Final Jeopardy: Novel Titles (3-11-14)
The Final Jeopardy question (3/11/2014), in the category “Novel Titles” was:
The title of this 1951 novel comes from the hero’s fantasy of rescuing children falling from a cliff.
Current champ Arthur Chu is the first player in a long long time to win 10 games in a row. Total winnings so far: $277,200. Today he is up against these new challengers: Tony Knechtges, from Grafton, OH; and Kirsten Albair, from Caribou, ME.
Round 1: Arthur found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Best-Selling Non-Fiction” under the $600 clue. He was in second place with $2,000, $2,400 less than Kirsten’s lead. He made it a true Daily Double and he was RIGHT.
The first edition of his “Diet Revolution” was a best seller back in 1972. show
Kirsten finished in the lead with $4,400. Arthur was second with $4,000 and Tony was last with $1,400.
Round 2: Arthur found the first Daily Double in “Home of the Cave” under the $2,000 clue. He was in the lead with $8,800, $4,000 ahead of Kirsten in second place. He bet $4,000 and he was RIGHT.
The big room — this New Mexico National Park. show
Arthur found the last Daily Double in “Give My Regards to Broadway” under the $1,200 clue. In the lead with $16,400, he now had $10,000 more than Kirsten in second place. He bet $5,000 and mispronounced the name of the actress* so it was judged WRONG.
Oh yah. In 1988, pre-“Fargo”, she was STELLLLLA in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, dontcha know. show
*Arthur said McDArmand. Later he pronounced Elbridge Gerry’s name as “Jerry” in response to a VP clue. That was accepted although Trebek pointed out the correct pronunciation is a hard G. Arthur replied that gerrymandering (soft G) is named after VP Gerry, and Trebek pronounced it one of the mysteries of our language.
Arthur finished in the lead with a runaway $17,000. Kirsten was next with $5,200 and Tony was in third place with $2,200.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
Holden Caulfield explains his fascination with the Robert Burns poem “Coming’ Thro’ the Rye” in Chapter 22 of The Catcher in the Rye: “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around–nobody big, I mean–except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff–I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”
Tony wrote down “Cliffhanger.” That cost him $2,000 so he finished with $200.
Kirsten got it and bet $799. She finished with $5,999.
Arthur also got it and bet $3,000 so he won today with $20,000. His 11-day total is $297,200.
Will he get over $300,000 tomorrow, Alex Trebek asked. Well, probably, if competitors continue to just stand there. Arthur mentioned on his twitter that after the taping of yesterday’s game, Trebek remarked that only fatigue will do Arthur in. And you can certainly see he is tired. And he is testy. He was rather vocal every time he missed something in the first round and he was visibly angry at being judged wrong on that “Broadway” DD. He over-enunciated his responses for several clues after that. But, tired and testy or not, how can he lose if the competition won’t put up a fight?
2 years ago, no one got this FJ: People of Europe and, coincidentally, there were pronunciation and spelling mishaps that cost the dominant player the game.
These people who ruled large parts of Spain before Celtic & Roman dominance left their name on the land. show
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Reading here about what happens on Jeopardy, I’m happier every day with my decision not to watch until The Great Chu loses. It seems he’s getting more obnoxious every day.
He may or may not wind up being Jeopardy’s biggest winner — but he’s already Jeopardy’s most disliked contestant.
Check out the article on him in the current New Yorker.
It may be a minor point, but one enforced in the past: Arthur wrote “Catcher in the Rye” as his response. The title is “The Catcher in the Rye.”
they might have enforced it had it not been a runaway!?? and it’s not a minor point, j has penalized players for adding or omitting a “the” or even an “a”.
rapunzel stems btw from a fairy tale by the brothers GRIMM, published 1812 in germany.
they also wrote “rumpelstiltzchen” = german spelling.
You’re right. It is part of the title so I fixed that on my recap. I read on jboard that Jeopardy is lenient with players leaving out the first article in a title (the, a, an), but not if it is inside the title.
You could see he was off his game in Round 1 when he blurted out “Rapunzel” in reply to this clue in “R”andom House Dictionary “A variety of lettuce… having a cylindrical head of long, relatively loose leaves.” Kirsten got it on the rebound while still laughing at Arthur’s response. Rampion, the plant stolen off the witch in the fairy tale, would have been wrong, too.
After today, I’ve come to agree with Tom Clark that Arthur is egotistical as hell. Somewhere online I remember seeing Arthur say that even if you lose it all in the first round, it’s not that important — you can make it up in Double Jeopardy, so I guess I didn’t expect him to act as frustrated as he did today. Maybe he’ll have a giant tantrum when he loses.
in some versions of the story, the stuff stolen from the witch’s garden is called rapunzel
you’re right – I think the most common names for rapunzel are corn salad and lamb’s lettuce. Yes, and mâche (I just looked it up). So it is a type of lettuce, but not cylindrical.
in the german original, the plant rapunzels father stole, WAS called “rapunzel” in the original fairy tale. so in arthur’s defense, the answer should have been accepted. it was kind of a salad (the plant rapunzel’s mother was addicted to and her husband stole from the witches garden) in the original fairy tale. maybe it was TOO much info , certainly not what they wanted to hear (romaine)….
No, John, it’s not cylindrical like romaine is. I doubt the cluewriters would go for rapunzel as a plant on anything — it has too many different names. They had a clue not too long ago about Rapunzel with the golden hair.
Sondheim connection: in his fairy tale musical Into the Woods, the witch mentions the theft of her rampion as the basis for her taking the child in the Witch’s Rap.
…and in some areas in austria, in the farming areas of salzburg or upper austria e.g., older people call the salad still “rapunzel”, but that was over 30 years ago, maybe not anymore. you have all kind of different expressions for things once you go to the “boondocks”. as viennese for instance you would hardly understand a word, if in salzburg they suddenly start talking in their “local” dialect… (or tyrol, styria etc… same in switzerland and germany).
I agree. After they penalized him for a mispronounced response, it seems he started giving smartass responses.
That exchange kept a clue from getting revealed in DJ!
You are correct in stating that Arthur is getting tired. I think there are several tapings in one day. He is testy and leans to his right as if for support. However, his exchange with Alex should have never taken place over “gerrymandering.” Perhaps he never heard the expression “let it go.”
there is also the possibility of editing…..and maybe this was the last taping of a given day. so by” tomorrow” he might be “refreshed”. everybody has at least one weak side. chu seems to have a short temper and some ego issues. one of THOSE might do him in WHEN he loses. the question is: WHEN?
and as a ps: as much as i hate to admit it, he had a point with “gerrymandering”,and yes, english is a “live” language and undergoes changes in spelling, pronunciation and even meaning of words.
as far as “people” of europe ” go, it was the “N” in “ibernians”, not the “R” as alex said that did reid in. the R is correct. IBERIANS is correct, reid erased the “H” but overlooked the “N”… i am surprised they did not edit that goof by alex . he SO clearly stressed the “R”
as being the wrong letter….i checked the clip that vj put in again.twice.
well, nobody is perfect. that is what makes us human. and other people like or hate us,no?
But, see, Arthur thinks he is perfect. I bet for every time he misses, he has a list of excuses.
I’ve known other sociopaths like him, and that’s what they do.
I got a big laugh when you wrote that he “seems” to have ego issues. Gee, you think?