- 6 weeks ago
On October 25, 2025, the author and game-show host Ken Jennings joined the senior editor Tyler Foggatt onstage at the 26th annual New Yorker Festival.
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00:00Hi everyone, I'm Tyler Foggett, a senior editor at The New Yorker, and on behalf of the
00:29magazine, I am thrilled to welcome you all to the 26th annual New Yorker Festival. I'm thrilled to be
00:35on stage this morning with the unbelievably impressive Ken Jennings. There are many adjectives
00:42I could use, but impressive is what I went with. That works for anybody. You can get a war criminal
00:47up here and say, wow, it's really impressive what he pulled off. I could not be more excited
00:55personally. It's like, I mean, it's not, if you read The New Yorker and then suddenly you're on stage
00:59of the festival, it's a little bit analogous to watching Jeopardy and then suddenly going on the
01:03show. Like, The New Yorker has kind of risen up to surround me like Tron, as I always dreamed. It
01:11would. Well, I actually want to start by talking about your origin story. So just for like a little
01:16background, I'm sure you guys all know this, but I love hearing about it. Like a lot of people here
01:22today, you know, you grew up watching the syndicated version of Jeopardy hosted by Alex Trebek.
01:27But when that show debuted in 1984, Jennings was actually living in South Korea. His dad was an
01:34international lawyer who moved the family to Seoul when Jennings was in first grade. And so you were
01:38watching Jeopardy on the only English language TV channel available to you, which was the Armed
01:43Forces Korea Network. In 2004, when Ken was living in the States again and working as a software engineer,
01:49he fulfilled his lifelong dream of competing on Jeopardy. And he was historically good.
01:56He won a record 74 games in a row, earning more than $2.5 million. And for many years,
02:03he was America's, that does deserve applause. For many years, he was America's highest earning
02:08game show contestant, with various Jeopardy tournaments and other quiz shows bringing his
02:12total earnings to $5,796,214. Did I get that right?
02:19No, please, please do not applaud the number. We, we live in a time of great inequality and
02:24people who won $5 million on game shows should feel bad about that. And I do.
02:29Well, there was a guy who several months ago was able to overtake your record by winning
02:34$5.8 million on Deal or No Deal Island. Deal or No Deal. Deal or No Deal Island.
02:38If he's here tonight, I want to challenge you, sir. Jeopardy, mano y mano.
02:45The New York Times described Ken back in 2004 as a throwback to the days when ordinary people
02:50got on television for doing well, not something shameless. He's been described by other publications
02:56as America's hardest working nerd and the sea biscuit of geekdom. Matt Damon recently called
03:03him the Michael Jordan of trivia, which is a phrase that gets used about you a lot. And
03:07in 2020, of course, you won the greatest of all time tournament on Jeopardy, truly cementing
03:12your status as the GOAT. And of course, you succeeded Alex Trebek as the host of Jeopardy
03:17a few years ago. So as one fan wrote online several months ago, how lucky are we that the
03:23perfect host for the show also just so happens to be the greatest to ever play the game?
03:26That is a lovely sentiment, but I think you can hear how improbable it is. Like what are
03:37the odds that someone would be good at playing Jeopardy but could also host it? And I think
03:41the answer is it's kind of analogous to quarterbacks becoming sportscasters. Not all of them can
03:48do it, but the ones that can, they're not good at first, and I was not, but they know the game
03:52well enough to kind of keep their head above water until they figure out the broadcasting
03:56part of it. And then some of them are pretty good.
03:59How does it help you? Does it ever get in the way?
04:03Does it ever get in the way? I mean, the main thing about hosting Jeopardy is it moves so
04:08fast you can't really, maybe talk shows are the same actually, you're not really putting
04:14on any kind of persona. Like I really kind of feel like I'm just playing Jeopardy at speed
04:18with the players every night. I just don't have a buzzer. So I'm very into the game. I'm excited.
04:25I want to know what's going to happen next. I'm still trying to do all the things, all
04:29the things that Alex was so perfect at. You know, read every clue perfectly because you're
04:34kind of narrating a whole audio book every night. And set the stakes for the home audience
04:39so they have a little bit of play-by-play and color commentary. You're also the umpire.
04:43You're making difficult rulings even though you're backed up by the judges. So all of that stuff
04:48is going on. But basically, I just kind of feel like I'm enjoying the game like I did
04:53when I was in my playing days. Now that sounds like an ex-quarterback. Well, when I was, when
04:59I was still on the Yankees, shut up, A-Rod.
05:01So in terms of reading the clues, we'll talk more about this later, but obviously a big part
05:11of Jeopardy is buzzing in. Like that's kind of the thing that determines who wins a game
05:17a lot of the time. And you and a lot of other contestants used to study Alex Trebek's speech
05:24patterns. And I would assume that people are now studying your speech patterns so that they
05:28know exactly when to, you know, use their signaling device. And so, I mean, do you have like a pressure
05:33to speak consistently? Because I'm like such a bad person, I would just like intentionally
05:38like introduce pauses to mess people up and stuff. I would not be able to help myself.
05:43I wouldn't say, like when you say studying Alex Trebek's cadence, it makes it sound like
05:47I'm some kind of like Professor Henry Higgins weirdo with a gramophone or something.
05:52Yeah.
05:53But that's kind of true. Like just having listened to Alex read clues for decades, I feel like
05:58I did have a sixth sense of, here's what happens. The host starts reading a clue. The players
06:03are reading ahead because they can see the screen like you can at home. So we're trying to get
06:06to, the players are trying to get to the response before, you can read faster than the host
06:10can read out loud. So you're trying to get to the response before the host does. Do you
06:15take that second? Is it right? Does it make sense? Do you feel confident enough about it
06:19to buzz? And if you decide you're going to, then you're just laser focused on the end of
06:24the sentence. Last few syllables beat buzz. Because you can't buzz early, as some of you may know.
06:31Has anybody here ever been on Jeopardy? I bet there's a few. Front row. Any others? Congratulations.
06:36As you may know, you can't buzz as soon as you know it. You have to wait for the host
06:41to finish reading the clue. Then at that point, your buzzer is activated. And then you can
06:46buzz in. If you buzz in too early, you actually lock yourself out for a fraction of a second.
06:50So if you ever watch the show and somebody's like, doing this every clue, I think people
06:54at home are often like, hey, Gary's buzzer is broken. No, it's just the adrenaline is making
07:00the players kind of buzz a little bit on the fast side. And so I am very aware that there's
07:07lights, by the way, that turn on on the side of the game board to tell you when your buzzer
07:10is live. And some players will just wait for the lights. I was more of a, listen, I know
07:14Alex is reading so well that I'll just kind of time it to when I see the lights come on
07:20at home. Like when I see somebody buzzing at home, that's probably a pretty good proxy
07:23for the right millisecond to buzz. Because you can't be too early, you can't be too late.
