WATCH: Jeopardy! Contestants Whiff Badly on Cable News Themed Questions
They say the truth hurts, and one Jeopardy! category this week revealed the painful truth that news shows don’t have much name recognition among the brainy contestants on the syndicated hit game show.
On Tuesday’s episode, the category “Blank News” asked contestants to finish the names of news shows based on a partial title and a hint. Retired cop Dave Leffler started off by selecting the category for $600 — a refreshing break from the tired strategy of running through the category in order.
Alas, none of the three contestants could identify CNN’s Early Start based on a clue that identified the show’s time slot and network.
Next, Leffler was able to correctly guess the title of Fox & Friends, before temporarily abandoning the category. Minutes later, he returned, and continued his roll by correctly identifying BBC World News America.
But then, Sunday mornings on ABC took a bloodbath, as two contestants wrongly identified that network’s Power Lunch program as “Power Hour” and “Power Half-Hour,” respectively. Then, Leffler himself whiffed on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, guessing “This Morning” instead.
As any Jeopardy! fan will tell you, this many misses in any one category is rare, let alone a TV category.
The performance attracted the attention of two of the shows featured in the category. Early Start played a clip of their question, and pointed out that two of the contestants live in time zones that would make regular viewing difficult.
But Fox & Friends took things a bit further, booking Leffler for an interview Thursday morning based on the exploit of knowing the name of their show. The retired Allegheny County police officer is also on a three-game winning streak, and has amassed $81,202 in winnings so far.
Leffler may not be the loyal viewer his correct response would indicate, however. When Steve Doocy asked him the Jeopardy!-style closing question “What is your favorite morning show,” Leffler gave the conditional response “What is Fox & Friends, if I watch morning television.”
Watch the clip above, via ABC 7.
[featured image via screengrab]
