Final Jeopardy: Authors (12-25-17)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (12/25/2017) in the category “Authors” was:
A prefatory poem he wrote to one of his novels tells of “The dream-child moving through a land of wonders wild and new”
New champ Donna Brown won a whopping $45,600 in her first game last Friday. In her second game, she is up against these two players: Charlie Harless, from Washington, DC; and Natalie Ballas, from Tualatin, OR.
A very Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating today.
Round 1 Categories: Doonesbury Political Symbols – Mountains Named for People – Brothers – One-Word Book Titles – The Citrus Bowl – The Best Vocabulary
Donna found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “One-Word Book Titles” under the $600 clue, with a dozen clues left after it. She was second place with $3,000, $1,200 less than Natalie’s lead. She made it a true Daily Double (of course!) and she was RIGHT.
Astrophysicists build a machine to talk back to aliens from Vega that have reached out to earthlings. show
Donna finished in the lead with $8,600. Natalie was second with $5,400 and Charlie was last with $1,000.
Round 2 Categories: Titanic – My Heart Will Go on – I’m the King of the World – Rose – “Jack” – There Is Room on That Board!
Charlie found the first Daily Double in “Titanic” under the $2,000 clue on the 10th pick. He was in third place with $4,200 at this point, $7,200 less than Donna’s lead. He bet $3,000 and he was RIGHT.
The single highest grossing day for “Titanic” was this holiday, a Saturday 58 days after the film’s December opening. show
4 clues later, Natalie found the last Daily Double in “My Heart Will Go On” under the $1,600 clue. In second place with $8,200, she had $3,200 less than Donna’s lead. She bet $5,000 and she was RIGHT.
If your heart goes to someone else, it must fit neatly into this 2-word structure formed by 24 bones. show
Donna finished in the lead with $21,400. Natalie was next with $12,400 and Charlie was in third place with $6,000.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
The quote in the clue comes from the 4th stanza of the “All in the Golden Afternoon” poem that Rev. Charles Dodgson composed as a preface for “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” It commemorates the 1862 boat trip during which he invented the story to amuse the 3 Liddell sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith. When he published the book in 1865, Dodgson used the pen name Lewis Carroll (the Final Jeopardy! topic on Feb. 18, 2016).
The first handwritten manuscript of the Wonderland tale was called “Alice’s Adventures Underground.” Dodgson gave it to Alice Liddell in Nov. 1864, as an early Christmas present. You can see it online at The British Library.
Charlie got it right. He bet $2,500 and that brought him up to $8,500.
Natalie got it right, too. She didn’t bet anything so she stayed at $12,400.
Donna thought it was C.S. Lewis. She lost her $10,000 bet, dropping her down to $11,400. That made Natalie Ballas the new Jeopardy! champ.
Reversal: Not on a clue — Alex Trebek opened the show saying again that Donna set a record for the season with her $45,600 payday on Friday. He reversed himself before Round 2 began, apologized to Donna and gave himself a “boo, hiss!” after someone reminded him about Austin Rogers’ $69,000 record from 10/3/2017, when he beat his own record of $65,600 on 10/2. Donna still has the third highest payout of the season.
A triple stumper from each round:
THE CITRUS BOWL ($1000) The bite-sized Nagami & Meiwa
“JACK” ($1600) In a thriller by Frederick Forsyth, an assassin has this nickname
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Top 40 Songs”
The first 2 Top 40 hits for this late singer– one in 1971, the other in 1973– ended up becoming official state songs. show
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I was hoping that Donna would continue winning, I liked her a lot. It’s a shame that she made such a big FJ wager. She was a great sport, too, I loved how she hugged the other 2 contestants at the end of the game.
A web search to an article about the contestant search Donna attended in order to get on the show says that her brother was on J! and Donna took the trip to Mexico he won on the show with him. Eric Brown appears to be her brother who lost on 3/23/1999, as per J-archive, and his second place prize was a trip to Mexico. A web search indicates Donna Brown is 48 years old, which would mean her Mom who was on $ale of the Century, as the article also indicates, was on the original $ale of the Century hosted by Jack Kelly starting in 1969.
Thanks, it’s an interesting article that even has some pointers on what not to wear on the show
Jeopardy is preempted here, but still, Donna should not have bet 10000 to lose the game. And also, Alice in wonderland is based on the disney movie which I loved as a kid. Still though, I prefer jeopardy over basketball anyday, wouldn’t you agree VJ? Also I believe your kids watched Alice in wonderland when they were young I bet right>
You’re right, Lou, all she needed to bet was $5401. As Eric would put it, horrible wager.
Happy Holidays to VJ and all Fikkle visitors.
Yep, Lou, also the way Donna was rolling out those 1-word titles, I thought she would get the final for sure. About the book: 1865. The Disney movie: 1951. At one time, there may have been more people who read Lewis Carroll’s book than saw the Disney movie, but I doubt that’s true anymore.
Thanks, Cece, Happy Holidays to you too. This was a weird game to me in a déjà vu kind of way. I was just watching an Xmas cartoon with Jack Frost in it last night and I couldn’t sleep so I was singing songs from 7 Brides for 7 Brothers to myself (LOL!!) There were a couple of other clues that hit me that way and, oh yeah, the Velazquez triple stumper made me think of our hilarious conversation on that clue watch post about him a couple of years ago.
LINK: 11 more clues from the match
The game is preempted here, but it’s okay as we’re preparing some food to bring to a party tonight. The outlaw mother is not happy about it (the game, that is). Though I would have loved to see Donna again, what the hell was she thinking with that FJ bet?
What was the Velazquez triple stumper? Lol, I just re-read that conversation we had and , yes, it was fun—2 years already?
It’s on the extra clues — it came with a picture that he painted and they wanted to know the name of the King. Just the name — they supplied the number.
idk about her bet. After Friday’s bet, my assumption was that she liked Big Bets. No regrets. She certainly made the most of her one game, that’s for sure!
Of course, the extra clues, duh! Thanks. VJ.
I think Charlie and Donna knew the Hawaiian queen but didn’t want to take a chance on pronouncing it wrong. I know I didn’t. LOL!!
Disappointed that Donna lost. Would like to see more of her.