07:28And I would just do that. And it turned out it worked. And today I think people are doing
07:32the same thing about my voice. So I do try to think about that. I read consistently. There's
07:36a lot of things that the reader of the clue can do to help the players get to the right
07:41answer. And that is what Jeopardy wants. We are never trying to confuse anybody, even
07:45though the clues are difficult. The show only works if the players have a fair shot at answering
07:49every clue. And that's what we are just hoping for. I hope they, do they know this? Do kids
07:54still read Silas Marner? We don't know. But you know, a few times a month we try to find
07:59out on Jeopardy. You do want a few triple stumpers though, right? We're not against the occasional
08:07clue that nobody knows. It's a little moment to breathe in the game. It makes the audience
08:11feel smart. Do you guys love it when you know something that they don't know? It's the best
08:15feeling in the world. I recently had it watching. Sorry, heroin. Yeah, I really just asked to
08:24do this event so that I could tell everyone about this moment I had. But it was, yeah,
08:27I was watching Jeopardy and there was like an influencer category. And it was the, you
08:32know, the hardest question. And it was this photo of Alex Earl appears on the screen. And
08:36I'm at home thinking that's obviously Alex Earl. And no one got it. And unfortunately, it was
08:40like the kind of thing where like, I think my husband actually thought less of me for being able
08:44to get that answer. In Quiz Bowl, we used to say there's no shame. Like a right answer
08:49is a right answer. You know, it doesn't matter how much you know about Love Island or whatever.
08:53Like that's, if it was points, points are points. Do you guys talk about how lowbrow you want
08:59to get on a show where like half the questions are about Shakespeare? Like how do you balance
09:04that? The writing of Jeopardy is basically the whole enterprise of the show. Like Jeopardy is
09:10the writer's show. You know, if you guys like Go More Girls or West Wing or something, you know,
09:15some very wordy show, Jeopardy has so many more syllables per second than any other TV show.
09:22So it's the ultimate writer's show. And one of the things that goes into building the boards is
09:26balancing them. You know, categories are written by a big staff of writers, but they have colors.
09:31You know, this one's an academic, you know, blue for academic or whatever they are. This one's a wordplay
09:36category. This one's pop culture. And there is kind of a formula of, oh, we haven't had TV yet
09:43this week. And we, this is, we need a second pop culture category, this board. Are there ever
09:49specific questions about is this person Jeopardy worthy? I think not so much. I think the idea is
09:58that we're as ecumenical as possible is best. So anybody can be a Jeopardy clue. Maybe you don't
10:05want Mr. Beast three times a week, but anybody, you know, if the people know it, that's what Jeopardy
10:11should be. So I'm wondering, like going back to when you were a contestant, at what point did you
10:17realize that you were the best Jeopardy player, or at least one of the best Jeopardy players of all
10:24time? Like, was it game 15? Was it game 40? Was it like years after your streak was over and no one
10:31had even come close to beating it that you were like, oh, I, I really cooked?
10:38Okay, let me make two things clear. One is that there's a lot of luck in a game of Jeopardy,
10:43and there are maybe, I think I went back and looked once, just for the math. And there's about a dozen
10:50games in my run where if one clue goes another way, I actually lose that game, including my first
10:56game. Like, I'm one clue away from being a zero-game Jeopardy champion, and presumably you guys
11:01have a more interesting speaker in the 10 a.m. slot. But like, for whatever reason, a few breaks
11:08went my way. And then I guess the other thing to say, and so the implication of that is that on any
11:14given night, you know, it's unclear who the best Jeopardy player was. Like, I would come back for
11:18tournaments and get beaten time and time again by, uh, the pride of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
11:24Brad Rudder, amazing Jeopardy player who just really had my number during tournaments.
11:28Um, and also I never thought that I was, my goal coming in was just not to be negative at the end
11:35of Double Jeopardy because you know how people are just disappear from the stage during final.
11:40I did not want to be like, uh, you know, uh, Argentina dirty ward during,
11:47during final Jeopardy and just disappear. Um, so that was really my only expectation. I,
11:53to this day, I think it's, it's weird that it happened.
11:57Well, we actually have a clip of that first final Jeopardy, which I would love to watch if you are,
12:02um, if you're down.
12:03I love looking at my weird eyebrowless younger self.
12:08That's exactly what we're going to do. Please roll the, the first Jeopardy clip.
12:29And she's still going strong. Jerry Harvey, we start with you. What did you put down? Which athlete
12:33did you think of? Marion Jones, you are correct. And you add a dollar. You go to 7,401. Let's go to
12:41Julia Lazarus. Did she come up with Marion Jones? She's shaking her head. Why? She was going for
12:46somebody else. And I can't figure out who, Gail? I can't figure out who either. But somebody named Gail.
12:52Every girl named Gail watching the program today is going to be very happy. You lost 37.99. That drops
12:58you down to 14,801. Let's go to Ken Jennings. And even 20 grand going into final.
13:03who is Jones. And we will accept that in terms of female athletes. There aren't that many.
13:09And you've got 17,201 dollars more for a 37,201 total. And you become the Jeopardy champion.
13:17I was like weirdly nervous watching that even though I knew the outcome. I think it's the music.
13:29It's the music. Yeah. How do you feel watching that?
13:35I always think when I see clips of me on Jeopardy, I always think, boy, that guy's dressed very badly.
13:39It's like the de-aged version of me from the beginning of the Marvel movie.
13:45You know? Like, look at that weird, smooth-skinned guy. I think S.H.I.E.L.D. is about to take his lab
13:52or something. And there I always think about how close it came. You know, Alex pauses for a second
13:58and looks over at the judges. And that's when I realize, you realize this very fast, oh, what if
14:03Marion Jones is right but they don't take Jones because there was some other track and field star
14:07named Jones that I'm not thinking of. And I suddenly realized I'm going to lose this just
14:11because I didn't write Marion. And then I just remember the wave of euphoria because the thing,
14:19when you go on Jeopardy, you're terrified that you're going to be, that you're going to go viral.
14:23Like, that's what people are worried about today. But like one win is enough because you're like,
14:27oh, I did it. I went through this gauntlet and I'm a Jeopardy champion. And they can't take that away
14:33from you. And I kind of felt like for the rest of the run, I was like, well, that's enough.
14:37I, you know, I'm already a Jeopardy champion. Everything else is kind of gravy at that point.
14:41So you mentioned kind of cringing at the way that you used to dress on the show. But I have to say,
14:48that's like the charm of Jeopardy. I mean, it's Jeopardy, not like America's Next Top Model.
14:52And it's kind of amazing that you have this show that is so exciting to watch. And yet the contestants
14:58are teachers and librarians and grad students and software engineers. Like those are some of the most
15:03common professions, I think, of people on the show. And so, you know, my question is,
15:08is it possible for someone to be too nerdy to come on Jeopardy? Like, I know that there's a,
15:13like a, you know, an initial test that you have to take to qualify. And then after that,
15:18there's an in-person component. And so I'm wondering, like, what actually happens in that
15:23audition process after you pass the Jeopardy test?
