The latest JEOPARDY contestants! caused an Internet frenzy when they froze on a $200 clue that was not only simple, but part of the quiz show’s history.
Viewers flooded Reddit, surprised that no one knew the “basic fact” that, ironically, led to the very existence of Jeopardy!
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On Monday night, Amy Hummell, an emergency room doctor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, scored her fourth win, racking up a total of $85,974.
She surpassed Kirsten Lundquist and Ferdinand Percentie and will enter the next Tournament of Champions.
But first, the players encountered the triple that was literally Jeopardy! 101.
The top (or easiest) line clue under “Greater Than, Less Than, or Equal To” asked, “One statute mile is equal to this number of feet.”
Only Kirsten dared to guess and answered incorrectly: “1600”, and the other two just stared.
Ken Jennings broke his silence, revealing the correct answer as “5280”.
Fans regularly criticize the lack of top-line questions, but this one stung because of its importance to the game show.
‘FIRST FIRST DANGER! TIP!’
A Reddit user titled a thread on Tuesday, “5280? FIFTY-TWO EIGHTY? Come on! Phew.”
“Wow, that’s a bad move to stand still. Not only is it a very basic fact, but it is also the first Jeopardy clue,” they added.
The user went on to portray the “origin story” of the program, which, as legend has it, began with how many feet equal a mile.
“When ‘answer’ 5280 came up, and one contestant gave a hard-to-believe answer and the other two blocked it, I almost choked. My God, it’s the first Jeopardy clue ever!!” one fan responded.
“Kind of surprised Ken didn’t comment, but it probably would have been hard to do so without insulting all three of them,” wrote another.
“The only thing I can think of is that maybe the ‘statute mile’ thing confused them. Maybe the competitors were worried that it was something like a nautical mile and not 5,280 feet,” rationalized a fourth.
“That’s what I was thinking. It seemed too easy, and they probably thought “statute mile” was a different term than a normal mile, like metric ton/imperial ton,” agreed a fifth.
Another wrote: “[Stage manager] Jimmy loves telling this story to the audience at the recordings!”
THAT’S DANGEROUS! HE WAS BORN!
As the story goes, in 1963, TV legend Merv Griffin was flying back to New York with his wife Julann.
Merv was racking his brain for a new game show, and Julann asked if he had come up with something related to trivia.
According to SmithsonianMerv told her, “Since ‘The $64,000 Question,’ the network doesn’t let you do that anymore.”
As he implied, the cheating scandals of the 1950s had killed American quiz shows and he didn’t know what to do.
So Merv’s wife created the question/answer format on the spot.
“They suspect you gave them the answers,” Merv told his wife.
“Well, why don’t you to give them the answers? And make people ask questions? she answered.
Merv didn’t know what she meant. “OK, the answer is ‘5,280’.” He thought for a moment.
“The question is, ‘How many feet is a mile?’”
And the rest is, as they say, TV history.
“We kept going,” recalls Julann Griffin, “and I kept throwing answers at him and he kept asking questions. When we landed, we had an idea for a show.”
The gaffe comes as fans prepare for Jeopardy! Masters which premieres on Wednesday, May 1st at 8pm on ABC.
The highly anticipated special will air throughout the month of May and will not interfere with the regular episodes, both of which air on those nights.
Danger! airs at 7pm ET. – check your local listings.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
