And down goes Ken Jennings...

[Chun-tzu]

Tonight I am rooting for a Mr. Nathan B.!!!! Go Nathan!!! That would be sweet if the one who beat Jennings doen't last but one week

You got your wish, Laurel! Nancy didn't even last another game. She'll make an interesting trivia question in the future, though (who knocked off all-time Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings?).

According to Excite's TV Stevie, "KenJen" lasted 5 months, won over 2.5 million, and had 2700 correct answers (damn!).

BTW, Katie, who knocked off Nancy, is seriously cute. I'm totally tuning in tomorrow to see her again.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

One reason why everyone knows the H&R Block thingy is that a rumour was floating around the past several months that that was the question that stumped him. It rapidly became the trivia question du jour, and generally without attribution. I must have had a dozen people ask me that over the course of a couple weeks (being known as a trivia freak is a curse sometimes).

I don't know about any of that. It's just one of those factoids I see all the time around April 15th (usually in the newspaper). Plus, as a guy who temped for a looooong time, it was an option I often considered.

I'm willing to accept that my family and I might be a little more tuned into the accounting world than most - I'm a banker, my mom was the asst. controller for a department store chain for many years, and my dad's a realtor.

 

[The_lurkeR]

Upon watching the episode, my family and I agree: he took a dive. EVERYONE knows the H&R Block thingy.

I don't understand why anyone would think this? He played his usual aggressive style the whole game, and was visually frustrated by that last question, he even peeks over at Nancy as the time ran down.
He did not lose because of the final jeopardy question, he's gotten those wrong plenty of times. He lost because he blew his bread & butter, the two Daily Doubles, which were hard questions and not in his strong categories. Also one of the last categories was a sports category, which everyone knows he is clueless in, so he was never able to pull away like he usually does.

Kens' strength had been to time the buzzer right, control the board and get the Daily Doubles to put the game away. If you read interviews with numerous contestants that he defeated, they all know 90% of the answers as well. Kens' trick was that he mastered was to nail the timing of the buzzer even if he didn't know the answer right away, because he knew he'd get the 10 seconds or whatever after that to figure it out. You could catch him doing this many times each night.

 

[Felix]

What was the final jeopardy question that stumped him?

Or, I should say, what was the answer that stumped him...

 

[Laurel]

Taken from Jeopardy web-page

Question answer that got him:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="90%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width="30%">Final JEOPARDY! Category:</TD><TD vAlign=top>Business and Industry</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width="30%">Clue:</TD><TD vAlign=top>Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
His answer: "What is FedEx?" Dropping him to $8,799
Zerg's answer: "What is H&R Block?" Taking her to $14,401

But this is by no means the only one he ever got wrong... just the last one that mattered.


Future of Ken:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>December 2(Thurs) </TD><TD>"CBS Early Show" will feature Ken Jennings and Nancy Zerg. This show airs daily at 7:00am on KCBS.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top> </TD><TD>"American Morning" will feature Ken Jennings. This show airs daily at 4:00am on CNN.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>December 3 (Fri) </TD><TD>People Magazine feature runs.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>December 5 (Sun)</TD><TD>VH1 “Big in 2004 Awards” show broadcast including Ken as nominee in Big Entertainer category.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>December 8 (Wed) </TD><TD>BARBARA WALTERS SPECIAL “10 Most Fascinating People of 2004” with Ken Jennings.</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>December 9</TD><TD>Vanity Fair “Best of 2004” issue includes Ken Jennings.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>