15:25We do assign everybody a nerdiness quotient or NQ that, no. This is a little bit above my pay grade.
15:34I mean, obviously, I got on. So the mark of whatever telegenic-ness is, is not super high.
15:41But I think, I think in the past, one of the reasons why we have that in-person portion is just
15:47to see, to try to get a sense of who will excel once they're on TV. You know, you've taken a very
15:53hard written test to get on the show. Weirdly, that is not a perfect Venn diagram circle with,
15:59with being good TV. You know, like being able to answer very hard trivia questions.
16:04Not, not actually a good proxy for who's great on TV. So we just want people who are,
16:08can kind of walk and chew gum at the same time, who will be able to keep up with the game and not,
16:13hopefully not kind of go deer in the headlights. I think for, for a while, maybe there was a sense of,
16:19you know, this person might actually be not a good fit for Jeopardy! even though their test scores
16:27are very good. And now I think there's much more of a sense of, let's just put the best people on.
16:31Um, it, because as you say, the charm of Jeopardy! is, it's kind of a throwback to
16:40regular people being on TV without any sense that they've been glammed up that much or, or,
16:45uh, are doing. Because reality shows are not like that anymore. Even though there's more
16:49real people on TV than ever before, um, they're not themselves. That's for sure.
16:56Um, so, I mean, if part of the process is figuring out who will be able to kind of swing it on TV,
17:02um, I mean, it's, you don't really know until the person is actually on the show, right? Like,
17:08even if there's a practice round or something that's not the same as... And there is. Yeah. And,
17:13and so, I mean, has anyone ever, like, freaked out? Yeah, it's extremely intense to be on Jeopardy!
17:19We think of it as calming, almost ritualized entertainment. Ah, this is the thing that's on
17:25at seven o'clock and it always goes and sounds exactly like this. And if I went back in time,
17:31this is exactly how it would be in 2005 or 1985. Um, but in fact, when you're there, it's extremely tense.
17:39It feels like a blood sport because you've never been on TV before in almost every case. So people
17:45are kind of nervous and it feels surreal. You're a little bit out of your body. And then the game
17:50just moves so fast and it's so high pressure and everybody else is so smart. It is an intimidating
17:56thing and people are going through big feelings out there, even though they look calm every night.
18:00So please, like, spare your most charitable thoughts for the Jeopardy! contestants every night
18:05who are really putting themselves out there and who are probably really going through some stuff
18:10while you're watching. Um, it's a big ask. And so we do occasionally see... I have seen tears. I have
18:16seen borderline panic attacks. Um, the other day somebody was holding onto the lectern and might have
18:25passed out if they hadn't been holding onto the lectern very hard. Um, it's intense out there.
18:29You don't see that part on TV, though. So do you, like, re-record? Do you, like, stop and then let
18:35the person come back after their panic attack? Or does round restart? Like, how do you deal with that?
18:40Like, if a contestant can no longer function during the recording?
18:46Interestingly, whatever those moments are, they almost always happen off camera. They happen during the
18:51break. Like, the gate, this pull of the Jeopardy! game or the propulsion of the game of Jeopardy! is
18:56so strong for people who know the show well, as I assume many of you do, that you can drop people
19:00into it and they can kind of go on autopilot. And then during the commercial, that's when they're like,
19:04what just happened? I'm up by 3,000 or I'm down by 6,000 or, um, that's when they kind of have the,
19:09the alien abduction is over and they're like... But we've all grown up on Jeopardy! and so people can kind
19:16of do it. And it's just an amazing thing to watch. You mentioned in, in Brainiac, your book published
19:22in 2006. I should also mention that Ken is a New York Times bestselling author of many books. Um,
19:28you mentioned in the book that there was, at least at that time, there was a long backlog of men who
19:33would qualify for the show through their test, um, but, you know, hadn't been on yet. But there were
19:39fewer women. Like, you noticed that women were getting faster callback times, ostensibly, because
19:43there were fewer women trying to get on the show. Is this still the case? And are there other
19:49patterns you've noticed? Like whether it's gender or like a certain kind of, like you have too many
19:53attorneys, like... That's always true, I think. Uh, it's actually gotten a lot better. The, the big
20:00sea change for Jeopardy! and this kind of predates my time is, you know, when I tried out for the show,
20:05I had to, I had to, I don't know, call, I had to wait, you had to wait for Jeopardy! to come to your town,
20:11go to the mall, do a little questionnaire, and then be invited back. Or in my case, a friend and
20:16I drove down to LA just to show up at the Radisson and try out for Jeopardy! and this self-selects,
20:22as you can imagine, for a certain kind of very confident trivia kind of person. And so what you
20:27get is like too many, like proportionally, you get too many white men trying out for Jeopardy! because
20:33that's the kind of person who watches Jeopardy! and thinks, yeah, you know.
20:39Like, you know when you pull like how many men think they could take a point from Serena Williams,
20:43you know, and you can get 35% of men to be like, yeah, yeah. When in fact the real answer is no.
20:53Uh, so I think because of how that worked, you would get people who assumed they were good at trivia,
21:00and then you got more men than women trying out because, uh, just the, the kind of the imposter
21:05syndrome of, you know, all the things that come with our culture about, you know, performing as
21:09a woman in, in a high-pressure environment like that. And when we moved the test to online, just
21:14lowered some barriers to entry. Like that turned out to be great. It did not solve the problem,
21:18but we now have women trying out at a greater percentage, people of color trying out at a greater
21:22percentage than before. Um, it hasn't, like, solved the problem we have of like wanting
21:27Jeopardy! to look more like America, but, um, it went a long way. It's also easier to study for
21:32Jeopardy! now, right? It's a whole different era. Like when I was on the show, like, those three people
21:38you see, they're just kind of like people who did it as a lark. Like, we like Jeopardy! Um, our friends
21:44say that we should go on. Um, it was the, kind of the older guy at the end was, I remember he was from
21:50LA, just kind of a spry senior citizen. He used to run the steps at the LA Coliseum every morning,
21:55so like the, the whole, I don't know, like the USC track team was there to cheer him on or something.
22:00And the woman at the end actually worked for the roundabout theater here in New York and later got
22:03us house seats to Sondheim's Assassins. So like, despite having like, had to play me on Jeopardy!
22:10Like, what a, what a lovely person. Um, maybe she was like, give Ken the bad seats. I don't know.
22:16Um, but these are just normal people. And today, increasingly, we're in a Moneyball era of Jeopardy!
22:21where people do train for years to be on the show. We, I know people who have essentially
22:27built simulators at home the way a pilot might. Uh, people who have their own buzzer lineups,
22:32people who build that, you know, people who write their own software to barrage them with Jeopardy!
