Jeopardy! Season 38 (2021-2022)

[Prevailing Wind]

Taking Quaid movies to Small Talk...

[secnarf]

8 hours ago, rubaco said:

 

Back to "Jeopardy": when Ken says "We're taking a 2-week break for the tournament," does that literally mean that the tapings also break for 2 weeks? I mean technically, they could continue their tapings and just hold them for later. 

No, I assume that is for the at-home audience's benefit, just like when they mention Friday/Mondays, "see you next week", etc.

[Leeds]

8 hours ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Taking Quaid movies to Small Talk...

 Where do I find Small Talk?  Thanks!

[GreekGeek]

7 hours ago, Leeds said:

 Where do I find Small Talk?  Thanks!

 

[Leeds]

31 minutes ago, GreekGeek said:

 

Thanks, GreekGeek -- I swear I looked in the right place!

[Good Queen Jane]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:25 PM, shapeshifter said:

Didn't Matt Amodio lose when he came back from a break?

Actually, he did. What may be confusing is that the shows for special tournaments aren't shown in the same order as the regular contestants shows. My understanding for the regular comtestants, they tape five shows a day for two weeks, take a break for several weeks, and then start up the five a day for another two weeks. The tournament shows are taped on a separate schedule. But the posters that have actually been on the show can correct me. Matt said he lost his rhythm after he came back from the normal taping break, but it looked like no break had occurred when the show was shown.

[853fisher]

Professor Blum spoke so passionately about "Moby Dick" that she almost made me want to read it.  Almost, but maybe not quite!  I wonder whether I cited her in a paper once or something, or it's just one of those names that seems familiar.  In other news, I wondered whether they would've taken just "Vatican" on the DD?  I was worried about how exactly to describe "Vatican II" to make it match the clue.  I also have to ask, isn't the Persian language better known as Farsi everywhere, not just Iran?  That's how I know it.

 

"It's a Wonderful Life" seemed made for me, and it was a cakewalk, except for the "Home Alone" clue.  Something about the phrasing was just difficult for me to parse.  I got hung up on "...wasn't his name Macaulay...was his brother in that movie...what does it mean to catch life...oh...1 and 2..." and it was all over by that point.  Put a little more straightforwardly, I'm sure I could've answered correctly.  How that was supposed to be easier than "name Donna Reed from this photo" and "name the very well known director whose masterwork this very well known movie is" is beyond me.  But probably I'm just being a crank because I really wanted to run that category!

 

Anyway, here is a little article that tells a bit more about how it went in and out of the public domain, for anyone curious.  I thought "Paramount got the rights back in the 90s" was at best an extremely blunt summation of what happened.  I'm sorry I'll be missing my own annual viewing again this year.  It's usually one of my favorite holiday outings at an amazing theater near me that plays movies from "Hollywood's Golden Age" with trappings that were common in theatres then, like an organ prelude, but they won't reopen until at least next summer.  When they saw how things were going with COVID, they decided to initiate some HVAC and earthquake work rather than try to swim upstream.  Quite sensible, but disappointing!  Of course I could watch it at home ,but for me it's just not the same.

 

Now maybe things will heat up tomorrow.  I wasn't terribly impressed with gameplay today.  On a petty note, I absolutely hate those little globes on the sides of the lecterns.  I think they look awful the way they wrap around so you can see maybe half of each of them, but they don't visually connect to make a whole.  It’s like they just put the same graphics they would have if the lecterns were still a single unit without noticing that they’re separate now. But of course they didn't ask me. ;)

[PaulaO]

Mayim was introduced as the host of Jeopardy!  WTF?

[ams1001]

73% / 57% / 64%

Sigh. The only category I ran was Post Doctoral, my only DD was Vatican Council, and my only TS was sugar glider, and I did not get FJ.

I did get four each in Wonderful Life, Popes, Girl Groups, and Finals…

 

30 minutes ago, 853fisher said:

I got hung up on "...wasn't his name Macaulay...was his brother in that movie...what does it mean to catch life...oh...1 and 2..." and it was all over by that point. 

Kieran Culkin played cousin Fuller McCallister.

5 minutes ago, PaulaO said:

Mayim was introduced as the host of Jeopardy!  WTF?

I guess since she was officially named one of the hosts before MR went down in flames they're introducing her that way, but it still bugs me that they introduced Ken differently. When he's hosting, he's the host, right? So just introduce them the same way.

