Final Jeopardy: American Authors (4-14-25)
The Final Jeopardy question (4/14/2025) in the category “American Authors” was:
Like a character in one of his novels, this author hid in a meat locker during an Allied bombing
3x champ Andrew Hayes, a law student orig. from Tupelo, MS, has now won $72,202. In Game 4, he is up against: Kyle Harvey, a civil engineer from San Antonio, TX; and Jade Snelling, an archivist from Blacksburg, VA.
Round 1 Categories: It Ends With “Us” – Classic Novels – Elemental Phrases – Shakin’ Dat Ax – Quoting the Tarantino Film – Oh, Mary!
Andrew found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Quoting the Tarantino Film” under the $600 on the 17th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $5,800, $2,600 more than Kyle in second place. Andrew bet $4,200 and he got it RIGHT at the last second. Whew!
“The ‘D’ is silent, hillbilly!” show
Andrew finished in the lead with $11,600. Kyle was second with $6,000 and Jade was last with $2,000. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: Go Fish! – In the Dictionary – Pre-Columbian America – TV Title Change a Letter – Centenarians – Oh! These World Cities End in “O”
Andrew found the first Daily Double in “Centenarians” under the $2,000 clue on the 3rd pick of the round. He was in the lead with $12,000, $6,000 more than Kyle in second place. Andrew bet $2,000 and he was RIGHT.
Lawrence Walsh, independent counsel in this 1980s scandal, called it “a cover-up engineered in the White House” show
Andrew found the last Daily Double in “In the Dictionary” under the $800 clue on the 19th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $18,800, $6,400 more than Kyle in second place. Andrew bet $4,000 and could only think of nest. That was WRONG.
As a noun, it’s a comfy place to sleep courtesy of our bird buddies; as a verb, it’s to hire more workers than needed, by union demand show
Andrew finished in the lead with $17,600. Kyle was second with $13,200 and Jade was last with $5,600. All clues were shown.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHO IS KURT VONNEGUT?
“Slaughterhouse-Five” (1969) was Kurt Vonnegut’s first bestseller. Its main character is Billy Pilgrim, whose life and wartime experiences have many parallels with the author. Both Vonnegut and Pilgrim fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War 2 and both became German POWs. They were both imprisoned in a slaughterhouse in Dresden, Germany. They both survived the bombing of Dresden by taking shelter in a meat locker. Adam Hare explores other similarities in “Slaughterhouse-Five: an (Almost) Autobiography”, a 2020 article on Medium.
The novel was adapted to film in 1972. Per IMDB Trivia, The role of Billy Pilgrim went to Michael Sacks after Art Garfunkel turned it down. Garfunkel later said he was sorry he turned it down. As for Kurt Vonnegut, he was pleased with the film.
Jade got it right. She bet $3,200 and finished with $8,800.
Kyle thought it was Joseph Heller. He lost $1,999 and was left with $11,201.
Andrew got it right, too. He bet $8,801 and won the game with $26,401, for a 4-day total of $98,603, just $1,397 shy of $100,000 (but he’ll get there no matter what happens tomorrow!)
A triple stumper from each round:
CLASSIC NOVELS ($1000) Ben Gunn is a marooned sailor rescued as part of the rip-roaring action in this 1883 novel
GO FISH! ($2000) From March to September, these small silvery fish run out of the water and onto California beaches to lay their eggs
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “ENGLISH LITERATURE”
It says, “The mind is its own place, & in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same” show
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Yikes. 0/3 on DD, and missed FJ. For some reason, I was thinking of British authors, and thought of Anthony Burgess. Then, I looked again, but it was too late. Ugh.
I had to give it to this group: they, as a trio, were a quite photogenic team.
Good game, a lot of gettable clues, good competitors, just not quite strong enough to beat the champ.
Got last 2 DDs, thought Andrew would know the nest one, I should have nailed the first one too.
I know nothing about the FJ novel but somehow got the author immediately.
They left a few relative softies out there: the Ben Gunn novel; the SoCal fish (only because I once lived there and it was always a news item); the NYC subway rider (I was one for many years and still am occasionally); and the bullfight name. Those change-a-letter clues were nasty. “Stout Cortez”? Doesn’t end in -us, and I had no clue what Jade was referring to. I had “Invictus” printed on my wife’s funeral program.
Well, it was an exciting game, and Andrew remained the champ. As for the FJ, I certainly knew of the film ‘The Slaughterhouse Five’, but for some reason or another, I never watched it. Anyways, I didn’t come up with the author of that novel either.
Man, talk about back-handed compliments! Ken’s “I didn’t know you had that in you” was just rude when Andrew had a temporary mental block on the Tarantino film DD.
It could have simply been a slip of the tongue VJ as I’m pretty sure that the last thing Ken would want to do is to offend any of the contestants. Anyways, Ken is just the host of the show, and the show does not revolve around the host.
Agreed. and they should have edited that out, but what I think he really meant to say was, “I didn’t think you’d come up with it in time.” Much less offensive.