Jeopardy! contestant won thanks to wildest Final Jeopardy coincidence
In a recent episode, contestants were given the Final Jeopardy clue of "Collections." Here's the clue: In 1896 the Vassar-educated wife of this man wrote, "Thousands of dollars may be paid for a copy of Shakespeare."
We'll give you 30 seconds to answer, as they do on the show. And the answer? Who is Henry Clay Folger?
Only Emily got the answer correct, and as Jeopardy! revealed on social media, it turns out that she has a familial connection to the Folger family! The "Vassar-educated wife" was Emily, who was Emily Croke's great-great-great-aunt ... and who she was named after!
I love Ken Jennings' reaction in the video above: "Emily Folger, the one we mentioned in the clue, is the person you, Emily Croke, are named after? WOW!"
Again: total coincidence, no harm, no foul. It's bound to happen with so many episodes and so many different clues, right? Just wild that it ended up that way.
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Yahoo
a day ago
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The controversy over the champion ‘Jeopardy' couple: A brief explainer
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'Jeopardy' scandal erupts online as past married champions remind the world they exist: 'Erased in real time'
What is: misinformation? Jason Singer was thrilled when he became a Jeopardy champion on Tuesday four years after his wife, Susan McMillan, earned the same distinction — but they're far from the first married couple to achieve such a milestone. After several outlets reported that Singer and McMillan were the first-ever married contestants to win the iconic game show after tying the knot, multiple past champions called out the media for spreading inaccurate info about the show's history. Kristin Sausville, who won the show five times in 2015 and is married to fellow champion Justin Sausville, posted a message on Facebook decrying the inaccurate reporting surrounding Singer's win. "There is something really surreal and honestly kind of sinister in watching part of yourself be erased in real time," she wrote. "Maybe you've seen an article in the past day or two about how one of the Jeopardy! contestants last night had a wife who was a J! champion, and was hoping he would win so they could be the first married champions in J! history. Well. If you're friends with me, you're probably aware that both Justin and I won; Justin in 2011 and me in 2015." (The official Jeopardy Facebook and Tumblr accounts acknowledged the couple's victories during Kristin's tenure on the show.) Sausville went on to note that she and her husband weren't the first married champs in Jeopardy history either, highlighting other victorious couples including Dan Pawson and Andrea Saenz and David Rigsby and Ryan Alley. "I'm sure it's a matter of weeks before AI like ChatGPT and Google will give you [Singer and McMillan] as the answer to the question, based on the sheer volume of bot activity," she continued. "It's really Orwellian to watch how easily it's happening. Like at the end of the day, I'm not all 'but my LEGACY!' about it, but I am really bothered by seeing how quickly misinformation can be spread and accepted as truth." In a comment on a separate post, Rigsby called out incorrect reporting on the same topic. "They are not the first married Jeopardy couple," he wrote on Facebook. "There have been at least a half-dozen. Simple Internet search would reveal that." A representative for Jeopardy told Entertainment Weekly that the show does not track spousal records for contestants and acknowledged that several contestants had noted that they were also married to champs after Singer's victory. Additionally, although Singer initially believed that he and McMillan were the first married couple to emerge victorious on the show, he told the Portland Press Herald that this isn't the case."It's anecdotal. Jeopardy doesn't track every married couple that's ever been on, but they've written about a bunch on their website," he said. "Whether we're the first, the second, or the first in a long time, I just think it's a really cool accomplishment." Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
USA Today
2 days ago
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No, 'Jeopardy' contestants weren't the first to make game show history
A post shared by Good Morning America (@goodmorningamerica) This is pretty awesome: Maine resident Jason Singer won on Jeopardy! on July 1 to join the long list of the game show's champions ... which includes his wife Susan McMillan, who won back in 2021. With reports that they may have been the first married couple to both be champs, that's ignited some backlash from former Jeopardy! winner Kristin Sausville who revealed that she and her husband Justin both won, and per some of her research, there were other married couples who were both champions. MORE JEOPARDY: Contestant won thanks to wildest Final Jeopardy coincidence "If you're friends with me, you're probably aware that both Justin and I won; Justin in 2011 and me in 2015," she wrote on Facebook. "But we weren't even the first. As far as I've been able to research, Dan Pawson and Andrea Saenz were the first." Here's more from the post: And between Justin and me and the person who aired yesterday, there were several, including Amy Stephenson and Scott Bateman, as well as David Rigsby and Ryan Alley. There are a decent number of couples who met through J! and later married, particularly through various Teachers Tournaments. But the local media for the guy last night took up the story and ran with it, and then other media picked it up and ran it without checking for accuracy, and now it's everywhere that the guy last night is part of the first married J! champions ever. Now that the bots have the story, it would be impossible to correct them all even if I cared enough to take the time to do so. As Entertainment Weekly added, "A representative for Jeopardy told Entertainment Weekly that the show does not track spousal records for contestants and acknowledged that several contestants had noted that they were also married to champs after Singer's victory." Let's take a sec and acknowledge how cool it is for all these married couples. The record has been corrected!