[853fisher]

I wondered why Mayim seemed to go out of her way to avoid mentioning Amy's name, instead commenting on "the impressive run of our current champion."  Perhaps this self-contained tournament was not filmed in sequence with the regular games as I had always assumed.  But then why mention an "impressive run"?  What if on Friday there had been a new champion eke out a fairly average win?  I found that odd.

23 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

So just introduce them the same way.

Right.  It's about that simple for me.

[Browncoat]

Instaget FJ for me tonight.

I also got the TS of sugar glider, torpor, and Runaways.

[Katy M]

I said post modern because I didn't know.  Plus, they didn't say turn of what century.

I got the missed clue of sugar glider.

Igot the entire category of post doctorate right.  Bad night.

[Driad]

FJ:  "Turn of the century"?  Why not say which century?  Do you mean 1900, or 2000, or 1200?

[Prevailing Wind]

1 minute ago, Driad said:

FJ:  "Turn of the century"?  Why not say which century?  Do you mean 1900, or 2000, or 1200?

I was just going to complain about that.  I thought things were supposed to get better post-Richards.

[Bastet]

Since I'll be watching football tonight, I just checked the archive.  For most of the clues with pictures, I didn't need the photo to know the correct response, and then there were a couple where it wouldn't have helped and a couple where I feel comfortable assuming if I'd seen the picture, I'd have recognized it/them.

I hate It's a Wonderful Life, but I ran that category - although my initial response to the Home Alone clue was "Huh?"  I also ran magazines, but that was it for the first round; I missed three in Popes (shocking, I know), two in marsupials, and one each in Post-Doc and elbow.

In DJ, I only ran girl groups, but I did pretty well overall; I missed two each in finals and authors, and one each in the rest.

FJ was an instaguess that turned out to be right; I didn't know exactly how Nieuwe was pronounced (I've since looked it up), but it brought to mind "new".  So that plus modern made me think art nouveau.  I had no idea if that was right (I wasn't sure if the timing fit), but nothing else came to mind as more likely, so I stuck with it.

 

[853fisher]

While I'm in a critical mood, apparently...

I also was unsure about the clue that mentioned "Thandie Newton."  She announced nearly a year ago that she would like to go by Thandiwe, the original spelling of her name (which she unhappily simplified for Hollywood).  I suppose the credit in the movie discussed would have been under Thandie, but I thought it would have been respectful to use the name she has indicated she wants to use.  Sources like the New York Times now write "Thandiwe," in reference to her current and past work.  Hey, it's the little things!

I'm also not particularly convinced that "neuveau" would be phonetically correct for "nouveau," since such a point was made of that.  In French it would be pronounced quite differently.  In English, yeah, I guess "neu-" is sometimes prunounced "new," as in "neutrino" or "neuter."  But, meh.

Edited December 7, 2021 by 853fisher

[Bastet]

3 minutes ago, 853fisher said:

I also was unsure about the clue that mentioned "Thandie Newton."  She announced nearly a year ago that she would like to go by Thandiwe, the original spelling of her name (which she unhappily simplified for Hollywood).

Ah, I'm glad you mentioned that - I saw "Thandiwe" Newton written recently and thought it was a typo.  I did not know that was her real name she's gone back to.  Good for her reclaiming it.

And, yes, that's how she should have been referred to in the clue.  I just checked her IMDb page to make sure it's correct, and yep - she's Thandiwe Newton, and her old credits just note "(as Thandie Newton)".

[SoMuchTV]

4 minutes ago, 853fisher said:

I also was unsure about the clue that mentioned "Thandie Newton."  She announced nearly a year ago that she would like to go by Thandiwe, the original spelling of her name (which she unhappily simplified for Hollywood).  I suppose the credit in the movie discussed would have been under Thandie, but I thought it would have been respectful to use the name she has indicated she wants to use.  Sources like the New York Times now write "Thandiwe," in reference to her current and past work.  Hey, it's the little things...

This post gets a “light bulb” from me, because I had never heard about her recent change of her preferred name. I’m not a big follower of celebrity news, so I guess the only way I would have heard about it is if I’d IMDb’d her and noticed that all the movies I remembered her from showed her as “as Thandie Newton”. So with those potential issues, maybe it wasn’t the best clue to use.

[shapeshifter]

I got the TS of "cat" in the LESSER-KNOWN MARSUPIALS because of "...sometimes competes with domestic ones for food," and it looked possibly soft and cuddly.

 

I really wanted to know if Hester was named after Hester Prynne and if that had anything to do with her becoming an English professor. 