22:37clues. Um, people who do study the math, the game theory of the wagering. Um, it's been professionalized.
22:45And of course the strategies have changed, just as in Moneyball Baseball. You mentioned Holtzauer,
22:50looking for daily doubles. The strategies are very different today.
22:53Yeah, I want to ask you a lot more about the strategies. Um, so yeah, there's like the looking
22:59for the, so actually, I guess going back, like, so the strategy of hunting for the daily doubles,
23:03that's something that we often associate with, um, Holtzauer who used it so successfully. But I feel
23:09like the first time that I noticed it happening was in the game that you and, um, Brad Rudder played
23:15against Watson, the IBM supercomputer, which, you know, seemed to be on the prowl for the daily doubles.
23:22And then you guys kind of had to do the same thing in order to compete with it. I mean,
23:25do you trace some of those strategies back to the Watson game?
23:28When IBM programmed Watson, they interviewed a lot of Jeopardy! contestants with ideas on strategy and so
23:35forth. And I think, so a lot of those ideas actually came from humans to Watson back to humans. Um, just
23:43like AI is taking human work today and then using it to put humans out of work. Um, and I think that
23:50came from, I mean, people have been jumping around the board since the 80s. That was a player named
23:54Chuck Forrest who thought he could- The Forrest Bounce. The Forrest Bounce. And it wasn't to look for daily
23:57doubles. It was to keep your opponents a little off balance. Like if they're still thinking about opera
24:01and you hop to nine letter words, maybe they're going to forget that they're looking for a nine letter word.
24:05Um, and then there were players like Arthur Chu who specifically were looking for daily doubles.
24:10And that, that's the game changer there. Um, just probability wise, you want to put the game away
24:17as early as possible because I think historically players are about 50% conversion on Final Jeopardy!
24:24And that's just a lot of uncertainty. You don't want a 50% chance of winning at that point. If you can lock
24:29up the game before Final Jeopardy! you do it. And historically daily double conversion is much higher.
24:34I'm sure for some players it's upwards of 80% in fact. So that's why you see players just laser
24:39focused on those daily doubles and then making what seem to be like crazy cartoonishly big wagers
24:46because they know that's the moment to try to put the game away. And occasionally you'll see
24:51a big risk go awry, but it's just like poker. It's still the right way to play.
24:54So when you were competing on the show, you played a pretty normal chill game.
24:59Oh, thank you.
25:00Yeah. Like it wasn't, it didn't seem like you were employing like some crazy strategy. It seemed like
25:06you were just trying to, um, you know, answer as many clues correctly as you could. Um, so, but you've
25:13had to change your strategy over time when you've like gone up against players like Holtzauer. So what is it like
25:18playing that more aggressive style? Like, does it feel comfortable?
25:21No, I still find it very uncomfortable. I, at the time when I was first on it, it was not a choice.
25:26Everyone played that way, you know, like, oh boy, um, let's take around the house for 200 Alex. And they
25:31would march consecutively through a category. If I know Jeopardy! viewers, many of you miss those, uh,
25:37those peaceful reassuring days of, of orderly movement down the board.
25:41Well, also there are clues in the earlier questions that help you understand the harder ones.
25:46Yes.
25:46Like it makes sense to go that way.
25:48That one, that's what the, the, the show aesthetically prefers people to go down the board
25:53and the contestant producers will still say, you know, there's advantages there. You may want to
25:57get a better sense of the vibes of a category before you move to the harder stuff. Um, but players know
26:03that really what counterbalances all that is whoever finds the Daily Doubles first is more likely to win.
26:09It's like controlling Australia in risk or something like he or she who gets the Daily Doubles, you know,
26:15rules the world. So that's why you have players actually making heat maps of where on the board
26:20the Daily Doubles tend to be historically over time. They are placed by humans, so it's not a random
26:26effect. For whatever reason, there are certain, not just rows, but columns that are more likely to
26:32have the Daily Doubles than others. And good players have done the research on that.
26:36Have you thought about randomizing them?
26:37The problem with randomizing is there's a kind of clue that is a Daily Double. You know,
26:42like aesthetically, when we're looking for a Daily Double, there's a sense of what's a clue here that
26:48the players benefit by having a few extra seconds, that the audience benefits by having a few extra
26:54seconds. There's a bit of deduction maybe involved or combining multiple pieces of information,
26:59some bit of mental work to do. That's a good Daily Double. If it's something where you just look at it and
27:04you're like, oh, that's easy. That's Mahler. Everybody knows that. You know, whatever,
27:07a simple linkage of fact, that's not a good Daily Double. And so for whatever reason,
27:11that tends to be in a certain part of the board.
27:13I love the Daily Doubles. I feel like it's kind of the only time on television where you can see
27:19someone's brain working in real time. The other day, someone, I needed a wager,
27:23and it was kind of a tense situation. And the person was like, do you guys edit this out? Can
27:27I think for a while? And I was like, no, we, we need a wager.
27:38I'm wondering if you can speak to the kind of intelligence that Jeopardy selects for or suggests.
27:47Like, I think, I mean, you're obviously someone who has incredibly deep knowledge. And this is clear
27:53from the books you've written and just, you know, the fact that you have a demonstrated curiosity
27:57about so many things. But when you read about how people prepare for Jeopardy, and especially like
28:02the concept of Pavlov's, like the idea that if you see British university mentioned in a clue,
28:08it's most likely going to be Cambridge or Oxford. And like, you can just study for the game that way.
28:12And sometimes it's a lock, you know, like, like, you know,
28:17Norwegian composer is always Edvard Grieg. You know, there's,
28:20there's some of these where you just need to know that. Yeah. And so like, if part of the game
28:25is just kind of learning those associations, then it does make me wonder whether really deep
28:30knowledge is a requisite for success. Like, it's not like the, the contestants might know when,
28:35what year this war happened in, but would they be able to write an essay on the war?
28:41They would not.
28:44In general, Jeopardy is a game for generalists. And to me, that's kind of the beauty of it,
28:48because we live in an age of specialists. You know, people, you know, people get in these very
28:52deep career silos or even like, like, uh, avocational silos. You know, people really are like,
29:00well, I like this kind of jazz, but not that kind. Or, you know, I follow the American League,
29:04but not the national. You know, even our, even our hobbies are very specialized and kind of isolating
29:10in a way. Jeopardy is from a different time when we had this idea that cultural literacy united
29:17people. And so you would know a little about everything. And there's a couple effects of that.
29:21One is that shallow knowledge performs pretty well on Jeopardy. I mean, for whatever, and I don't
29:26want to say like, these are not Rain Man style savants that just learned a series of facts. Like,
29:31these are in general, curious, engaged people who know that stuff because it interests them.
