Final Jeopardy: Oscar-Winning Film Subjects (12-30-16)
The Final Jeopardy question (12/30/2016) in the category “Oscar-Winning Film Subjects” was:
The only Nobel Prize winner to be the title subject of a Best Picture Oscar winner is this man.
New champ Mukund Marathe won $21,400 yesterday. In the last game of the year, he takes on these two players: Ryan Vanderyacht, from Lake Forest, CA; and Kate Gran, from East Northport, NY.
Round 1 Categories: The Gummelier – The Leaders & Best – “Happy” New Year – Coast – Dove – What’s Your Favorite Soap?
Kate found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Dove” under the $1,000 clue. There was only one $1,000 clue in “Leaders” left after it. She was in the lead with $5,000, $1,200 more than Mukund in second place. She bet $1,000 but had no idea so she was WRONG.
1997’s “Comanche Moon” was the last published of the 4 novels in this Western series. show
That ended the round and Kate finished in the lead with $4,000. Mukund was second with $3,800 and Ryan was last with $2,800.
Round 2 Categories: Anagrammed Scientists’ Last Names – Georgia in Song – Doctored Books – Forever Stamps – The Middle Ages – All in the Family?
Kate found the first Daily Double in “Georgia in Song” under the $1,200 clue on the 3rd pick. She was in the lead with $4,800 at this point, $1,000 more than Mukund in second place. She bet $2,000 and guessed Florida Georgia Line. That was WRONG.
Nice neighbor! This “stately” mega-group of country sang “Burn Georgia Burn.” show
Mukund found the last Daily Double in “Doctored Books” under the $2,000 clue on the 10th pick. In the lead with $7,800, he had $1,000 more than Ryan in second place. He bet $1,000, and he was RIGHT.
Dr. Bernard Rieux forgoes escape to stay behind & fight the deadly contagion in this Albert Camus work. show
Mukund finished in the lead with $14,800. Ryan was next with $9,600 and Kate was in third place with $8,800.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
In a tribute to John Nash written shortly after his death in May 2015, Kevin Knudson, Professor of Mathematics of the Univ. of Florida, says: “Thanks to A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar’s chronicle of Nash’s life, and its film adaptation starring Russell Crowe, Nash was one of the few mathematicians well known outside the halls of academia…. Nash’s influence goes far beyond the Hollywood version of his biography. His colleagues count his mathematical innovations, particularly on noncooperative games (the work that would earn him his [1994] Nobel Prize), among the great economic ideas of the 20th century.”
Kate thought it was Roosevelt. She lost her $8,000 bet, finishing with $800.
Ryan came up with Stephen Hawking. That cost him $9,000, leaving him with $600.
Mukund wrote down Oppenheimer. He lost his $4,401 bet but still won the match with the remaining $10,399. His 2-day total is $31,799.
A triple stumper from each round:
THE GUMMELIER ($800) You’ll love the pink packaging of this rhyming brand’s bubble gum tape gum; pull some out & embrace the lean suppleness
THE MIDDLE AGES ($800) Adopted “municipal” name of Odo de Lagny, elected Pope in 1088 & a leader of ecclesiastical church reform
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “20th Century America”
In 1923 Fanny Brice made news by having this procedure, later rejected by a woman portraying her. show
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Of course, the correct answer to this FJ is “None”, because the so-called Nobel Prize that John Nash was awarded is a fake Nobel. Alfred Nobel only endowed prizes in five categories: peace, literature, physiology and medicine, chemistry, and physics. The prize that Nash won is the “Swedish National Bank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”, which the Swedish National Bank created in order to pretend that economics was an actual science, and which didn’t exist prior to 1969. The fact that this is consistently mixed up with awards that honor meaningful scientific achievements always annoys me.
That was No. 2 on that History.com list I linked to below, except the part about creating it to pretend that economics was an actual science 😉
Well done by you both. The favorite Banksy is right, as economics does not follow the scientific method. One need only look to the acceptance of the Laffer curve (that one is for J). It seems to make sense graphically, so it was accepted (to some). It, however, simply does not withstand empirical evidence. Mainly, as econometrics challenges classical theories, economics is conjecture.
