Spoiler....so if you don't want to know, watch Jeopardy. Here it is.... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...EOPARDY30/TPEntertainment/?query=ken+jennings Is it final Jeopardy for Jennings? It looks like it, but the soft-spoken software engineer is going home with $2.5-million (U.S.) By GAYLE MacDONALD ASSOCIATED PRESS Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - Page R1 The soft-spoken software engineer Ken Jennings, who is Jeopardy!'s longest-running champ, could finally get beaten and booted off the pre-taped show tonight after a record 75 appearances, according to numerous Web reports. With $2.5-million in his back pocket, the 30-year-old Jennings has earned the title of highest-earning player ever on a syndicated quiz show. Yesterday, a two-minute audio clip was circulated on the Web, including the question that is reported to have stumped this king of quiz. Sudbury, Ont.-native Alex Trebek, Jeopardy!'s host, can be heard saying, "The category is business and industry, and here is the clue, ladies and gentlemen: Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal, white-collar employees work only four months a year?" The theme song starts. "You have 30 seconds," says Trebek. "Good luck." Well, if the trivia pundits are correct, Jennings finally chokes. A contestant named Nancy guesses H&R Block. Jennings writes FedEx. Trebek yells, "Nancy, you're right!" The crowd groans, long and loud. Sounding like the cat who swallowed the proverbial canary, Trebek wraps up the final minutes of the show: "Nancy Zern, congratulations! You are indeed a giant killer. A new Jeopardy! champion at $14,401!" Then the host continues. "All good things have to come to an end, don't they? Well, too bad for Ken. But he's going home with a lot of money -- $2½-million [U.S]. Congratulations young man." Apparently, most fans of the show will see this Jeopardy! episode tonight, while folks on the West Coast will have to wait until Wednesday because ABC pre-empts the broadcast for Monday Night Football. This cherub-faced, devout Mormon kicked off his Jeopardy! juggernaut in early June, when he started the slow and steady decimation of every competitor he came up against. By mid-September, Jennings was a household word, appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman and even providing inspiration for a T-shirt sold on eBay that read: "There are now three constants in life: death, taxes and Ken Jennings." Rumours began circulating in mid-September that his time would be up by the end of November -- a nice wrap, coincidentally, with the fall ratings sweeps. According to Nielsen Media Research, Jennings was a bona fide hit as Jeopardy!'s average number of viewers rose from 9.6 million in June to 15 million in July, even beating the game-show ratings champ Wheel of Fortune. And he did it all without marrying a bachelorette, getting fired spectacularly, racing across a remote desert, or eating sheep's guts. Yesterday, Jeopardy Productions in Culver City, Calif., refused to comment on the widespread rumours of Jenning's fall. "We cannot comment on any continuing champions," said one spokesperson. The cult of Ken Jennings became so pervasive he got a J.Lo moniker: His nickname is KenJen. But who is this soft-spoken guy who, for months, could not be beat? Apparently, a quiet-living nobody from Salt Lake City, married to a nice woman named Mindy, with a son named Dylan, a Lab named Banjo and a computer degree from Brigham Young University. He doesn't drink and plans to give a portion of his winnings to his church. Since his early years, he has been fanatically addicted to trivia, and in his spare time writes questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournaments organization. Jennings is now the top TV game-show contestant of all time, beating a previous record of roughly $2.2-million set by Michigan engineer Kevin Olmstead on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Steve Beverly, a broadcasting professor at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., believes Jennings will be long-remembered by Jeopardy! fans for his quick mind and trigger-happy button finger. "I'm mesmerized by his talent," says Beverly. (Jennings knew this: Izanagi and Izanami are male and female creator gods from this island nation of Asia. Question: What is Japan?) Beverly, who is also webmaster of TVgameshows.net, says Jennings has managed to amass the celebrity status of, say, Charles Van Doren, who was the most celebrated quiz-show contestant of the 1950s. He was ultimately discovered to have managed his winning streak with illegal help. He inspired the Robert Redford-directed 1994 movie Quiz Show, in which Ralph Fiennes played Van Doren. Will Jennings inspire a movie? Knowing Hollywood, probably. But Beverly adds that this character will be clean-cut and inspirational. "His name will not be confined to 15 minutes of fame. People will remember him because he was the boy-next-door type of personality."The one he missed Answer: Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal, white-collar employees work only four months a year. The correct question: What is H&R Block? Not FedEx, which was Jennings's reply. "Nancy Zern, congratulations! You are indeed a giant-killer. A new Jeopardy champion at $14,401. Ken, take a look at the audience. The audience is paying tribute to not only Nancy but to you as well." -- Alex Trebek