29:37In fact, the reason why they're generalists is because everything interests them. Like,
29:42in the same way that you don't have to study the lyrics of a song you like or the roster of the
29:47team you like, if you're interested in everything, facts just stick in your head. You don't have a
29:51photographic memory, but you kind of do because everything, you're curious enough about everything
29:56that the facts just stick. But the other corollary of that, I guess, is that, I don't know which of
30:05two ways was I going to go with this. I guess the other corollary of that is that, like, it's kind of
30:12a hopeful thing, I think. That, like, it makes me kind of miss a time when we were united by a broader
30:19culture. You know, not that necessarily we need to go back to a monoculture of three networks. Like,
30:25there were certainly some downsides to that. Like, representation-wise, it was terrible.
30:30But there was a sense of what people knew and what your co-workers would know and what your
30:34friends would know just about the world. And as we get into kind of lower information voter times,
30:42honestly, I'm nostalgic for a time when you kind of assumed that we were all held together by this
30:48common culture. And Jeopardy! maybe is the last, like, kind of the last bulwark of it. But we're proud of
30:54that. I mean, how do you ensure that during a time when facts themselves are becoming so politicized?
31:00I mean, you're probably not going to have a Jeopardy! clue that's, like, the winner of the
31:04presidential election in 2020. But, I mean, are you on the lookout for, you know, situations where,
31:11I mean, is it just a matter of accepting both what is the Gulf of Mexico and what is the Gulf of America
31:17as the right answer to a clue? Or, like, how do you kind of ensure that politics doesn't get in the
31:23way of, like, our last apolitical, you know, beloved cultural institution?
31:27I mean, this has never come up before. For decades and decades of Jeopardy!, Republican and Democratic
31:33administrations, it's a... it's... the show is weirdly universally popular. It's popular in red states and blue states,
31:41young people and old people. Somehow, I think, it just kind of got grandfathered in before the culture
31:49wars reached, like, Kulterkampf levels. And so this is the first time we're actually having to think about
31:58that. You know, we would have to accept Gulf of America, I think. That's, you know, our rule is,
32:03like, do media outlets use this word? And that's now an alternative answer. I don't think that player would
32:09endear themselves to the home audience with their Gulf of America response. But certainly,
32:14Jeopardy! is still a place where facts do matter. And if we ask a question about the moon landing,
32:19we would not accept, uh, what is that didn't happen, you know? Or...
32:24Or if it's a question about mRNA vaccines, you know, you can't just buzz in and say,
32:28what are Bill Gates microchips? Or, you know, like... like, facts do matter on Jeopardy! And...
32:34But it's a hopeful sign to me that it is still this broadly watched show where, for 30 minutes a night,
32:42nationwide, people do kind of accept, oh, yeah, it's not just whatever... it's not just whatever
32:49the awful man says. Like, there actually are... these are questions that have correct and incorrect
32:54answers. And maybe... maybe I'm deluding myself, but it seems like a sign that we could get back to that...
33:00to that society at some point.
33:09So on the subject of politics, um, in 2004...
33:13That's good, no. I want more of this pandering New Yorker applause. I...
33:16I think... you're... I think you're about to get some more once you hear the question. Um,
33:20in... in 2004, um, you... you said that that year, um, so this was after your incredible win streak. You...
33:28you mentioned that Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid both called you and tried to get you to run for
33:33Orrin Hatch's Senate seat in Utah. True story. Can you tell us a little more about that?
33:40Um... I mean, that's kind of the story right there. I mean, as you might remember then and now Utah
33:47politics, the Democratic candidate was always a sacrificial lamb of some kind. But I got invited to
33:52speak at a thing in D.C., an alumni thing in D.C. And it was... it was a different bipartisan time. And so,
33:58uh, Senator Hatch was there. But so was, uh, so was Harry Reid, who ended up introducing me at dinner.
34:04And, uh, you know, lovely guy. And later, I got a call from... or I got an email from his office saying,
34:11um, that, uh, then minority leader Schumer, minority whip Schumer probably, if Reid was still there,
34:18wanted to call me and, uh, and had a question for me. And the question was, would you run for office?
34:24This is not... I like to see this as a sign of, um, if not personal merit, at least jeopardy's great
34:31cultural bona fides. But really, it's probably more a story about the thin Democratic bench in the state
34:37of Utah in 2004. Like, maybe this guy will get some national headlines, some fundraising, um, some help
34:45for down-ballot races, if there's a celebrity on the ballot. So I'm a little cynical about that. But I
34:50did not think about it for very long. My wife's here. She will know that I, I thought about this for
34:54about 10 minutes before I said, no, you know, I've, I've already kind of done enough interesting things to
34:58my family. I'm not going to ruin my family's lives by going into politics. What were your plans for your
35:06kind of like post-Jeopardy life? Because obviously it took many years for you to then return to the
35:11show in a more formal capacity. And so, I mean, I think I read that you kept your job as a software
35:16engineer. For years, yeah. For years. Um, even though in your book you mentioned that you were a
35:21mediocre software engineer. At best. I don't believe that. No, it's, it's true. I wish I, I wish I could
35:27show you my code. Um, I had been a computer science major in college. I'd actually been an English major,
35:33and at some point, you know, that, that's what I loved. And at some point I loved to write,
35:38but somebody told me the joke, which some of you might've heard, which is how many,
35:41um, what's the difference between an English major and a large pepperoni pizza? Anybody know this one?
35:47The pizza can feed a family of four.
35:54And at that point I made sure I had a computer double major. And, uh, so I graduated right at the
36:00height of that first kind of dot-com boom. A lot of my friends had dropped out of school to join
36:04startups. So I got a job very easily, but it turned out I was not a very good or happy computer
36:09programmer. So here I am like in my like mid to late twenties having this very early, um, midlife
36:16crisis basically of what have I done? Is it? And so, and I, I had, I'd gotten married in my, in my mid
36:21twenties. So I'd come home from work every day, just a little bit glum about what a crappy programmer I
36:27was and just tell my wife, Hey, I think I'm going to go to back. I'm going to apply to law school or
36:31I'm going to take the foreign service exam. She will often remind me all these weird ideas I had.
36:36And honestly, I'm going to go on a game show was not one of them. That was kind of an unlooked for
36:39thing. But the thing to remember is I, I always thought it was going to go away. Like I never,
36:45it's funny now, 20 odd years later to be like, well, he's the host of Jeopardy. There's clearly a
36:49narrative arc here. But at the time I was just waiting, we were just waiting for it to end. Like,
36:53boy, what a crazy summer we're having. Dad's still on Jeopardy.
37:00At some point, um, somebody asked us, are you going to get, do you think you're going to get
37:03recognized on the street? And I just laughed. I was like, no. Can you imagine recognizing
37:10somebody on the street because they were on Jeopardy? Today, it doesn't seem weird. Of course,
37:14I would recognize Amy Schneider or James Holtzauer. But at the time, no, you would not recognize
37:18somebody because they were on Jeopardy. I, my idea was maybe at Costco because, because that person
37:25could see your name and your face. So my wife and I had this bet. The over under was 10. I would get
37:31recognized 10 times at Costco. But we just, that's just a sign that we thought the whole thing was
37:35going to go away and then we'd have a normal life. And then it, it just kept not happening.
