All Episodes Discussion: The Daily Double

[Bastet]

The Calypso going unanswered really surprised me.

 

I thought Rena would be around longer, but Shane played a great game.

 

Game conditions, brain farts, different people know different things and all that, but Puerto Rico was just a dumb answer in FJ.

 

And did Alex really say taking visually-impaired kids white water rafting was evidence of a weird sense of humor?

Edited October 11, 2014 by Bastet

[Etta Place]

The Calypso was in my time, and I spent the whole time allotment going "oh man, the .... it was the .... argh!" until they revealed the answer.

[peeayebee]

John Denver's song always pops into my head when Cousteau's ship is mentioned, so I have no trouble remembering it.

[Sharpie66]

I was also singing "Aye, Calypso, the places you've been to, the things that you've shown us, the stories you tell..."

[Prevailing Wind]

I guess knowing that song pretty much nails how old we are.

[Sharpie66]

John Denver's death was almost as shocking to me as Jim Henson's, so I guess that marks me as a first-wave GenXer, so I agree with the whole getting-older thing!

[rereader2]

Plus, 70 people does not a proper statistical sampling set make -- even pollsters usually try to get at least 1000 people. And the people in the audience payed to be there, so it was closed to the public.  After nearly 4 hours of presentations, I have a suspicion that George Washington presented first and everyone slept through most of the remaining presentations.

 

If I recall my statistics classes correctly, you need 1500 to have a statistical universe; even a random (and it MUST be random) group of 1000 has a high margin of error. 70 is meaningless, statistically. (Small groups like that are only used properly in medical/science studies if they are looking to see if a hypothesis is worth putting the time and money for a REAL study into.)

[M. Darcy]

I can't believe none of them knew Jackie Robinson.

[YoureSoUrban]

 

I can't believe none of them knew Jackie Robinson.

That blew my mind. Amanda didn't even get that it was a baseball player.

That game had so many TS I wonder if it was a record. It must be somewhere in the Jeopardy trivia archives the highest number of TS ever. This one had to be close, or maybe it just felt like it.

[pandora spocks]

I knew the FJ answer because of Archie Bunker making remarks about 1947 and Jackie Robinson on All in the Family. 

[peeayebee]

Alex said that Dan is going home with $5600. Isn't he coming back the next game along with Shane?

[CarpeDiem54]

I'm not a huge baseball fan and I said Jackie Robinson right away. His story affected a lot more than sports. I was shocked Shane didn't get it after he ran that baseball category on Friday.

All the TS sure slowed the game down and left a lot of clues on the board.

[Gilmel]

I'm not a big sports person, unless it's the Olympics, but I knew it was Jackie Robinson because I know the year. When I was a kid, I read the book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson and I've remembered his rookie year in MLB was 1947 ever since.

[rubaco]

Alex said that Dan is going home with $5600. Isn't he coming back the next game along with Shane?

 

 

Yes, he certainly should be back again today to co-defend. I think Alex just misspoke.

[sugarbaker design]

I'm not a huge baseball fan and I said Jackie Robinson right away.

 

 

I'm not a huge sports fan and I didn't get it at all!

 

I was shocked Shane didn't get it after he ran that baseball category on Friday.

 

 

Ditto!  I thought he had it in the bag, sir, please.

[Etta Place]

I loathe baseball, but I managed to get Jackie Robinson. I think it was just a thought process about what sport would involve a boss and a player so closely associated with taking any sort of risk, and somehow that got me to the right place.

[how55]

How about that the clue about cruise ships that mentioned Central American country. Correct answer was Panama, (which I thought everyone knew). Player said Costa Rica & Alex says, 'Well you were in the right part of the world". Shut up, Alex.

Count me in as shocked too that no one got Jackie Robinson. 1947 was too early for Mickey Mantle & too late for Babe Ruth.

[Roaster]

During the contestant chat, the one on the right said she had once had a collection of over 1000 nail polishes.  And that she developed her own nail polish which was sold nationwide.  That was interesting and I would have liked to have heard more.

 

The final category in DJ was on authors and everybody was striking out.  I'm not a literary guy and I got them - were they really that hard?

 

I did strike out on FJ however.  Glad somebody got it.

[GreekGeek]

I'm embarrassed that I didn't come up with Jackie Robinson yesterday, especially after seeing the biopic of him last spring. I thought of Lou Gehrig for some reason.

 

Dan's rambling tale about mistaking the sun for the moon in Paris apparently caused quite the stir online as the dullest and stupidest Jeopardy story ever. I wonder if that's why he barely got to talk on today's interview? I, personally, didn't think his anecdote was as bad as the one told by a young woman about not being able to figure out how to open the envelope containing her diploma. Some years ago, the first contestant told such a long story that there was no time to interview the other two--at least Dan didn't do that! (It helped that he talked second, of course.)

 

I also didn't think those questions on the authors were that hard. The Academic Dean at a school where I used to work would quote the Robert Frost poem ("Nothing Gold Can Stay") at Commencement every year, and it never failed to choke me up. People must not read Catcher in the Rye in school the way they used to--"Pencey Prep" was a giveaway if you know the book at all.

 

I feel intelligent again after getting Heinz in FJ.

[YoureSoUrban]

 

Yikes, I just cringed at the McDonald's guess for Final Jeopardy.

I cringed too, then guffawed. It would have been better to not write anything than propose that fast food burgers were around in 1896.

 

Go Shane! He crushed Hipster Dan today and I love that he's a KISS fan. Still had to giggle at Alex during both of their interviews because he kept saying "Rock and roll". 

[CarpeDiem54]

"Hipster Dan" hahaha. Glad he lost. He was getting on my nerves. I'm still on Team Shane, the old rocker.