 

10 hours ago, Good Queen Jane said:

Actually, he did. What may be confusing is that the shows for special tournaments aren't shown in the same order as the regular contestants shows. My understanding for the regular comtestants, they tape five shows a day for two weeks, take a break for several weeks, and then start up the five a day for another two weeks. The tournament shows are taped on a separate schedule. But the posters that have actually been on the show can correct me. Matt said he lost his rhythm after he came back from the normal taping break, but it looked like no break had occurred when the show was shown.

Thanks for verifying that, @Good Queen Jane.
Do you know if the break we're seeing now will have been experienced by Amy?

 

1 hour ago, 853fisher said:

Professor Blum spoke so passionately about "Moby Dick" that she almost made me want to read it.  Almost, but maybe not quite!  I wonder whether I cited her in a paper once or something, or it's just one of those names that seems familiar

Possibly: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hester+blum

But for sure Harold Bloom. 😉

 

10 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I said post modern because I didn't know.  Plus, they didn't say turn of what century.

14 minutes ago, Driad said:

FJ:  "Turn of the century"?  Why not say which century?  Do you mean 1900, or 2000, or 1200?

I spent way too much time pondering: "The turn of which century????"
But that was just because I was not familiar with "Nieuwe Kunst" and "Modernista" referring to "Art Nouveau."  
I considered "Modernism," which is apparently not a terrible guess: wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

[ams1001]

24 minutes ago, 853fisher said:

While I'm in a critical mood, apparently...

I also was unsure about the clue that mentioned "Thandie Newton."  She announced nearly a year ago that she would like to go by Thandiwe, the original spelling of her name (which she unhappily simplified for Hollywood).  I suppose the credit in the movie discussed would have been under Thandie, but I thought it would have been respectful to use the name she has indicated she wants to use.  Sources like the New York Times now write "Thandiwe," in reference to her current and past work.  Hey, it's the little things!

I just learned that because she was on the Daily Show last week; I wasn't sure I heard right when Trevor introduced her, then I noticed the spelling on the video title (I was watching on YouTube) and went a-googling. I was giving the benefit of the doubt that the clues were written/show was taped months ago; but I just looked again and wikipedia says she announced the name change in April 2021. The professors' tournament was taped on October 25-26.

But maybe they were just going with how it would have appeared in the credits on that movie?

Edited December 7, 2021 by ams1001

[Bastet]

48 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

But maybe they were just going with how it would have appeared in the credits on that movie?

What someone goes by now is how you refer to them now, and only if it's relevant that they went by another name at a specific time, that gets noted (e.g. her IMDb page being for Thandiwe Newton and credits where she was billed as Thandie Newton having that parenthetical notation).

And not just in obvious examples like referring to the star of Juno as Elliot, not Ellen, Page.  If, say, J! wrote a clue about Parenthood it would read, "Joaquin Phoenix played the troubled son of Dianne Wiest in this Ron Howard ensemble," not "Leaf Phoenix played ...".

Newton should have been referred to as Thandiwe.  If they thought her name change is not popularly known, they could have written "Thandiwe (known then as Thandie) Newton played ...".  The way it was written makes me think they're like me and didn't know she'd gone back to her original name, but I'm one random person sitting in front of my TV; they're a group of people responsible for fact-checking the content they put out for broadcast on that television.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Bastet

[kathyk24]

1 hour ago, 853fisher said:

I wondered why Mayim seemed to go out of her way to avoid mentioning Amy's name, instead commenting on "the impressive run of our current champion."  Perhaps this self-contained tournament was not filmed in sequence with the regular games as I had always assumed.  But then why mention an "impressive run"?  What if on Friday there had been a new champion eke out a fairly average win?  I found that odd.

Right.  It's about that simple for me.

It's possible that Amy wasn't the champion when this was taped. My nephew attends Roanoke College so I'll see if he knows Gary. 

[secnarf]

It does irk me that they refer to Mayim as the host and Ken as "hosting". I do know that Ken is not actually a permanent host while Mayim is, however it feels like it is a deliberate dig at Ken and to remind him and the audience that he didn't get the permanent gig. It is in poor taste, IMO.

I also thought Mayim's remarks were odd at the beginning, to refer to the "impressive run" without mentioning Amy's name. Obviously they had to know Amy was still champ in order to mention an "impressive run", so it just seemed awkward.

It did stress me out a bit seeing the contestant in the first podium in the red, though - I am getting used to Amy being in that spot!

