opponents doing this on his third game. Don Sloan found the second Daily Double on the second to last clue of Double Jeopardy! and got it right after wagering $4,800 of his $5,200. Karl lost his lock going into Final and eventually the game.
  • During a semifinal in 2001's last International Tournament, Swedish champion Fredrik Gildea wagered all of his $9,500 on the last Daily Double, in what is the biggest true Daily Double in recorded Jeopardy! history when adjusted for inflation. However, he couldn't repeat the same magic in the finals, as eventual winner Robin Carroll landed five of the Daily Doubles in the two day affair, and Fredrik didn't find the other.
  • Bob Verini finished the first game of the Million Dollar Masters finals $5,000 behind Brad Rutter, and he was trailing Brad by $2,000 in Game 2 when he found the second Daily Double late in Double Jeopardy! Bob wagered all $10,400 to cheers and applause in the audience... but he wound up being completely stumped by the clue. The audience gasped as he went down to zero, and then they gave him sympathetic applause. Bob still was able to play Final Jeopardy! after ringing in on the last clue and getting it right.
  • 2011 7 day champion Joon Pahk made expert use of this during his run, becoming the only recorded Jeopardy! contestant to wager at least $14,000 on Daily Doubles twice. Both of the wagers were in math categories, and Joon is a college physics teacher, hence his eagerness to go big when the opportunity arose.
  • In arguably the costliest true Daily Double in Jeopardy! history, June 2012 contestant Terry Kent (who was in second place by $400) wagered all of his then-$13,600 in an attempt to take the lead in Double Jeopardy. However, he misunderstood the clue (which asked for a Mohs scale-listed element that ended in Z; he responded with "zirconia"), dropping him to $0 and knocking him out of Final. He made up for it though as a Sports Jeopardy! contestant in the fall of 2016, becoming a 3 day champion, and surviving an all-in Daily Double miss in this third game with a major comeback.
  • Though overshadowed by his Final response ("What is someone in Normandy, but I just won $75,000!"), 2013 Teen Tournament champion Leonard Cooper employed this in the deciding second game of the finals, wagering $18,000 of his then-$18,200 on the last Daily Double to take a huge (though, despite his Final response, not insurmountable) lead.
  • 2016 3 day champion Philip Tiu relied on this during his reign, especially as he visibly struggled with the buzzer and was often slow to ring in and respond. Bold Daily Double wagers, including a then-record bet of $19,000 in his second game, helped net Philip over $96,000 in just three days, but a wrong response on an all-in wager in his fourth game helped end his run.
  • A death-or-glory attack may also appear in Final Jeopardy!, particularly if a contestant with a comfortable or runaway lead wagers an excessively large amount, which would net them a huge score if they're right, and cost them the win if they're wrong. 2015 5 day champion and TOC semifinalist Dan Feitel (who often wagered all but $1 if he led going into Final without a lock) is a notable recent example, but other examples include 2012 Teen Tournament winner Elyse Mancuso and 2013 Kids Week standout Skyler Hornbeck, who each wagered almost everything in Final despite having first place locked up, and would have needlessly gave the victory away had they missed.
  • Occasionally, a Celebrity Jeopardy! player in first place will bet it all in Final Jeopardy!, which would obviously net them more money for their charities, and put them at $0 if they're wrong, but you could justify the unsafe wager as they'll still get at least $10,000 for their charity. Andy Richter and Jon Stewart both gambled their whole $11,000+ winnings in 1999 (on consecutive days, no less) despite each having locks. The same didn't work out for author Tom Clancy, who only needed a $1,401 wager or an incorrect reply from Catherine Crier to win his Power Players Week game in 1997, and while she was wrong, he wagered everything, handing the game to Tim Russert (who had been in a distant third place).
  • Going True Daily Double during a commanding lead was also a signature move of 2019 champion James Holzhauer.
  • 40-game winner Amy Schneider was felled by opponent Rhone Talsma this way. Rhone hit a Daily Double towards the end of Double Jeopardy!, wagered his then entire $7,800 and got it right. He later got the Final Jeopardy! correct response, and he dethroned Amy who missed it.
