Final Jeopardy: Famous Americans (1-9-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (1/9/2015), in the category “Famous Americans” was:
In 1982, 72 years after his death, he became the first person inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians.
New champ John Schultz won a very respectable $27,600 in yesterday’s game. In the last game of the week, these two opponents are hoping for a big score, too: Evan Perkins, from San Francisco, CA; and Verna Kale, from Midlothian, VA.
Round 1: Evan found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Good Mouse Keeping” under the $400 clue. He was in second place with $3,400, $1,800 less than John’s lead. He made it a true Daily Double and came up with arteries. That was WRONG.
From the Latin for “little mouse’ these body parts are so named as their movements under the skin resemble mice. show
John finished in the lead with $5,200. Verna was second with $3,400 and Evan was in the hole for $400.
Round 2: John found the first Daily Double in “Famous First Words” under the $1,200 clue. He was in the lead with $13,200, $1,800 more than Verna in second place. He bet $5,800 and he was RIGHT.
In 1933 the first of these addresses began “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the U.S. about banking. show
Evan found the last Daily Double in “Arlington National Cemetery” under the $1,600 clue. In third place with $5,200, he had $15,800 less than John’s lead. He bet $5,000 and thought it was Oliver Wendell Holmes. That was WRONG.
This man who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court is buried in Section 5. show
John finished in the lead with $19,800. Verna was next with $13,400 and Evan was in third place with $200.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
“Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain, as millions of readers have come to know him, was one of America’s greatest writers and humorists…. He is best known for his two classic novels of boyhood life on the Mississippi River, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. His childhood home of Hannibal, Missouri, which inspired many of his literary creations, has become an attraction for thousands of tourists each year. Clemens took the writing pseudonym, Mark Twain, from riverboat jargon he learned during his years of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi.” (Hall of Famous Missourians)
Evan wrote down Harry Truman, who became the US president on April 12, 1945. He lost his $199 bet and finished with $1.00.
Verna got it right and doubled her score. She finished with $26,800.
John also got it right. He bet $10,200 so he won today’s match with an even $30,000. We love John’s winning totals! In 2 days, he’s racked up $57,600!
In today’s chat, John talked about the origins of the Friday Pink Shirt Pact he made with a co-worker.
2 years ago:: NONE of the players got this FJ in “Rivers”
It’s the world’s longest river whose outflow is into an entirely inland body of water. show
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@cece & VJ:
what do you consider more important re verna and evan: the # of right answers or the total $ value of the right answers? do 5 $400 answers equal 1 $2K answer?? kind of tricky to judge….
John, I’m just talking about my impression of the game, not in-depth analysis. What does it matter how many clues you answer right if you take too many guesses or overbet on DDs? Most times, it’s just not wise to go all in. Sure, if you get an easy DD, it’s great. If you don’t, it’s crippling. But, even if you do everything right, if you don’t get FJ, you could be out anyhow.
In this game, Verna answered very few clues in the first round but two were the $1,000 clues. Evan put himself at a big disadvantage with his Round 1 True DD, but, we’ll see, I still think he gave more right answers than Verna. Yes, he canceled them out, but I’m talking general knowledge so that’s how he got on the game, by passing a general knowledge test.
When I was watching, I was thinking if Jacob’s prediction was right then Verna would win unless John pulled off a lock game — her specialty is 19th and 20th century American lit. Most of her score came from the punctuation category, and she got a few other clues (like Unsinkable Molly Brown, who btw was also from Hannibal, MO)
No Tom. His ROTTEN luck was he’s terrible in math. To think that Oliver Wendell Holmes argued the Brown vs Board of Education case before the Supreme Court when he died in the 1930s and the case was argued before the Supreme Court in the 1950s was a weird response.
Then to top everything off he thought that Truman died in 1910 and yet was able to be President in the 1940’s. Either he believed in reincarnation or my speculation was that he was terrible in math is more appropriate. Of course Alex Trebek telling him that Truman was not a bad guess did not help matters.
Yeah, Alex shouldn’t have said that. LOL. Evan really didn’t start writing for a bit so I figured Truman was the only famous person he knew from Mo.
I wished he wrote Doober Doober down but maybe he didn’t see that game.
maybe just bad in history….
I agree with you, John. You either know your history or you don’t – no matter how good or bad your math is.