My brain wasn't really cooperating tonight though - I was having trouble pulling words out of my brain, though the words I was searching for were mostly wrong (e.g. hibernate). And it doesn't help that every time sugar glider comes up, I incorrectly answer flying squirrel. I read a book in elementary school that involved a flying squirrel and I wish I could remember the name of the book or plot! I just vividly remember that there was a flying squirrel. Not sure exactly what age I was when we read it but I am pretty sure it was a chapter book.

Edited to add: I'm pretty sure it was this book as the post there directly describes my recollections. This book is the reason why I always incorrectly answer flying squirrel 🤦‍♀️

[stonehaven]

I ran Girl Groups...no surprise but I also ran the Pope category so that thrilled me. Not Catholic or even a geek for history but I knew 'em all....It helps that my best friend is Orthodox Catholic, maybe?

I missed seeing Amy but the first professor fell out of favor when she guessed "Summer Sisters" for "Pointer Sisters". I actually shouted an expletive at the TV and I never do that so when Gary rang in, I cheered like mad.

I like Mayim hosting but I like Ken too...and would really like BOTH to be announced as "Hosting" until a REAL permanent choice is made for the duration.

I also would love to say that I adore their use of Johnny Gilbert reading quotes for clues. They should do that more often...

[shapeshifter]

10 minutes ago, stonehaven said:

I like Mayim hosting but I like Ken too...and would really like BOTH to be announced as "Hosting" until a REAL permanent choice is made for the duration.

Job titles are written into contracts. Sometimes it's not worth opening the can of worms that is renegotiating a contract just to get a title change.

[possibilities]

That was one hell of a pitch for Moby Dick. I think I'd read an essay about it before I'd read the whole book, though. If the article convinced me, I'd then wade into the dreaded Melville morass. But not a moment before. I don't need want obsessive gruesome madmen in my head unless there's a serious and well-argued case for why that would be a good idea.

[GreekGeek]

Regarding the clue about the former Pope, I thought it was odd that the contestant was allowed to say "Benedict" without adding "the 16th."

[stonehaven]

I agree. There were 15 choices before the most recent....That needed a BMS...

[30 Helens]

9 hours ago, secnarf said:

It does irk me that they refer to Mayim as the host and Ken as "hosting". I do know that Ken is not actually a permanent host while Mayim is, however it feels like it is a deliberate dig at Ken and to remind him and the audience that he didn't get the permanent gig. It is in poor taste, IMO.

It bothers me, too. But I don’t think it’s a dig at Ken. If they wanted to insult Ken, they’d just cut him loose. What it does say, though, is they’ve made up their minds and the job belongs to Mayim. That makes me sad because Ken is sooo much better at it. He’s relaxed, he makes dumb jokes (which I enjoy) and he creates an atmosphere of friendly, supportive competition. He gets the contestants because he’s one of them, and you can feel it.

Mayim, on the other hand, is professional, polished, and detached. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a perfectly good host, but she reminds me of a flight attendant giving pre-flight instructions to the passengers. The tone is appropriately friendly, just noticeably practiced and impersonal. Before Ken returned, I was fine with Mayim— she was growing on me, in fact— but now that I’ve gotten a taste of Ken 2.0, I want him to stay.

[Clanstarling]

13 hours ago, PaulaO said:

Mayim was introduced as the host of Jeopardy!  WTF?

She was introduced as the host prior to Ken's run as well. I seem to recall a similar discussion when Ken started this hosting run.

12 hours ago, Katy M said:

I got the missed clue of sugar glider.

I said flying squirrel and was disappointed. Maybe the one I saw when I was a kid was a sugar glider, but I have never heard of them. But Rocky of Rocky and Bullwinkle, that squirrel I know.

12 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I got the TS of "cat" in the LESSER-KNOWN MARSUPIALS because of "...sometimes competes with domestic ones for food," and it looked possibly soft and cuddly.

I really wanted to know if Hester was named after Hester Prynne and if that had anything to do with her becoming an English professor. 

I said "her name is like something out of an Hawthorne book"  - I guess I didn't grab Hester Prynne out of my mind in time.

2 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

Regarding the clue about the former Pope, I thought it was odd that the contestant was allowed to say "Benedict" without adding "the 16th."

True enough, but he is the only one who was designated "emeritus" in 2013. So perhaps that's why.

Then again, I was good with it because that's what I said. 😁 I did way better in the Pope category than I thought - I audibly groaned when the category was read.

Had no idea for FJ - I threw out BauHaus, which I knew was completely wrong.

I do prefer Ken over Mayim, but I'll get used to her again if she's the designated host. Unfortunately, it seems like Buzzy isn't even in the conversation. Which bums me out a little.