  • Ketty Pan attempted this during Megan Wachspress's fifth game. She found the first Daily Double with only five other clues left in play. She wagered $8,800 of her then $12,200 but gave an incorrect response which dropped her to third place. She then almost missed out on Final Jeopardy! by going into negative territory on the second after missing a $1,600 clue. Thankfully, she got to participate by giving a correct response on another clue. These combined with Megan and the other player Tory Leviton losing nearly $20,000 combined in final resulted in Megan winning with only $401.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Many champions and contestants who have played against each other have become friends over the years. Further reinforced by games in reunion tournaments, where Alex and the contestants - most well acquainted from prior events - chat on old times.
  • Sometimes inverted when some winners film their episodes in the same taping sessions, especially pre-2003. For example, 1996 5-time champions David Sampugnaro and Michael Dupee had their shows filmed almost back-to-back (David's encompassed one week, while Michael got 4 out of 5 shows of the next week).
• Demoted to Extra: The Clue Crew became this when the show was able to resume production from the coronavirus pandemic. Categories and clues featuring Jimmy McGuire and Sarah Whitcomb-Foss were drastically reduced as a result of cost-cutting measures. It was then quietly announced that Season 38 would be the last one with Clue Crew material. Jimmy and Sarah still work for Jeopardy!: the former as a stage manager and the latter as an associate director.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • The name of a category on November 3, 2010, where each correct response contained or completed a phrase with the same word twice.
  • July 17, 2013: Jimmy McGuire of the Clue Crew announced "Vietnamese Water Puppets—The Water Puppets of Vietnam" as one of the category titles.
• Desperation Attack:
  • The Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! can turn into this if a contestant is trailing first place by a large amount, forcing them into a huge wager to attempt to at least get back in contention. Much like a Death or Glory Attack, this can also obliterate any chance at victory if a contestant is wrong.
  • Some trailing contestants will also get more trigger happy on the buzzer late in Double Jeopardy! in an attempt to get first dibs on answers, but this leaves the risk of either getting locked out or ringing in before figuring out (or knowing the answer), and falling even further behind as a result.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: On the original version, Merv Griffin composed both the theme tune and the think music. When the revival was made in 1984, the think music became the theme tune, and is still in use to this day.
• Double the Dollars: "Double Jeopardy!" is so named because its clue values are double those of the first round. The round also has two Daily Doubles instead of one. The 2022 Celebrity Jeopardy! tournament extended this to triple the dollars with an added "Triple Jeopardy!" round with three Daily Doubles.
• Downer Ending:
  • If no contestant on Jeopardy! finishes with a positive total, three new contestants compete on the next show. Overall, this has happened in the Trebek era at least eight times (most recently in January 2016). It's uncertain how many times this occurred in the Fleming era, but on one episode he hosted, all three contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with no money, so Fleming spent the rest of the show chatting with the contestants. If this scenario were to happen today, the show's website implied that they may play the Final Jeopardy! clue just for fun.
  • In the inaugural season of the current version, all three players ended Final Jeopardy! with scores of $0 in two different games after giving an incorrect answer and wagering everything.
    • The first time was on the Trebek version's second episode, with all three giving the same incorrect day the 20th Century began — all three responded with "January 1, 1900", but the correct response was January 1, 1901.^ExplanationWith the absence of a year 0, every century's first year starts with the last two digits ending in "01", not "00". The first century began on the year 1, the second on the year 101, and so on.
    • It happened again on April 8, 1985 when all three contestants missed a Final response on the date that college football bowl games took place. The correct response was January 2, 1984, and all three contestants wrote "January 1, 1984".^ExplanationEvery bowl game mentioned by the clue—the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar Bowls—takes place on January 1. If January 1 falls on a Sunday, as happened in 1984, the games are moved to January 2.
  • This happened for the first time in a tournament setting during the 1991 Seniors Tournament. During the second quarterfinal game, all 3 players were incorrect in Final Jeopardy!, with all 3 wagering everything. As a result, a fifth wild card position was added to round out the semifinals, the only time to date that there were only 4 automatic semifinalists in a Jeopardy! tournament.
