Airing under the steady hand of host Alex Trebek since 1984, Jeopardy! is a smart game
show for smart people.
But every now and then, Jeopardy! lets its hair down - or submits to the chaotic nature
of the universe - and the well-oiled game show machine collapses in on itself to hilarious
effect.
Jeopardy!'s producers like to mix up the format once in a while.
A stunt category can generate viral acclaim or even elicit chuckles from the show's notoriously
serious contestants.
Sometimes Jeopardy! enlists a celebrity to read the clues, and they've employed the eager,
young "Clue Crew" for a few years.
But no format-breaking stunt will ever be as fun or weird as Alex Trebek singing familiar
nursery rhymes with his voice treated by Auto-Tune.
Yes, that odd robotic voice effect utilized on so many early 2000s hip-hop songs made
its way to Jeopardy in 2010.
Contestants correctly guessed all five entries in the "Alex Meets Auto-Tune" category, in
which Trebek creepily sang passages from public domain songs.
"...the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountainside"
Trebek clearly enjoyed this lark, too.
"You know, I sound that way every day when I'm not hosting Jeopardy."
In 2005, Jeopardy! held its first-ever Ultimate Tournament of Champions, partially as an excuse
to get 74-time winner Ken Jennings back for a few high-profile episodes.
In a special three-game final, Jennings squared off for bragging rights against fellow champions
Brad Rutter and Jerome Vered.
The winner, Rutter, took home an astonishing $2 million.
During the final three-game stand, the contestants concocted a unique way to relieve the stress
of such high stakes: they'd play the game free of the burden of pants.
When host Alex Trebek found out about it, he thought it would be a fun way to show solidarity,
and so, when he came out onto the Jeopardy! stage at the top of the episode, he was pantsless.
"They said we must do the program without trousers.
Now can we get a camera behind to see if they've done the same as I?"
They hadn't.
You got pranked, Trebek.
In a March 2015 episode, returning champion Kristin Sausville laid waste to her competitors.
By the time "Double Jeopardy" ended and "Final Jeopardy" was ready to begin, one had amassed
negative $200, and the other racked up negative $6,800.
Per Jeopardy! rules, they were ineligible to compete in the game's final round, leaving
Kristen unopposed.
Rounding out a day of futility, Kristin got the final clue wrong.
Fortunately, she bet a conservative $1,600 and took home $6,800 for the day.
Trebek remarked that it was "not one of our greatest days."
The "Final Jeopardy" category: State Capitals.
The clue: "A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city,
signed into law by a president whose library is now there too."
The correct response: Little Rock, Arkansas.
Heading into that last round, players Mike and Claudia were tied with $13,800 each, with
Randi at $6,000.
Unfortunately for Randi, she bet everything, and lost everything, because her reply was
wrong.
Viewers then learned that Claudia and Mike had followed the same trajectory: betting
everything on an incorrect response, resulting in a three-way tie, with all three players
registering $0.
There was no returning champion on the next episode.
The rapper Coolio became the center of a Jeopardy!-related pedantic storm in 2017.
A contestant named Nick Spicher selected "Music & Literature Before & After" for $1,600.
The clue: "A song by Coolio from Dangerous Minds goes back in time to become a 1667 John
Milton classic."
His response:
"Nick."
"What is Gangster's Paradise Lost?"
Spichler got his $1,600 and the game continued, but then judges reversed the decision.
A judge explained on the Jeopardy! website:
"The hard R sound caught the ear of one member of the onstage team, who immediately followed
up with a quick check.
It turns out that 'gangsta' and 'gangster' are both listed separately in the Oxford English
Dictionary, each with its own unique definition."
Spicher went on to win the game anyway.
Alex Trebek voiced an animated version of himself in a 2006 Family Guy cutaway gag,
where Mayor Adam West writes "Kebert Xela," as his "Final Jeopardy" response.
Alex reads it aloud and...
"Ahhhhh!"
"Only saying his name backwards can send him back to the fifth dimension where he belongs."
On a 2007 Jeopardy! episode, returning champion Jared Cohen entered "Final Jeopardy" with
just $1.
With no way of winning the game, he wrote "What is Kebert Xela?"
"I heard that sends you back to another dimension."
"Sends me back where?"
"To another dimension."
"To another dimension, yes."
Jeopardy!'s "Kids Week" is no cake walk.
The judges hold the young players to the same impossibly high standards as the adults.
Maybe it builds character; we can only hope it did for poor Thomas Hurley in 2013.
On the last "Final Jeopardy" clue of the tournament, Hurley thought he had the right response,
"Emancipation Proclamation."
But he added an extra "t."
"That's unfortunate.
The judges are ruling against you."
Hurley lost the $3,000 he bet, taking his score down too $6,600.
Contestant Skyler Hornback also wrote down the correct response, but spelled it the right
way, winning $66,600.
So Hurley wouldn't have won anyway, but it's still a harsh moment.
Jeopardy! is a rapid-fire game show, which means sometimes contestants find salacious
things coming out of their mouths that even they didn't expect.
On the clue, "If Andy yearns for Brenda & Brenda cares about Charlene who pines for Andy, the
3 of them form one of these," contestant Kara Spak speedily buzzed in.
"What is a threesome?"
The audience laughed, she cringed, and another contestant correctly responded, "What is a
love triangle?"
Then Alex couldn't help but joke about the slip-up.
"Kara has obviously had much more experience than I."
While Alex Trebek has hosted other shows and a different host - Art Fleming - preceded
him, it's hard to imagine Jeopardy! without the Canadian stalwart behind the podium.
Which is why a 1997 switcheroo was so surprising.
Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! run back-to-back on many local TV stations, and it must have
shocked viewers when their hosts got mixed up.
Trebek helmed an episode of Wheel of Fortune, while that show's regular host, Pat Sajak,
stepped into Trebek's shoes over on Jeopardy!
It was all a gag; the episodes aired on April 1, 1997, April Fool's Day.
Jeopardy! once again embraced the spirit of April Fool's Day for its April 1, 2016 episode.
Producers loaded the half-hour show with10 Easter eggs, and neither Trebek nor any of
the contestants made any mention of the zaniness afoot.
It was up to viewers to spot each joke.
A few examples: The show recycled footage of Trebek's famous pantsless entrance from
2015.
All the players' scores briefly appeared backwards.
After a commercial break, the "JEOPARDY!" slug at the bottom of the screen was misspelled.
When Trebek asked contestant Todd to select a clue, IBM supercomputer Watson briefly appeared
as "Todd."
And in that sweet spot where fun prank and fan-service meet, Trebek appeared in some
old footage with his famous mustache, which he'd shaved off years earlier.
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