GreekGeek

Yes, I kept waiting for Matt to ring in with "What's Smith?"

It didn't affect the outcome, of course, but I was sorry Tyler was penalized for misspelling "biathlon." Still, according to the rules. the written responses do not have to be spelled correctly, but they must not "add or subtract any extraneous sounds or syllables."

Triple Stumper. I felt really smart getting tonight's FJ after missing what should have been an easy question last night. I knew it from cooking: Lobster Thermidor was a trendy party dish in the 1960s. The connection with the French Revolution is explained here. ETA: I see Shapeshifter and Bklyndeb beat me to the TS explanation!

No judgment here! I thought of “5 a day is the healthy way.” I felt bad that Angie didn’t get to be on the show when Alex was still alive. And having to go up against Matt after waiting so long. I wondered if her letter was a factor at all in the creation of the Kids’ Tournament.

Yes. I was worried there for awhile that the two challengers would just keep digging themselves deeper into the red, especially Mike. It was nice of Mayim to encourage him when he was on a mini-streak.

OK, my mistake.

I might have been wrong; she looked and sounded a lot like Livia to me. It would have made more sense for her to be someone else. Were we supposed to know who she was? I sometimes had a problem figuring out who was a younger version of someone from the series and who was a new character.

It's been years since I saw any of The Sopranos, so I probably missed a lot in this movie. I wanted more of the original core cast and less of Dickie. (The Black characters were OK by me, though; they helped fill out the portrayal of Newark in the 60s/early 70s.) Like others, I was confused by the age of Tony in relation to Silvio and Paulie. I thought they were roughly contemporary; here it seems as though there are 10+ years of age difference. I wanted more of Junior and Livia, separately and together. How did Junior take control of the family? In the original series, he seemed like a bit of a figurehead, with Tony actually running things. The scene of Livia and Junior in bed together came out of nowhere and went nowhere. Was there anything in the original series to suggest that their relationship was ever sexual? Why was Livia always so miserable--was it a case of untreated depression? When she sobbed at Johnny's sentencing, was she truly distressed or playacting? Who was the boy with Tony when he stole the ice cream truck? Carmela came out of nowhere. How did she and Tony meet, and what attracted them to each other? On the plus side, I liked the very young Tony (William Ludwig) and I thought Michael Gandolfini did well. So did Ray Liotta in his dual roles.

This Is Us did a pretty good job conveying just this via Randall's search for his bio father and bio mother. It didn't shy away from the challenges of being a Black child raised by white parents, but whenever Randall imagined his "ghost family" (what might have happened if his bio parents had raised him), they were barely different in character from his adoptive parents.

@MSTREE in the other Discontinued Products thread over on "Everything Else" mentioned not being able to find the Pioneer Woman's sauces. I managed to order a jar of her Garden Vegetable Pasta Sauce on Amazon, but her other pasta sauces were on the "Add To List," which means they're unavailable. The Garden Vegetable was billed as "Only two left in stock." The jar of sauce arrived yesterday, as promised, but a little of it had dribbled out of the jar. It had obviously been opened. Now I'm wondering if I should go ahead and use it or just throw it out. Amazon says it isn't returnable.

I managed to order some of her Garden Vegetable Pasta Sauce on Amazon, but her other products were on the dreaded "Add to List". That implies "we'll send it when we get more in stock," but translates to "we don't have any and don't know when we will." By the way, there is a whole thread in Food devoted to beloved discontinued food products.

Maybe he did in Clash of the Titans. It's been ages since I saw the 80's movie, and I didn't see the remake. It was a different hero, Bellerophon, who flew on Pegasus to kill the Chimera. He then tried to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus, but Pegasus threw him off. She was the Queen of the Amazons. Theseus had an affair with her, and married her in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I had a special rooting interest in tonight's game: Daniel Pecoraro was a student of mine back in 2007-08! He founded the Trivia and Knowledge Club at our school, where we frequently play Jeopardy! I would have been over the moon if he had dethroned Matt, but alas it was not to be. I was disappointed that he missed the mythology question in FJ, since I taught him Classical Greek, but Centaur wasn't a bad guess. At least he knew Hippocrene was somehow related to a horse.

I thought the same thing regarding placing the DD under the lower value clues, which Matt isn't as likely to pick, at least not early in the game. But J! is super careful to avoid anything that smacks of rigging. Last night I got Rebel Without a Cause, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Maya Angelou. I got FJ at the last minute, after thinking of Elton John and Billy Joel, even though I was sure both had released albums before 1975. I remembered the hype around "Born to Run" . There was some "Who is this guy and why have I never heard of him?" backlash at the time. Springsteen didn't become an undisputed superstar until the 80's if memory serves.

A few other possibilities. I suppose technically flying squirrels don't actually fly; they leap.

I thought Matt should have been told to be more specific on "Florida", since there's also Florida State University as well as the University of Florida. OTOH, the latter is the only one in Gainesville, so I guess that's the rationale. Guhan...so close. Nice of Mayim to say "It all comes down to Final Jeopardy," although it was obviously going to be another Matt victory unless he did a Cliff Clavin. It was a real contest for second place though.

It could also have been called a Leave it to Beaver moment, although that one involved a washing machine rather than a dishwasher.

Or one of these? (Though I've never heard of most of them.)

I don't think so, because that would be the former queen of the Netherlands, not the author.

I wondered if there were another author of children's books named Potter and I came across this one. None of the books appear to involve rabbits, though. My guess is that no one wanted to chance the spelling of "Beatrix". I was sorry to miss last night's game, since I gather it actually came down to FJ.

If there were a Mad magazine parody of J!, that would be his name. The magazine was perfectly geared to a 14 year old's sense of humor (though I kept reading and enjoying it until the 2000's, when I was waaaay over 14).

Last week I watched King of the Hill, a Soderbergh movie from 1993 (not to be confused with the Mike Judge cartoon). It's about a boy, Aaron, fending for himself living in a rundown hotel in 1930's St. Louis. His father is a traveling salesman and his mother is in a tuberculosis sanitarium. His streetwise pal is played by Adrien Brody, and Lauryn Hill has a small part as a gum-popping elevator operator. Aaron is well played by Jesse Bradford, whom I'd never seen in anything else. This week I saw Bound by Flesh, a documentary about the conjoined twin sisters Daisy and Violet Hilton. They were wildly popular in sideshows and vaudeville throughout the 1910's and 1920's, exploited and abused by their "aunt" Mary Hilton who "adopted" them (essentially bought them from their mother) and Mary's daughter and son-in-law. They sued for release from their contract and won (shades of Britney Spears!) but fell on hard times as the entertainment industry changed. They ended up essentially living on charity in Charlotte, NC, and died in early 1969. Daisy died several days before Violet did. 😧

We seem to be pretty evenly split here between Matt lovers and haters. I love winning streaks too, but I'm not crazy about all the runaway games. Last night I almost turned it off partway through DJ when the outcome became obvious. I think Matt corrected himself right away and Odessa didn't. Can someone reconfirm with playback? Mike Richards has his share of sins, but I didn't note favoritism as one of them.

Only if there's a possibility of his being confused with this guy. I was briefly obsessed with heavyweight boxing in the 70s and so knew Leon Spinks and Joe Frazier. I also knew poke, January, and Alfred, but blanked on FJ. Wow, that game was actually in doubt until almost the end!

Not exactly the same thing, but there is a rare Ken Jennings bobblehead.