    • More famously, during the second semifinal game of the 2013 Teen Tournament, all 3 players had the same incorrect response on all-in wagers in Final, thus no player won. As the tournament finals needed three contestants, the third spot went to the highest scoring runner-up in the semifinals (Leonard Cooper, who ended up winning the tournament), though that rule has since been changed.
  • Triple-zero finishes have occurred in two Celebrity Jeopardy! games when each missed Final Jeopardy! and went all in. The first was a 1996 game between Jon Lovitz, Carl Lewis, and Matthew Fox, while a 1998 "Ladies Night" game between Jane Curtin, Teri Garr, and Naomi Judd saw the same finish. For the former, all three contestants received the $10,000 runner-up prize for their charity, but producers changed the rules afterward so the leader after Double Jeopardy! would win the game if a triple-zero happened again in a celebrity game. As a result, Jane Curtin was the credited winner of the 1998 game, winning the $15,000 top prize for her charity.
  • The electronic pens used to write down Final Jeopardy! responses shut off when the last note of the think music plays. The show rules against contestants if their responses are cut off by the time limit. One episode had Clint Eastwood as the correct response, and a contestant was denied credit for "Who is Clint Eastwoo".
  • If a challenger wins the game with a score less than $2,000, he/she ends up taking home the least money of all three contestants for that day's game, but at least they get to come back for a second episode.
  • November 19, 1992: The first Final game in the 1992 Tournament of Champions between Jerome Vered, Leszek Pawlowicz, and Bruce Simmons was a very fast-paced affair, and the three players entered Final Jeopardy accumulating $25,400 as a group (pre-doubled, no less). Unfortunately, they all missed the Final Jeopardy! answer, and they cumulatively lost $20,700.
  • June 12, 1998: A two-player Final Jeopardy! with the players both tied at $7,600 showed the pitfalls of the "Prisoner's Dilemma". Neither of them trusted the other to wager $0 and tie, so they both wagered everything… and both got it wrong.
    Trebek: Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in over 14 years, we will have no returning champion because all three players wound up with no money!
  • A rare Played for Laughs example on June 3, 2002. Four-time champion Jill Bunzendahl Chimka said that if she won five games, she'd give the car she won to her son, Cory. Unfortunately in her fifth game, she finished Double Jeopardy! dead last and didn't know the answer to the Final Jeopardy! clue. She wrote "What is Sorry Cory no Jag?" to the amusement of Alex and the audience.
  • In a tournament wide variant, the 2003 Tournament of Champions saw eight of the ten losing quarterfinalists finish with no money (six wagered everything in Final Jeopardy! and were incorrect, while two finished Double Jeopardy! in the red). As four wild cards are needed for the semifinals, the six-way tie at 0 was broken by which two contestants had the highest post-Double Jeopardy! scores in their games, with Eric Floyd (an eventual finalist that year) and Max Levaren advancing as a result. This was especially unlucky for Mark Lee, whose score after Double Jeopardy! was just 200 less than Max's score. As well, Travis Troyer's quarterfinal score of 2,599 was good for the third lowest by a wild card semifinalist in TOC history if adjusted for inflation, behind only Floyd and Levaren.
  • November 19, 2008: A semifinal match of that season's Teen Tournament had Anne Frank as the correct response to a Final Jeopardy! clue. Going into Final, Karan and Sarah were tied for the lead with third place player Anurag only 1,200 behind. Sarah got the correct response but didn't wager enough to cover Anurag. Karan wrote "Who is Annie Frank?" which initiated a stopdown for the staff to check his answer. When taping resumed nearly 30 minutes later, Alex said that they could not give him credit because their research library found no reference to Anne ever being called that. To make matters worse for both Karan and Sarah, Anurag went onto win the tournament.
  • November 7, 2012: In a Teachers Tournament quarterfinal game, South Carolina schoolteacher Diana North wrote the word "Waitin" in her Final Jeopardy response of "What is 'Waitin [sic] for Godot'?". Her response was deemed to be incorrect, costing her 3,800 and making her score 10,000. Had she not made that mistake, she would have had 17,600 and would have been among the four wild-card qualifiers for the semi-finals.
