GreekGeek

I'm not crazy about it either, but it seems to be here to stay. She was pretty impressive last night, but that may have been due to weak opponents, since there were a bunch of TS's. I don't mind her expression. She reminds me a bit of a younger Frances McDormand.

The only TS I knew was Ptolemy, but I did figure out FJ. I was surprised that two out of the three had no guess at all. Agree about Nicole's voice: fine for the classroom, not great for TV. I'm not thrilled about Mayim's return, but it won't keep me from watching.

Well, there is a beer called "Pliny the Tiny." They also make onesies. Years ago I saw a Roz Chast cartoon showing "Pliny the Elder," "Pliny the Younger", and 'Pliny the Tiny." The latter was doll-sized. Like many here, I was amazed that two of the three players thought Diana Ross was 95! I thought someone might say Cher.

We had the same idea: I thought of Fail-Safe, which was right as far as the year, but was (thank God) fiction.

Or Barry and Berry? I remember it was controversial a couple of years ago when a contestant wrote "Barry Gordy" in FJ and was ruled wrong.

When I learned that Matt G. was calling himself "OtherMattonJeopardy," I thought he was throwing out a hint that he would be a multi-day champ. I did not expect him to be a one-and-done. Oh well, Amy really earned that win. I was sure someone else would come up with "aerie" after she blurted out something like it at the last second. I wonder if she will call herself "OtherJeopardAmy." I knew Gallipoli largely thanks to the 1981 movie. It was one of Mel Gibson's earliest, back when he was a gorgeous hunk and not a drunken sexist asshole punch line.

My favorites of his films were Broadcast News and The Doctor. In the latter he played an aloof doctor who learns what it's like to be a patient. He was a bit miscast in The Kiss of the Spider Woman, but I enjoyed his performance anyway. May he rest in peace.

I'm amused by the "Maureen was drunk" comments. I admit that never crossed my mind; I took her giggles to be the "I'm laughing so I don't cry" type. I was sad to see her podium empty at the end.

I pre-guessed the Scopes Trial. When the clue revealed a female defendant, my initial thought was Roxie Hart, the protagonist of Chicago, but the New England reference steered me straight. Fun fact: Though the Chicago characters are fictional, the story is based on fact. I heard city-state. I watched the show when it was broadcast, but the sound also seemed a bit off in spots to me.

"Razors pain you/Rivers are damp/Acids stain you/And drugs cause cramp.//Guns aren't lawful, nooses give, gas smells awful, You might as well live." And this poem, called "The Lady's Reward," struck me as a perfect summary and review of a dating manual popular in the 90's called The Rules. Parker was definitely a poet. I thought last night's FJ was difficult because Parker isn't that popular today, but I expected more than one person to know Lizzie Borden tonight.

Regarding "Wagner operas," I think that would have been ruled incorrect for the same reason "elements" wasn't accepted for "noble gases": There's an opera alphabetically after Siegfried, namely Tristan and Isolde. I thought FJ was easy also, but I don't recall that Rent and Hamilton come up more often than other musicals. I thought Bye Bye Birdie was a strange guess; I wonder what Gundeep was thinking.

Yes, it does make sense that's he's referring to his students and not himself. It would get rid of the puzzlement expressed upthread that someone who got a perfect score the first time would ever take the test again. But he should have been clearer. Oh well, it's far from the first time someone didn't express themselves well when being interviewed.

I think we had this come up before. It is technically Daylight Saving, but Daylight Savings has become so commonplace that it was OK by me that Clay was ruled correct. He did rub me the wrong way bragging about his test scores, but I guess it's forgivable given that standardized tests are his profession. My only TS's tonight were gratin, and Mecca if you didn't need to include "Great Mosque." I got stuck on "roux" and didn't think of "mirepoix."

I thought Groundhog Day was one of those movies with a terrific premise that didn't quite know how to resolve the situation. I kept thinking how it would have made a great one-hour episode of The Twilight Zone, with Rod Serling introducing it: "Phil Connors, jaded newsman, dispatched to the small town of Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania, for its once-a-year moment in the sun...or the shadow. The shadow of a groundhog, coincidentally also named Phil. But human Phil is about to fall into a deeper hole than his rodent namesake could ever dig. Stay tuned as Phil broadcasts from...The Twilight Zone!"

Adding my two cents about Tim Considine: Growing up, I watched the later seasons of My Three Sons when they were first run. So as far as I knew, the brothers were Robbie, Chip, and Ernie (and their co-parent was Uncle Charley). It wasn't until much later that I found out there was once another brother, who was written off the show. I guess he went off to college and was never seen again, even when his dad remarried. (Chuck Cunningham syndrome!) Too bad--I really liked Mike (and the very young Chip was adorable!)

