When I read this on Sunday, for some reason I thought that the game show might have actually ended in a three-way. As in three-way sex. I pictured Bob from Michigan on the left (reigning champ) kind of slowly making his way over to the center console where Irene from St. Paul, who hasn’t had sex in years and who just answered wrong in Final Jeopardy, lets Bob have his way with her. And Chris, the young challenger from the Bible Belt, on the right who kept on going for “true Daily Doubles,” can’t think of a better way to commemorate his dismal performance than to get behind Irene, take down her pants and go to work. It would have been great for ratings. But as I read past the headline, I realized that’s not what happened. “Jeopardy!,” the staple American television quiz show, ended in a three-way tie on Friday. Jamey, Anders and Scott all answered Final Jeopardy correctly and each finished the show with $16,000. The final question, or answer, depending on how passionately you buy into the show’s silly format, dealt with “Women of the 1930s” and the contestants all identified Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde) as the woman of the 1930s who once, as a waitress, served one of the men who shot her. Alex Trebek, sans mustache, had this to say about the tie: “We’ve had a lot of crazy things happen on ‘Jeopardy!’ but in 23 years I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Jeopardy’s so “crazy.” The game show consulted a mathematician who found that the odds of such an occurrence are 1 in 25 million. Doesn’t that sort of sound like bullshit. The number sounds a little too round. Almost like some mathematician couldn’t be bothered with computing Jeopardy odds and just picked a really big number. All 3 contestants returned as champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday.
•UPI: Jeopardy Finish Historic