37:38Yeah, my favorite fact about that period is that when your, um, when your run was airing,
37:46you became so famous and known as Ken Jennings that even your son, who was two at the time,
37:51started calling you Ken Jennings. Does he just call you dad now?
37:57He called me daddy before. He calls me dad now. But that summer, when Johnny Gilbert was saying
38:02Ken Jennings, he just started calling me Ken Jennings. Always the whole thing, like Charlie Brown.
38:08It's, uh, unclear why. I'm wondering if you can talk a bit about your relationship with Alex Trebek.
38:15I know that when you were competing on the show, you weren't able to really talk to him much at all
38:20because of the, um, all the, you know, FCC rules. There's still regulations. Yeah. I mean,
38:25leftover from the scandals of the fifties. So going on a game show today is still very strict. Like
38:30contestants can kind of get sequestered like a jury, trooped around together, almost like a chain gang.
38:34If one person has to pee, everybody gets a bathroom break just to eliminate any possible
38:39optics of like, Oh, the show is skewed in favor of Marcy, or that must be where they gave Dan
38:44the answers or whatever like that. It just can't happen. Like there would be congressional hearings
38:48and jail sentences if, if, uh, if a, if a game show were rigged today. And so as a result, you never
38:53hang out with the host. Like we would see Alex at the top of the show the same time the home viewer saw
38:58him. And occasionally I would run into him over the years, but like the whole time you're just kind of
39:02seeing him as, I don't know if you, you know, we kind of have this idea after we lost Alex,
39:07we kind of thought of him as, you know, America's grandpa or smart uncle or something and Canada's
39:12for crying out loud. Um, but at the time, some of you may remember more accurately,
39:17he had a little bit of a brittle quality on stage. Like he liked to be stern. Um, sometimes he was
39:23perceived as smug when he corrected people. He had the, the very good accent in every language,
39:27which I do not have. I'm, I'm so jealous of all of Alex's hosting toolbox. He was so good.
39:32Um, but the whole time I'm a contestant, I'm like, does this guy like me or is he like kind
39:38of fed up? Because he would always just be a little like, you know, a little disapproving,
39:42that kind of, that kind of Alex Trebek, well, I don't know about this persona. And on my last show
39:50when I lost, uh, he actually came back out after the game. He was in his shirt sleeves, which you never,
39:55you never see Alex out of a jacket. It was like, I can't even imagine. It's like, it's like seeing
40:01your parents naked. You can't imagine. You don't want to see Alex in a, he looks good though. Um,
40:09and he, but he was, he was like moved. He was like, I can, uh, you know, we're going to miss
40:13you around here. And I was like, I didn't know, like all this time, Alex, Alex didn't dislike me.
40:18Like, uh, I was, I was genuinely touched by that. Uh, so it was mostly just admiration of his,
40:25of his hosting. And the only reason I can kind of keep my head above water hosting today is because
40:29I saw him do it for so many years, including up close, just phenomenal. Like, like he was made for
40:36it. Did he ever talk to you about potentially hosting the show in the future? Yeah. Um, sometimes
40:42he would joke about it because over the years, people would ask me, Hey, when Alex retires,
40:46do you, and I would say, no, not, it's not going to happen. Every broadcaster wants this job.
40:51Um, after he got sick, uh, I was consulting on the show at the time and I talked to him a few
40:58times about it, including, although we didn't know this the weekend he passed away, I was supposed
41:02to come in and rehearse and it got canceled because, uh, he had passed away that, that evening,
41:07the night before. And, uh, nobody knew it was like, we knew he was going to start another round
41:11of chemo. So I had been enlisted to guest host a little bit, but we were all sure he would come back.
41:16He had rallied so many times. And I talked to him on the, on the phone and his voice
41:20was not the same, but he still sounded like Alex. And, um, and one of the things I remember him
41:25saying, he like thanked me. He was like, boy, Ken, thanks for filling in. Like this is, and I was,
41:31I was like, I was going to ball. I was like, Alex, no, like we should be thanking you.
41:34Are you kidding? Like 37 years. Um, he always believed the host was not the star of Jeopardy.
41:40Uh, Art Fleming had been announced as the star of Jeopardy. That was, that was game show. Um,
41:46typical game show practice. And Alex said, no, no, no, no, no. The players are the star. The clues
41:51are the star. The focus of, of Jeopardy should never be on the host. And he was a hundred percent
41:56right. And I don't, I don't know if any other host would have got to that conclusion just because
42:00that's not the way show business works, you know, less of me, please. Um, but he was right.
42:04I mean, there are theories that he kind of had you in mind for a while to host. We actually have
42:10a clip of an interview segment from 2014 when he returned to the show to compete in a tournament.
42:16If we, if we can roll the, uh, Trebek clip. Now, because of the 74 games you have won and all the
42:23other games in which you have participated, do you think there's the advantage of being an
42:28intimidating factor for these others? I hope not. Cause I mean, everybody here is, is so good. I mean,
42:34it's a very different, I noticed a huge difference coming back to play tournaments. Cause everybody's
42:37so good, but you know, I do, I've been behind this podium a lot and I feel really at home here.
42:42So I, I get that. How would you feel over? Well, no, we won't talk about it.
42:49I mean, that seems pretty pointed, right? At the time I thought that was weird.
42:56I, I don't, it was so clear to me for years that you would never get an ex contestant to host
43:01Jeopardy. Um, with all the, with all the lack of charisma that a Jeopardy contestant brings with
43:07them, why would you do that? Um, and I still, I'm a little bit surprised. It's a very unconventional
43:14thing. Um, I guess the question is, can you take a great broadcaster and teach them Jeopardy?
43:21Can you take a Jeopardy contestant and teach them the broadcasting angle? They both seem like a bit
43:26of an uphill climb, I guess. And so it was an, it was a difficult task when Alex passed away,
43:31but I feel very lucky. Like I feel like the, the, the good little boy that won the chocolate factory
43:37somehow, like all the other, all the other guest hosts got sucked up into the chocolate pipes or
43:42whatever. And Dr. Oz or Aaron Rogers are still up there somewhere. I, I, it was just always my favorite
43:52thing. Jeopardy was my favorite thing as a kid. And it meant so much to me, like a safe space where
43:56smart people knew stuff. And it was clear that that was a thing. Like you could be this kind of
44:00grownup. And as a kid who was like, I think I'm the only one that goes home and reads the Leonard
44:04Malton movie guide for fun. Um, like that was such a big moment to have Alex create that safe space on
44:10TV. And so to like now be on my favorite show, I, I just learned the word pro noia. Do you know this
44:18word pro noia, Tyler? Never heard of it. It's the opposite of paranoia. Pro noia is the, um,
44:23the conspiracy theory belief that the universe is conspiring on your behalf.