As Tom so eloquently illustrated what was wrong with 2 of the guy’s answers.
The “ROTTEN luck” bit was comic relief, based on Tom’s comment the day before.
Cece you are correct. Math had nothing to do the contestant’s response in fj and Trebek was correct in telling him Truman was not a bad guess.
The point I was trying to make was if the contestant had deducted 72 from 1982 he would have logically concluded that Truman did not die in 1910 and would automatically ruled him out. Also mathematically he would not have made the weird wagers he made in his DD’s. Math matters in Jeopardy no matter how the pie is sliced. The man ended up with a mere $1. Doesn’t look like good math to me whether one knows history or not. Just my humble opinion.
@Cece — How about that South American capitals clue from Thursday with the 3 wrong answers? (It’s on the Fri spoiler talk, til next Fri anyhow)
The timeline was the 19th century. John was at least on the map with Montevideo. idk where Elizabeth came up with Bolivar. Elliot said Brasilia and I was sure your mouth fell open.
It all boils down to our tagline: sometimes you’re hot, sometimes you’re not.
VJ – yeah, that Brasilia response was definitely weird, specially coming from Elliot who is so knowledgeable.
Jacob, I do get your point – no need for sarcasm. Yes, contestants can always subtract or add to come up with dates or what not. But what if in this case, even after he had done his math he still didn’t know when Truman died?
And yes, I agree with you that math is important in wagering – bad math did him in on the DD. But also, a general lack of knowledge was a big factor in his demise.
Finally, we can always agree to disagree, can we?
Well, a man managed to come up with a FJ response even worse than the bad ones women were giving recently. Yay!
So this guy thinks Truman died in 1910. That means he has no clue that Truman became president upon the death of FDR.
Or, if he knew that, then he has no idea when the Depression and WWII were, assuming he even knows that FDR was president during them.
He showed an equal ignorance of the timeline of history with his Oliver Wendell Holmes DD response.
Which raises the question: Why would someone like that go on Jeopardy?
Because, unlike you Tom, he doesn’t think he has ROTTEN luck 🙂
LOL, Cece, poor Evan really did have ROTTEN luck today. Wiped out twice on the DDs.
Yeah, his ROTTEN luck was that he was required to know something.
I really felt bad for the guy: the DDs plus his fj answer…Definitely ROTTEN luck.
On the other hand, Verna went from very quiet before the commercials to a remarkable recovery afterwards.
I’ll have to get back to you on that, Tom, but it seemed to me that he answered more questions than Verna did. His ROTTEN luck was that he didn’t know the DDs he got and couldn’t figure out FJ. (I think I heard him do one of those sharp ‘faceslap’ exhales when Verna’s answer was revealed).
@Cece, I don’t do a tally but I think they do one when they put the game on j-archive so if I see it sometime soon, I’ll post it, but it really did seem to me that Evan had more right answers than Verna.
@VJ,hmmmm….really? I thought she answered more questions, or gave more correct answers. He was either quiet or answering incorrectly. But I’m not sure, you may be right.
It would be interesting to see a tally if you get a chance to do it.
plus, it does not hurt to have a classic education (latin). so many words in all romance languages as well as in english and german have their roots in latin (or greek)…mouse= mus in latin. especially when you see it in print: whats under the skin (not deep inside the body AND latin word)? MUS… if you have some talent in deducing things the answer is obvious.what body parts are right under the skin and derive their name from the latin for mouse?? the “little” was btw misleading. “little mouse” would be “mus pusillus”…..ah well, a weekend to get over all the strange things, ESPECIALLY that “banksy”…
VJ, you were correct. Evan had more responses compared to Verna. Verna had 12 responses. Evan had 20 responses of which 14 were correct and 6 incorrect. As Tom correctly stated “his rotten luck was that he was required to know something.”
Thanks, Jacob. I had come up with this but didn’t want to post it because I didn’t have time to double check:
Round 1
J 10 right 0 wrong
V 4 right 0 wrong
E 9 right 3 wrong (incl one DD)
Round 2
J 12 right (incl 1 DD) one wrong
V 8 right none wrong
E 5 right 3 wrong (incl one DD)
thatcher, banksy, twain: same recognition factor. well at least he was in the ballpark with truman, although off by a few decades.
CONGRATULATIONS, JOHN!! KEEP ON GOING!!
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYBODY AND STAY WARM!!