Ken Jennings’ Short Stint on 500 Questions

As fans of “500 Questions” already know, the hour-long prime-time game show returned for a second season on Thursday, May 26th, when its first contestant was none other than 74x Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings. There was a lot of publicity about that leading up to the Season 2 debut but, incredibly, Jennings was out after 4 questions! He answered his first question in the category “Coffee” correctly, then the bad mojo began:

FINANCE – In 2014, what economist succeeded Ben Bernanke as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve?

FRANCE – To make a traditional French éclair, you need to start with what pastry dough whose name literally means “cabbage”?

Two wrongs gave Ken’s challenger Monica Thieu (also a Jeopardy! champ) the right to pick his next category. She stayed in “France” and it turned out to be a “Battle” where she and Ken took turns providing answers to: “France has a land border with what 8 countries?” until one of them bombed. That went like this:

Ken: Spain
Monica: Andorra
Ken: Monaco
Monica: Luxembourg
Ken: Belgium
Monica: Germany
Ken: Austria

… and, as the host of the first season, Richard Quest, used to put it: Ken was gone!

It’s no surprise that theories have been put out there that Jennings lost on purpose. The same statement was thrown about when he missed an easy question in his last regular Jeopardy! match. That was after 74 appearances, however, but this time, cutting out all the banter, he probably didn’t make it to 5 minutes.

Most likely, a much simpler answer as to why he said “Austria” is because Monica said “Germany.” Neighboring Austria popped in his head, then it came out of his mouth.

Ken Jennings has authored a bunch of geography books for junior geniuses.