44:29And boy, what an irritating thing to hear someone say that boy, why does everything keep working out for me?
44:33Um, but I just feel so lucky. Like I get to work at my favorite place and host my favorite show. And,
44:43uh, and I take it seriously because I think Jeopardy does still mean that to the nerds of tomorrow.
44:49So I'm getting a lot of audience questions as you would imagine. Um, so I'm going to start reading
44:53some of those. Um, okay. So the first one mentions the amazing Jeopardy moment where you,
44:59you know, you answered with what is a hoe? Um, you know, the, the, the clue being,
45:04what was it? This term for a long handed gardening tool can also be an, a moral pleasure seeker.
45:11That's exactly it. Wow. I did my research. I, I didn't want to be closet Jeopardy super fan.
45:17And so the right answer was, what is a rake? You gave, what is a hoe?
45:19Supposed to be what is a rake? Yeah. And, and the, but this question asks, um, do you think that
45:30Jeopardy clues are written to elicit wrong answers that are really funny or will the contestants
45:35embarrass themselves with no help?
45:37I was so sure that that was a trap. Like, cause who would see this long handle garden
45:43instrument is also a pleasure seeker and not say, Hey, what if someone says hoe here? Um,
45:47but apparently they did not like our, our, our two current head writers, Billy and Michelle,
45:53were both on staff when that happened. And I now see the Jeopardy ethos is not to try to trap people.
45:59And the players think it is like the players are like, Oh, because Jeopardy clues are difficult.
46:04They're, they're dense. They're kind of in their own, their own weird, uh, little kind of dialect.
46:10That's not quite English, full of red herrings and misdirection and, and little references.
46:15So it is its own complicated thing, but there are never traps. You know, we know that the game works
46:21when we elicit correct responses, the most direct way possible. Otherwise you get a lot of like
46:28this, you know, standing and staring like, and that's bad TV. So no, there are no traps on Jeopardy.
46:33That said, I still feel like they owe me 200 bucks or, or whatever that was.
46:40Do you have a favorite ever Jeopardy clue?
46:43I mean, that's the one I see the most for sure.
46:46Like one that's just really clever.
46:49I really should have, they go so fast is the problem. 61 in a game.
46:53Even if there's one you admire at home, the players, it's just washing over you.
46:57The game seems to last about five minutes. You find yourself the night after, and we do five in a day.
47:01So it's a full week of shows in a day. And that night, you kind of find yourself lying in bed,
47:05and the games kind of unpack and unspool in your head.
47:09In some kind of weird kind of Timothy Leary way. And so I don't, I don't know if there's one clue.
47:14Like it's, I remember the emotional response of the first win, Marion Jones.
47:18And I remember, by the way, when they took away her medals, I was like, are they going to take away my...
47:22And then the last clue you remember, the one you get wrong. I remember in John McCain's obituary,
47:29they mentioned that he was always just grousing for the rest of his life about
47:33what is Ecuador or whatever the final Jeopardy clue he got wrong in the 70s.
47:38I mean, in your case with, you know, the H&R Block thing, didn't you get like free tax services from
47:43them for forever?
47:44In my case, it was like this white collar firm, hires most of its employees for just
47:49a few months out of the year. I assumed it was holiday season. It was not. It was tax season,
47:54H&R Block. But yeah, they offered me free financial services for life. I wrote down FedEx,
47:59and they ran an ad where it was like, the only time FedEx has ever been the wrong answer.
48:06So if you're going to lose on Jeopardy, lose on the corporate question.
48:09You know, if you get what is Ecuador wrong, you're not seeing a penny.
48:17What puzzle games do you play every day and in what order?
48:22I just got the limited edition hat. I don't mean to brag. Limited edition hat for the New Yorker
48:29crossword, apparently represented by a monkey. I didn't know this.
48:32Is it an owl?
48:34Oh, it's an owl. It's an owl. Thank you. There we go. A little smart owl coming out of a crossword egg.
48:39And I do the New Yorker crossword every week. I would say...
48:44You know, you were a clue in the New York Times mini crossword yesterday.
48:47Like yesterday. Yeah. The answer was Ken.
48:50Yeah. It was Jeopardy host Jennings. Like, that's how to get 20 people to immediately
48:54text you a link to the New York mini crossword. It happens on Jeopardy. When people are mentioned
48:59on Jeopardy clues, that's when no matter how famous they are, their phone will blow up. And it's like,
49:04you're on Jeopardy tonight. I do the spelling bee every day, the New York Times spelling bee every
49:10day. I'm always trying to get to Queen Bee, the unannounced perfect score level. My wife and I
49:17generally do, at times, connections over dinner. Those are the main ones, I would say.
49:23Do you have a favorite depiction of Jeopardy in pop culture?
49:28Favorite depiction of Jeopardy? A White Man Can't Jump is hard to beat.
49:33Food's to start with Q. Rosie Perez. I like Jeopardy. In The Simpsons version,
49:41Marge winds up in the negative and Alex tries to collect. Alex has a couple like Goombas
49:51with crowbars and tries to collect from Marge.
49:57How involved are you in choosing the clues and shaping the questions?
50:00We have an award-winning writing staff. It's like eight or ten writers, similar army of researchers,
50:09like New Yorker-style, fact-checking every clue, double-sourcing every fact and every clue.
50:14They do not need me kibitzing. But that said, over the years, Alex would occasionally have an idea,
50:21like, what if we did this category? Or, you know, I just saw this fact at a museum,
50:25couldn't this be a final Jeopardy? And I do the same thing, like if I see something in the wild.
50:30There was something just yesterday, but I can't tell you. It might be on the show.
50:34The first time it happened, I was in the Old North Church in Boston, and there was a plaque for where
50:38Gerald Ford raised the third lantern. And I was like, for the bicentennial, I was like,
50:44oh, this could be a final Jeopardy. You know, Gerald Ford in this building raised the third lantern in 1976.
50:50And the writers agreed, and they put it on the show, and then nobody got it right. So I just felt,
50:54I just felt guilty.
50:57Who was your favorite super champion to watch or follow, either as a fan of the show or as a host?
51:03As a kid, I guess, Chuck Forrest was the first time I saw somebody whose name I recognized. Like,
51:08this guy's clearly a step above the others. He's playing a whole different game. I had never seen
51:13that before. It was like very early 85 or so. Eddie Tamanis was a blind sports writer from Chicago.
51:20Do you guys remember this? They gave him the categories in braille, but except for that,
51:24he's like all on audio. You know, he doesn't get the lights. He can't read along with the clue. He's
51:29just listening to Alex, and he was just phenomenal. Five-time undefeated champ. I've since met him,
51:34nicest guy in the world. Now that I'm a host, I can't have favorites anymore. Alex would often ask,
51:42and he would just say, anybody but Watson. Alex hated Watson.