Yup, it's over. Good run though. I'm waiting to see him on a Tournament of Champion's. NEW YORK - The woman who ended “Jeopardy!” whiz Ken Jennings’ 74-game winning streak is a California real estate agent whose own 8-year-old daughter asked for his autograph when they met. advertisement But having an accountant-friend who’s nearly impossible to reach at tax time paid off for Nancy Zerg — big time. In a victory telecast Tuesday, Zerg beat a pop-culture icon who had achieved an aura of invincibility. Jennings won $2,520,700, a record for a TV game show contestant, since his first appearance June 2. During his streak, Jennings usually had opponents so thoroughly beaten that the Final Jeopardy question was meaningless to the outcome. But Zerg was within striking range, with $10,000 to Jennings’ $14,400, at that point. The category was business and industry. The clue: Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year. Jennings had to think. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Zerg had quickly written her reply. “I was pretty sure before the music ended that was the ballgame,” he said. Her reply, “What is H&R Block?” was correct and gave her $14,001. Jennings’ wrong guess, Federal Express, dropped him to $8,799. Even before that, Zerg needed an unusual display of Jennings fallibility to stay in the game. He twice answered wrong on Daily Double questions, which give contestants a chance to make a big wager and increase their lead. Maybe that’s why he paused, ever so slightly, when asked in an interview Tuesday whether he had lost or been beaten. He then graciously gave Zerg credit. “I would have dwelt on it if I missed something that I knew or didn’t phrase it in the form of a question,” said Jennings, a computer software engineer from Salt Lake City. “It was a big relief to me that I lost to someone who played a better game than me.” Zerg, a former actress who lives in Ventura, Calif., psyched herself up before the game by repeating to herself: “Someone’s got to beat him sometime, it might as well be me.” Hanging out backstage with fellow contestants, she saw some Jennings opponents had essentially lost before the game. She heard one person say that it looked like he was playing for second, and another just wishing not to be humiliated. “I heard another one say, ‘It’s no great sin to lose to Ken Jennings,’ and they went in and lost Ken Jennings,” she said. “I thought, ‘That’s no way to play the game.”’ Some stats: Jennings’ average daily haul was $34,063.51. He toyed with the previous daily record of $52,000 — tying it four times — before shattering it with a $75,000 win in Game 38. He gave more than 2,700 correct responses. He combined an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, uncanny skill at sensing the precise instant to ring his buzzer and a killer competitive instinct hidden behind a baby-faced grin and polite manner. It made many of the games boring. But “Jeopardy!” executives aren’t complaining; ratings were up 22 percent over the same period last time. Jennings said he’d been thinking about walking away after some future milestone — 100 wins, perhaps, or $3 million or $4 million in winnings. He said there were about a dozen games where one reply made the difference between winning and losing. “The fact that they had all fallen my way was beginning to worry me,” he said, “because at some point the law of averages was going to kick in.” He wasn’t prepared for how much he’d miss the daily competition, though. “It didn’t really hit me that was going to be the hard part,” he said. “I thought the hard part would be the loss.” The loss is actually a distant memory and not really a secret: the show was taped in early September and news leaked right away. Video clips of his loss appeared on the Internet Monday. Neither Jennings nor Zerg expect the record will be broken. “It’s not because things fell the right way,” Zerg said. “It’s because he’s that good.” Jennings, a Mormon, will donate 10 percent of his winnings to his church — and a European vacation is planned, “probably a really nice one.” He’ll hardly slip back into anonymity; he’s visiting David Letterman and Regis Philbin this week, has a book deal and is open to any commercial sponsorship opportunities. He’s in a new tax bracket now, and H&R Block is making sure he’ll always remember the company for other reasons: It has offered him free tax preparation for life.
Heard this on the way in...This is rigged...How do you lose on something like this...Reminds me of Quiz Show...
Dude, it would be AWESOME if this turned out to be rigged. Did Ken pull out a white hanky and wipe his brow during final Jeopardy?
"The category is business and industry, and here is the clue, ladies and gentlemen: Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal, white-collar employees work only four months a year?" ______________ What is France?
I thought the same thing. He lost on a fairly easy question as Jeopardy goes. 1955 Oscar Winner for Best Picture... is On the Waterfront