You mean like Donkey Ho-tee? I wondered if the Ukraine would turn up as a clue and if so, how the show would address the current situation. The tape date on the screen was a subtle way to handle it. I thought there might be an insert of Ken explaining the show was pre-recorded and maybe offering his sympathies to the people of the Ukraine. Hooray Margaret for that DD wager! A $400 clue in DJ is a relatively safe bet, so I'm glad she went all in. I got FJ--yay me!

My problem with Monty Python--movies and sketches--is that the best bits have been quoted so often that they're just not funny. I still haven't seen Holy Grail.

I know the story has been sugarcoated, but was there anything false in the clue itself? I agree it was admirable of Christine to show her own hair. I wondered if Ken would mention it. I knew Sophie's Choice, golf, Marathon Man, Seville, infinitesimal, Heinz, Charles Schulz, Alfred Stieglitz, and the Mothers of Invention. I should have known The Band, having seen The Last Waltz a long time ago. For FJ, my mind went to the Middle East, not Eastern Europe. Regarding the Peanuts clue, I'm too young to remember Charlotte Braun, but I looked her up. Here is the letter Schultz wrote to the reader urging him to dump Charlotte. I hope young Ms. Swaim didn't take Schulz's dark joke to heart!

I recommend Killing John Wayne by Ryan Uytdewilligen if you're interested in any combination of the following: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Howard Hughes, the 1950's, the history of the atomic age, RKO Studios, the golden age of the historical blockbuster. It's about the making of The Conqueror, in which John Wayne played Genghis Khan in the sort of "yellowface" performance that would never happen today. The "killing" of the title refers to the cancer deaths of Wayne and many others who worked on the film, possibly due to exposure to nuclear weapons testing.

IKR? I didn't bother writing them all down, but I did wonder if that was the lowest runaway score with the present day dollar amounts. I was surprised by how many found FJ difficult. It was an instaget for me, but then I'm a faithful reader of MeTV's website. I find the evolution of the Addams characters interesting. I know they didn't even have names originally, but I wonder if they were imagined as a family before the TV series. Wikipedia has some answers. I did not know they were originally illustrations for a Ray Bradbury book!

In fairness to the show, I don't think there are that many plays (apart from Shakespeare's) which are part of people's general knowledge, unless they're theater buffs. I'll never forget being asked by a professor at a theater conference if I know how A Streetcar Named Desire ends. I thought he was being sarcastic, but he genuinely didn't know. I thought of him during the professors' tournament, when people were underwhelmed by many of the profs' performance. @Prevailing Wind--the other son's name was Happy. It's OK that you forgot him; Willy often forgot about him too. I wasn't sure what they were going for on the Equator clue, but I did know the others. I remember the "Nature's Candy" campaign, along with "The California Raisins" singing "I Heard it through the Grapevine." All you raisin haters, pass me your raisins! I eat them sparingly nowadays because of the sugar, but I never understood the dislike of them. I don't mind the tiebreaker, but I did like the old way better. I'm sad we'll never have moments like this again:

When the first $200 clue of Mosque was a TS, I thought the game would be a dud, but it turned out to be really exciting. I'm happy that Lynde hit those $2000 clues in DJ to make a decent comeback after betting it all on that DD. I guess she never saw the Glenn Close/John Malkovich/Uma Thurman movie (though it did omit the smallpox). I knew odd man out, Betty White (!!), Michael Landon, Tyrrhenian Sea, President Snow, Uriah Heep, the Dangerous Liaisons DD, and Annie Wilkes. I thought of the Medici family just in time.

I never thought of him. If I had, I would have been unsure of the answer. But yes, "terse and vigorous" = Hemingway. I was sure Lara would buzz in for Louis XVI once Louis XV was ruled incorrect. Given the way the rulings have gone lately, I wondered if Jimmy could have gotten away with "Louis"? I also got Les Miserables, The Jungle, Massachusetts, atomic energy, red blood cells, and 9/12/01. I agree it was surprising that The Jungle was a TS, but maybe people got hung up on the name "Jurgis" and tried to figure out which book had a hero by that name.

Good job! Too bad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald didn't mention Duluth. I was running through the lyrics in my head trying to remember if a city name was there. ETA: The last verse mentions Detroit, so that was my guess. I did know Indian Ocean, Sanford, penny ante meridiem, Benjamin, and Deborah. I remembered a church in Virginia, where I lived for eight years, posting the title of the upcoming Sunday sermon as "Judge Debbie." Fun fact: Sanford and Son was based on a British series called Steptoe and Son. No one knew what to call the American series until Redd Foxx, aka John Elroy Sanford, suggested his own name.

Or Matt victims! I would love to see my former student Daniel Pecoraro get another bite of the J! apple. But I agree the logistics are too complicated. My two cents on the "Lawrence looks like..." discussion: John Beck.