51:49Are you friends with anyone you played against?
51:51Yeah. Especially the people I played over and over against. I mentioned Julia getting me tickets
51:57to Assassins. That was lovely. Somebody in my 40th show came up to me at lunch, and he was a Seattle
52:05attorney, and he said, boy, I hope all the clues are about, like, Korea or the Mariners, because he
52:10was Korean-American. And I said, oh, that's funny. I used to live in Korea for like 11 years.
52:15And, you know, so we kind of had a funny moment over lunch, and when we moved to Seattle, like,
52:22we later became friends with them, and we now, like, go on vacation. I'm going to have dinner
52:26with him tomorrow when I'm in the city. So I have, like, a couple, like, real Jeopardy friends.
52:32The people I played over and over, like Brad and James, I know their families, and we hang out.
52:37It's not like the case of athletes who actually hate each other. I don't know who that would be.
52:41I don't know, like, Bird and Magic, maybe. This is, like, people who really, or Ali and Frasier,
52:46maybe. This is people who actually really like each other.
52:48Is it a lot of shop talk when you guys are together? Like, what do you talk about with James Holtzauer?
52:55James is actually kind of just a lovely family man who gives a lot of money, a lot of his
52:58jeopardy. Like, on TV, he plays a villain, but, like, all of his winnings are going to, like,
53:02these Vegas charities, because he's kind of all about the community and public schools,
53:06and so we just, like, talk about his kids and stuff. I would say Jeopardy shop talk is boring
53:13even by shop talk standards.
53:16So James is an example of someone who, you know, he's a professional gambler, and he's able to take
53:21those skills and apply it to Jeopardy to, you know, make a lot of money. Do you think that that could
53:27work in the reverse, where it's, like, someone who's really good at Jeopardy or has, you know,
53:31Jeopardy-level knowledge who then can apply their knowledge to, like, the prediction markets or
53:36something? Like, is Jeopardy the best way to make a lot of money if you're super smart?
53:41I think of the people on this stage, maybe, but I think I'm the outlier here.
53:49I don't want to say that, I don't want to convey the idea that being good at Jeopardy is the same
53:54as generalized intelligence. It's clearly not. But for whatever reason, it often is a stand-in for it.
53:59Like, these are kind of lively, curious people with interesting intellects.
54:04Sometimes they do have the Mensa syndrome of, like, if you're so smart,
54:09why do you not have a job? Why do you live with your mom? Like, there is a little bit of that
54:14for some of these people. But often it is just, like, for whatever reason, maybe because the more
54:19things you know, the easier it is to know things. And then, you know, the faster your brain is working,
54:24the more facts you accumulate. So there's kind of this feedback cycle. So they do generally tend
54:30to be kind of bright, interesting people. I don't think I would use it to pick a, like,
54:36talk show pundits or Utah Senate candidates, but it's not bad.
54:41What's the weirdest strategy you've seen someone use on the show?
54:45Weirdest strategy. There's a Jeopardy rule that you can continue to respond until the host rules
54:55against you. And that was just to avoid awkward situations of, I don't know, somebody being asked
55:02to repeat something and changing it or, I don't know. Like, we don't have a, the first thing out
55:07of your mouth is the response rule. We have a, you can tweak your answer until you get a quick no from
55:13Kent. But that does mean it, it does incentivize people who just, like, can game the system,
55:18you know? Like, they can say, what is Mesopotamia? And if I don't look happy about it,
55:21they can just start yelling, Assyria, Sumeria, Babylonia, you know? And I've seen people try to
55:28work that a little bit. I don't recommend it. You don't want to annoy the host.
55:34Do you see anyone, I mean, now I'm just like, I have like a cheater mentality. So I'm starting to
55:37think of strategies that people should use. And you can tell me if any of them would ever work.
55:42Has anyone ever tried like mumbling their answer so that you, they can't be penalized for
55:47incorrect pronunciation? I feel like mumbling is too risky. You'd be more likely to know it
55:51and then get ruled against because we are kind of strict about Jeopardy pronunciation. The, the metric
55:56is not, do I think that, uh, that this person was saying love's labor's lost? Like, I actually have to
56:03hear every apostrophe S in love's labor's lost. Like, if somebody were to say love's labor's lost or love's labor
56:10I would have to rule against them. It's got to be a plausible spelling, a plausible pronunciation
56:15of the right spelling. Or in Final Jeopardy, a plausible spelling of the right pronunciation.
56:19Or I'm supposed to rule against them. And I feel mean, but I do.
56:23What about, um, buzzing in before you technically have figured out the answer?
56:29That I think is pretty good Jeopardy play if you're a strong player.
56:32Because, you know, it'll come to you eventually.
56:33It's just like that extra second. Yeah, because you're going to have five seconds. Like, after you
56:36buzz in, there's kind of an eternity to, to dangle and try to come up with it. Or to kick the tires
56:41on the response you have in your head. And I think there is a thing where, you know, I wouldn't buzz
56:44just being like, yeah, I'll figure this out. Okay, what do we have here? But it's really more like,
56:48oh, something here looks familiar. Like, there's some connection in my brain, some synapse that can do this.
56:53Rightness. Um, some inherent sense of rightness. I don't have it on the tip of my tongue yet,
56:57but I think I will get there. So we have like 30 seconds left, but I'm wondering if you want
57:02to do a very quick lightning round where all the answers are subjective. I love a lightning round.
57:08So let's do it where like, I'll say the greatest magazine in America. And then you can say like,
57:13what is the Atlantic? New Yorker. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give it, give that one to you. Um, okay.
57:18So a category that you'd like to see on Jeopardy more often. Uh, what is 80s pro wrestling?
57:23A category that should be eliminated permanently. What is, uh, tool time,
57:29the long handled garden instrument. The best quiz show that isn't Jeopardy. What is quiz show? Um,
57:39what is who wants to be a millionaire? Yeah. The best board game. The best board game.
57:44What is, uh, what is, uh, what is risk actually? Hmm. Big risk. Good answer. Most intimidating
57:54Jeopardy contestant you played against. Who is, who is James Holzhauer? Or what is Watson?
58:02I think we should end on Watson. Everyone hates Watson equally. It brings us all together. Maybe this one,
58:09um, best way to kill or destroy Watson. I actually went inside Watson. Like he's, uh, Watson's an RV.
58:18Only other Jeopardy player I've ever been inside actually. So what is just like pour water on the
58:27servers? Like Watson's got a shocking kryptonite that no other Jeopardy player has. You can hydrate it to death.
58:34Look, if there's one thing about Watson, he would have been a terrible Jeopardy host.
58:38So thank you. I, I, I believe this too. Thank you. So we'll have to leave it there for today.
58:43Thank you so much, Ken, for being here with us. This was so fun. Thank you, Tyler.
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