  • On January 18, 2016, two contestants finished Double Jeopardy! with $13,800 while the third finished with $6,000. All three contestants missed Final Jeopardy!, wagered their entire earnings and finished the game with $0, even more surprising when you realize that this game had two returning champions (though in fairness to the two of them, betting it all when tied going into Final is a valid strategy in that scenario).
  • After an impressive 6 day championship reign by Cindy Stowell in December 2016 (becoming the first female 4+ day champion in 20 months), her loss concluded with an epilogue by Alex Trebek, where he announced that Cindy was battling stage IV colon cancer during her taping dates, and had passed away on December 5th - eight days before her first game aired. This wasn't shocking news for most, given how the story spread online, but it's no less sad. Her winnings from her run were donated to a cancer research charity; her estate was later given another $10,000 by the show ($5,000 of which would have been her guaranteed prize money had she lived to be in the Tournament of Champions, the other $5,000 being a donation) and this also went to the charity. During the 2016 Tournament of Champions, Alex and all 15 contestants wore dark blue ribbons for colon cancer awareness in Cindy's memory.
  • November 10, 2017: In that year's Tournament of Champions, the Final Jeopardy! clue asked for the contestants to identify the George Cross. Quarterfinalist Justin Vossler lost out on a wild card spot when his response of "What is the George’s Cross?" was ruled unacceptable due to it not being a possessive.
  • February 18, 2021: The correct response to that day's Final Jeopardy! clue was William Jennings Bryan. Returning champion Andy West, who won only $1,999 the day before, wrote "Who is William Jennings Bryant". Ken explained that they couldn't accept it because of the added "T" at the end. Had he got the name right, he'd have won his second game.
  • May 5, 2022: Sarah Snider led 22-day champion Mattea Roach by nearly $10,000 entering Final Jeopardy with the category "20th Century Cinema"^{The clue}"A black & white newsreel in this film begins: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree"" Mattea bets all but $1 and correctly says "What is Citizen Kane". Unfortunately, Sarah admitted that she'd never seen Citizen Kane and didn't write anything down, giving Mattea the win. Sarah made the cut for a 2022 Second Chance Tournament, but she placed third in her qualifying game.
  • June 17, 2022: Sadie Goldberger entered Final Jeopardy in the lead, but second place is only $600 behind her. Both second and third place correctly answer "Who is Harriet Tubman?"^{The clue}"Congratulating her on the 1869 release of her biography, Frederick Douglass wrote, "I have wrought in the day—you in the night"", but Goldberger only managed to write down "Who is Harriet Tubma" before time ran out. She was marked incorrect, and her wager would have won her the game. Goldberger was later invited back for a 2022 Second Chance tournament. She won $20,000 for placing second in her pool's finals.
  • May 24, 2023: Ben Chan's tenth game was the first one where he did not have a lock going into Final Jeopardy!, and it wound up contributing to his downfall. The Final answer under the category of "Shakespearean Characters" read "Both of the names of these 2 lovers in a Shakespeare play come from Latin words for 'blessed'." The correct response was "Beatrice & Benedick", and Ben wrote "Who are Beatrice & Benedict?" Ben was told that his response was unacceptable because his misspelling of the latter name affected its pronunciation. Ben wagered to cover his closest-trailing opponent, Lynn Di Vito, who won the game with $11,800.
• Down to the Last Play: Unless here's a runaway leader that can't be caught, Final Jeopardy! is this by design.
• Dramatic Spotlight: Used during the Final Jeopardy! Round (ever since Season 7, and is still used to this day).
• Dude, Not Funny!: During one interview, the second contestant talked about her pet goat dying after eating an entire bag of quick-dry concrete. Alex interrupted her admonishing the audience to ask if it was a 60- or 80-pound bag, to which she replied that he was being insensitive. Alex then declined to interview the third contestant.
• Due to the Dead: At the beginning of the episode airing 11-9-2020, producer Mike Richards, in his comments at the beginning of the show, noted that there were 35 episodes that had not yet been aired at the time of Trebek's passing, and that it was Trebek's wish that they be aired as-is. After Richards closed his remarks with a somber "This is Jeopardy!", the entire set darkened.