The answer is “None” for another reason. John Nash is not the “Title character”. If he were, the title to the movie would have had to be “Nash”. Merriam Webster: Title Character
Should have mentioned … that’s why I first thought of Gandhi too, but no, he did not win the Nobel Prize. I found the following regarding his brush with the prize interesting: Wikipedia: Mahatma Gandhi Awards
the clue says “title subject” though, not “title character”
Well, I’m glad a win wasn’t on the line for me with this FJ. My “living room” guess was Emile Zola. The movie bio of him won Best Picture (and Paul Muni was nominated for Best Actor). However, Zola never won the Nobel even though he was nominated twice. Sigh.
Happy new year to all, and MANY thanks to the moderator for fun and informative site!
Thanks, James, and Happy New Year to you, too.
I was watching the Life of Emile Zola on TCM not too long ago. They had The Story of Louis Pasteur on too. He died the year before Alfred Nobel so he never even knew about the prizes. Anyway, Muni did win Best Actor for playing Louis Pasteur. He was such a great actor.
Did anyone think the question, as posed, was misleading? A friend said he thought the word “title” implied that the man’s name needed to be in the film’s title. To me, it all depends on the accepted meaning of “title subject.” It means “subject of the title,” right? As an example, Lou Gehrig is the title subject of The Pride of the Yankees (but not the only subject). Is my friend over-thinking this?
On the one hand, I don’t think it misled any of the players. I guess Ryan was thinking of “The Theory of Everything” on his Stephen Hawking response. Idk what film Mukund had in mind, and I don’t think Kate’s answer would have been right in any event since she didn’t pick a Roosevelt
On the other hand, I don’t see why they decided to put the word title in the clue in the first place
In the case of Roosevelt, the question specified Best Picture, so a short subject Oscar wouldn’t have qualified. I, too, wondered why the addition of the word “title.” Maybe just to narrow the possibilities. But the number of Best Pictures films is finite, so…
Mukund’s chat story about how his high tenor voice and his wife’s mezzo soprano voice makes people mix them up on the phone was so funny.
Coincidence: Elliot Yates started his run 2 years ago. His chat stories were very memorable 🙂
When I first saw this clue, I thought Gandhi was the most likely miss.
Why is Gandhi a miss?
He never won a Nobel prize. See No. 3 on this History.com list (7 Things You May Not Know about the Nobel Prizes)
LINK: 8 More clues from this match
Happy new year to you as well VJ. This final jeopardy was a TS and I am surprised no one got it. I am beginning to think this is just like how Hunter Appler missed one of them in his game run back in june of 2016. I remember the movie John Nash though who was the actor that portrayed him though the one that died in the car accident
@Lou, It was John Nash and his wife who died in the car accident. Russell Crowe played him in the film and he did get an Oscar nomination, but Best Actor that year went to Denzel Washington for Training Day.
Rhonda, I bet you’re surprised as I am that the fj was a ts. Nash is so well known for his contribution to Game Theory & his Nobel Prize. Someone did guess S. H. I feared this but he has not won a Nobel Prize yet.
Roosevelt wasn’t a bad guess if the contestant meant Teddy. There was an Oscar awarded for Short Subject film about the Rough Riders but he hadn’t won the Nobel Prize until long after being a Rough Rider. So the picture wasn’t about him being a Nobel Prize winner.
I won’t be able to post after seeing the game, so Happy New Year’s to everyone on FF. Will chat with all in 2017.
Jacob, I was truly surprised that no one knew that. The movie was such a big hit, and as you mentioned before, there was the tragic car accident last year that took his life-I believe his wife was killed in it, too? The movie was based on a best-selling book of the same name.
Happy New Year to you and your family!
My Batman stamps were on the show today! Just wanted everyone to know it was the one time that I bought Forever Stamps that the price went down after I bought them. LOL!!
I think 2016 is not a very good year for me since I lost my commenting privilege from Fikkle Fame for posting rude comments back in March and somehow realized and posted better comments on the website. I’ll try to post very nice comments in 2017.
@Dalton, well, if that’s the worst thing that happened to you this year, it probably wasn’t that bad of a year 🙂
Happy New Year to everyone!
Dalton, I would say that examining and learning would make this a very great year. That, plus learning the act of forgiveness from VJ, are definite tools of maturity.
Well done