[ams1001]

13 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

I said flying squirrel and was disappointed. Maybe the one I saw when I was a kid was a sugar glider, but I have never heard of them. But Rocky of Rocky and Bullwinkle, that squirrel I know.

I said flying squirrel when I saw the picture but then I heard the word sugar in the clue and corrected myself. My ex had a 6-pound chihuahua and he used to joke that he wanted to get him a sugar glider as a pet because it was the only thing smaller than him.

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Browncoat said:

Instaget FJ for me tonight.

Me, too.  Helps that I know "kunst" is German for art and "nieuwe" seemed like it must be German for new; Art Nouveau is the French name for it, but the movement started in Germany.  I love Art Nouveau.

I got sugar glider because the son of one of the attorneys here at court used to have one.

11 hours ago, possibilities said:

That was one hell of a pitch for Moby Dick. I think I'd read an essay about it before I'd read the whole book, though. If the article convinced me, I'd then wade into the dreaded Melville morass. But not a moment before. I don't need want obsessive gruesome madmen in my head unless there's a serious and well-argued case for why that would be a good idea.

Nothing would ever make me read Moby Dick.

17 hours ago, PaulaO said:

Mayim was introduced as the host of Jeopardy!  WTF?

Host of the special tournament.  That was announced back during the Mike Richards clusterfuck.

While I didn't think the level of clues was really up to a professor's tournament, I was glad that I'll actually be able to watch Jeopardy for the next 2 weeks.  I was starting to think I wouldn't get to do so again before the new year.

[PBnJay]

16 hours ago, secnarf said:

I read a book in elementary school that involved a flying squirrel and I wish I could remember the name of the book or plot!

The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle?

[Gimmick Genius]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

Me, too.  Helps that I know "kunst" is German for art and "nieuwe" seemed like it must be German for new; Art Nouveau is the French name for it, but the movement started in Germany.  I love Art Nouveau.

 

I wish one of the contestants had been cheeky enough to respond, "What is Art Fleming?"

(Hey, there were lots of Flemish artists...😜)

 

[Packerbrewerbadger]

I said flying squirrel because Peri ( the flying squirrel) was my very first Disney movie in a theater circa 1957-58 and I have never forgotten it. 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Packerbrewerbadger

[Bastet]

Quickly reading the "way it moves from tree to tree" part of the clue made my first thought flying squirrel (as an X-Files fan, flying squirrel is in my brain thanks to "Bad Blood"), but once I read the rest of the clue, I saw it had to be a sugar [synonym of volplaner] and then glider was an instaget.  (Not because I immediately recognized volplaning meant gliding, just because sugar glider is the only sugar something-er animal I know of.)

Edited December 7, 2021 by Bastet

[Prevailing Wind]

I know sugar glider because a late friend of mine, who had never heard of a sugar glider, kept having dreams where the words "sugar glider" were an integral part. He was completely baffled, googled it when he awoke, and was even more baffled. How the hell did his subconscious know that?

I had a similar thing with "marrons glacé" running through my brain all night long, only to find out upon awakening that they're candied chestnuts. I had no freakin' idea.

[853fisher]

Now, I trust it wasn't just me whose first thought about "Old Geographic Names" was that the clue might not be anybody's business but the Turks.

[ams1001]

57% / 60% / 57%

I almost didn't keep score and I kinda regret doing so...Now I want a Moscow mule and I used up the last of my ginger beer the other day. :(

There were 5 TS in the first round, and 4 in the second plus a missed DD. I got none of them. Didn't get FJ, either. Only thing I ran was I've got a Theory, and got four each in Nonfiction and Mountains.

I was rooting for John and his fantabulous beard, but alas.

[Browncoat]

I could have sat here all night and not come up with FJ, although I recognized it when the correct response was revealed.

But I did get the TS of "Annie Get Your Gun" and Physiology.  

I, too, was rooting for John and his fantabulous beard.

[Katy M]

I feel like in the last couple of weeks I've been taking stupid pills.

I said bonobo too because I don't know primates and we all know that geography is also not my subject.

I got the entire pop culture category wrong.

I got the missed clues of Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Grover Cleveland, and Annie Get Your Gun (the only one I got that category) right.

[SoMuchTV]

34 minutes ago, ams1001 said:

I was rooting for John and his fantabulous beard, but alas.

I was rooting for John despite his fantabulous beard!  Also alas.

But this almost felt like upside down world for me, as far as the clue values. I was just as likely to know or not know anything, regardless of where it was on the board. 

