Final Jeopardy: Presidential Elections (2-26-25)
The Final Jeopardy question (2/26/2025) in the category “Presidential Elections” was:
The only 2 Democrats to be elected President between James Buchanan in 1856 & FDR in 1932
2024 ToC winner Ben Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, WI; 2018 Teen Tournament winner Claire Sattler, a comedian & research scientist from New York NY; and 1996 College Championship winner Shane Whitlock, a radiologist orig. from Benton, AR.
Round 1 Categories: Months that Start With Feb – Second Letter “Y” – A Novel Profession – Television – Warriors – Come Out & Play
Ben found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Novel Profession” under the $800 clue on the 1st pick of the round. Nobody was on the board. Ben bet the max $1,000 and said groundskeeper. That was WRONG.
Oliver Mellors, working on the Chatterley Estate show
Shane finished in the lead with $9,000. Ben was second with $3,200 and Claire was last with $800. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: Poets Go to the Cinema – 4-Letter Cities – Contemporaries – Sold! at Auction – All About Animals – Alliteration
Ben found the first Daily Double in “All About Animals” under the $2,000 clue on the 20th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $19,600, $4,600 more than Shane in second place. Ben bet $5 and said sea anemones. That was WRONG.
These pointy denizens of the ocean were actually named after an earlier word for hedgehogs show
Shane found the last Daily Double in “Alliteration” under the $2,000 clue with 6 clues left after it. He was in second place with $17,000, $995 less than Ben’s lead. Shane bet $3,500 but couldn’t come up with anything so he was WRONG.
The pair that tests one’s forbearance sounds redundant; the phrase was used about St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans show
Ben finished in the lead with $18,395. Shane was second with $14,700 and Claire was last with $0 and out of the game at this point. All clues were shown.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHO ARE GROVER CLEVELAND & WOODROW WILSON?
After James Buchanan term as president (1857-61), the USA elected its first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s VP, Andrew Johnson, was a Southern Democrat. He became president upon Lincoln’s assassination but was never elected to the office.
Grover Cleveland who served 2 non-consecutive 4-year terms towards the end of the 19th century, was the first Democrat president since the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson was the next Democratic president. He served 2 terms consecutive terms from 1913 to 1921. Virginia-born Wilson was also the first Southerner to become president since the Civil War and the first to hold a Ph.D.
Both men had ties to the State of New Jersey. Cleveland was born and died there. Wilson was its 34th governor.
Shane got it right. He bet $6,000 and finished with $20,700.
Ben started out with Benjamin Harris but switched to Garfield and Wilson. That cost him $3,694 and left him with $14,701. And that made Shane Whitlock the winner and semi-finalist.
A triple stumper from each round:
SECOND LETTER “Y” ($800) This small area at the base of the brain helps manage, among other things, body temperature & thirst & hunger
ALLITERATION ($000) This pair of words is in the title of books that collect the pithy quotes of Oscar Wilde, Abraham Lincoln & others
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “LAWS IN U.S. HISTORY”
A Radical Republican championed this 1875 act but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1883; a new version was passed 81 years later show
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All 3 DDs were missed resulted our eleventh skunking of the season. I hope William Weyser will say darn those daily doubles to Ben.
That was a great game by both Ben and Shane. Claire received a difficult draw against these two players. She came so close to making it to Final but came up short. You can see that Claire tried to buzz in on that final clue but was beaten by Shane on the last clue.
Yeah, seriously, I was hoping Shane couldn’t be more specific on the auction item so Claire could get it. The way they were going at it though, Ben probably would have jumped right on it.
I hope this isn’t the last we see of Claire Sattler. She deserved better than this. Someday, she will regain her confidence, and make it tough on her opponents. Today is not that day. Not only that, I want something to go right for a celebrity today, and it will tonight for either Ana Navarro, Dave Friedberg or Yvette Nicole Brown. Not so much for Michelle Trachtenberg, because earlier today, she passed away at the way too young age of 39.