Before They Were President seemed  especially tough for me. The only one I knew was Rhodes scholar Clinton. 

[Katy M]

2 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

Before They Were President seemed  especially tough for me. The only one I knew was Rhodes scholar Clinton. 

I missed Clinton.  And I know that Truman and Eisenhowere are from Missouri and Kansas, but I always get mixed up which is which.  I mean the states border each other, they're consecutive presidents.  It's a set up for failure.  

I don't know if this counts as a fun fact, but my dad's fave president is FDR, his least fave president is Truman (I've tried to find out why exactly, but I get a nonsensical answer) and my mom's fave president is Eisenhower (I think mostly because she met him). If her least fave president were JFK that would just round it out in the consecutive thing.  I hope that doesn't count as a political post as all those presidents are dead.

[853fisher]

I said the Maghreb.  I had really talked myself into believing there was such a thing as a "Maghreb ape" by the end of the think music.  I wonder where I ever got that from!

"Name the Musical" would be a dream for me if I was on the show, and I did get all 5!  Here, for something a little different, is Lawrence Welk's orchestra doing "I Could Have Danced All Night" with a lovely ballroom routine.  Lord knows his style was dated when it was new, but for all the corny setups and so on, his instrumentalists were top drawer.  I find it can just hit the spot for a bit of old-fashioned charm.

Anyway, back to the musicals, the first thing I saw on Facebook was a "think piece" alleging that "Casablanca" no longer resonates with, so it was nice to see on the show tonight that some of the works I consider "classics" are still celebrated in some venues, even if they did all let me down on "Annie Get Your Gun."

[ams1001]

26 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I said bonobo too because I don't know primates and we all know that geography is also not my subject.

I've heard of Barbary ape/macaque, and the Barbary Coast, but I never would have come up with it.

17 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

I was rooting for John despite his fantabulous beard!  Also alas.

lol...I'm not really a facial hair fan, generally.

[secnarf]

Well, I said Berber 🙄 The term Barbary didn't even ring a bell for me, but googled it and yes they are as related as they sound.

Unless it's a monkey, rhesus monkey (which I do know are from Asia), gorilla, chimpanzee or orangutan, I am useless with primates.

[Katy M]

14 minutes ago, secnarf said:

Unless it's a monkey, rhesus monkey (which I do know are from Asia), gorilla, chimpanzee or orangutan, I am useless with primates.

And lemurs.  I think they're classified as primates.  But, geographically challenged though I am, I know Madagascar is not northwest.

[zoey1996]

On 12/6/2021 at 7:00 PM, 853fisher said:

Professor Blum spoke so passionately about "Moby Dick" that she almost made me want to read it.  Almost, but maybe not quite!

I’m still reading “Moby Dick” and have been for years, on and off. I am determined to finish it.

[Bastet]

The physiology TS surprised me a bit, but that was a good game - very evenly matched (including the fact they each missed a DD).

I was as bad as the contestants with the presidents category, missing three (not all the same three as them; I got the Jackson TS, but didn't know the $200 clue of Truman).  I was even worse in pop culture, missing all but one.  I also missed one each in non-fiction (the $200 Steve Jobs clue, and boy did I smack my forehead when that was revealed), mountains, and office -- the only thing I ran in the first round was the vocabulary category.

I did better in DJ, even though I only ran theory (thanks to The West Wing, I heard C.J.'s "Is it comprehensive?" quip in my head at "theory of everything").  Surprisingly, I only missed two in mythology.  I missed another two each in Russia and PhD, and one each in words and musicals (I know nothing about Dear Evan Hansen other than it exists, and I don't think this is the first time that specific bit of ignorance has cost me a J! clue).

And I got FJ, so this was a game where I got better as I went.  Concentrating on the geography, I quickly thought of Barbary Coast, but I'd never heard of a Barbary Something animal, so I thought that wasn't it and switched to trying to think of African primates.  I could only think of mandrill, and that didn't ring any bells as a region, so I was back to square one.  Not having anything else to guess, I went with Barbary.

[853fisher]

I did think McKinley was a respectable guess for "he was mayor of Buffalo," by which I mean it was also my guess. ;)

Actually, McKinley was one of the many Ohioan presidents.  The association between him and Buffalo, which I bet both Katie and I had in the back of our minds, is that it was the location of his assassination at the Pan-American Exposition there in 1901.

Trivia: Cleveland is one of four former New York governors to have become president.  The others are Martin Van Buren and both Roosevelts.

Edited December 8, 2021 by 853fisher