I managed to guess FJ because I could only think of one product with a number in its slogan or name that was appropriately old enough. McDonald's? Really?

[rereader2]

I got Heinz right away, because of the 37 varieties thing.

 

I was pretty shocked at ...was it Dan? not getting Virginia Woolf--"A Room of One's Own" is the sort of essay that people who haven't read it know about.

[gwlisa]

I guessed Coca Cola for FJ. The numbers thing didn't strike me as meaningful based on the wording of the answer.

[Bastet]

I was pretty shocked at ...was it Dan? not getting Virginia Woolf--"A Room of One's Own" is the sort of essay that people who haven't read it know about.

 

My eyes bugged out of my head when he didn't know that, and there was another DD someone couldn't answer that also surprised me.

 

I was waiting for another, "Time to start reading again" remark from Alex when the contestants blew that authors category, and they'd have deserved it. 

 

FJ popped into my head almost instantly for some reason.

[peeayebee]

I was kicking myself for missing FJ. Actually, I'm not sure I would have gotten it, but as I tried to come up with the answer, I forgot about the part where the slogan had mentioned the number. So I guessed Johnson & Johnson. 

 

McDonald's was a ridiculous answer.

 

Missing Virginia Wolf when "a room of one's own" is in the clue is horrendous.

 

I got Toledo in the El Greco clue because there's a painting (at least one) that had 'Toledo' in the title. I just assumed that that was significant.

[Etta Place]

Not only had they not read anything, they hadn't even seen The Outsiders. Even Ponyboy Curtis would have known Robert Frost wrote "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

[sugarbaker design]

I was originally shocked when that quote from "Nothing Gold Can Stay" was on the bottom rung of answers (I forget the actual dollar amount).  I was doubly shocked when no one got it.

[Sharpie66]

I was waffling back and forth between Heinz and Proctor and Gamble, but eventually settled on Heinz due to the number in the slogan part of the clue.

[Jesse]

I knew S.E. Hinton hadn't written Nothing Gold Can Stay, but couldn't come up with the actual author in time. 

[ottoDbusdriver]

I couldn't believe the $200 TS in the Jeopardy round in the TV Guide says category -- there are not one but two TV shows Hawaii 5-0 that have a McGarrett in them.

 

That FJ clue was ..... odd.  I had no clue.

[GreekGeek]

 

That FJ clue was ..... odd.  I had no clue.

I thought of "redact/react". 

[peeayebee]

The only thing I could come up with was "shift/shit." 

 

I, too, was shocked that no one knew Hawaii Five-0. But then, I had no clue on Grimm or … another one I can't remember now.

 

I liked Shane. He had a nice sense of humor and personality, but I like John, too. He's smart and seems nice. I just wish he didn't have that beard.

[ChicagoCita]

I'm intrigued by John being a romance author.  Tried half-assedly to Google him, but couldn't find anything except poorly written gay porn that I doubt paid for an engagement ring.  Anyone got info on what he's written?

[CarpeDiem54]

Candice looked like she was having a seizure when pressing the buzzer. Don't like the new champ's beard. I was clueless on FJ.

[Etta Place]

I got FJ. Took me a second, approaching it from the end and going backward. Initially I thought the second part was going to be "culture shock," which of course led me nowhere on the first part. But I got it well within the time limit.

 

I thought they should have gone for a third part, starting with "a panel behind a sink or stove that protects the wall," then the rest. How many opportunities are they going to have for something like backsplash/blackslash/backlash?!

[Pallida]

I'm intrigued by John being a romance author.  Tried half-assedly to Google him, but couldn't find anything except poorly written gay porn that I doubt paid for an engagement ring.  Anyone got info on what he's written?

I was curious too, but also did a half-ass search.  His name is far too common, and I wouldn't be surprised if he used a pen name.  With the indie market being as niche-driven as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if gay porn (romance) written by someone who isn't gay still made enough to buy an engagement ring.

 

I was not a fan of the final jeopardy clue.  I got hung up thinking of keyboard commands - and I wouldn't consider backslash to be a keyboard command.

[dcalley]

I'm intrigued by John being a romance author.  Tried half-assedly to Google him, but couldn't find anything except poorly written gay porn that I doubt paid for an engagement ring.  Anyone got info on what he's written?

On Jboard, Candice from earlier in the week said he uses a pen name she can't remember.

 

Chattygal,

Wordplay

Subtract a letter from the name of a keystroke found in computer commands & you get this violent reaction to social change.

 

[Marathonrunner]

I went through some of the common computer strokes - alt, control, delete, backslash, forward slash - but never connected backlash with FJ - Heinz 57 was an instaget - hasn't that answer come up a few times over the years?

 

The contestant who did the sun, moon, Paris story the other night made it to The Soup last night - needless to say the story didn't fare any better on that show than it did on Jeopardy

[peeayebee]

I assume John uses a female pen name.

[Totale]

I always assumed the world of romance novels was like Stratemeyer Syndicate books (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew) and the books always used a "house" name.  I also assumed they were all women's names, although the idea that there was such a thing as gay male romance porn hadn't crossed my innocent mind.

[proserpina65]

John Denver's song always pops into my head when Cousteau's ship is mentioned, so I have no trouble remembering it.

 

I could hear the song in my head, but still took a moment to remember the ship's name.  Got it before the buzzer, though.  I was more surprised by no one getting the Artful Dodger.

 

I said Jackie Robinson right away for the FJ, then starting second-guessing myself because I thought the date might be too early.

[proserpina65]

Not only had they not read anything, they hadn't even seen The Outsiders. Even Ponyboy Curtis would have known Robert Frost wrote "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

 

Eh, I've read lots of things (took a lot of lit classes in college, although most of those were English lit not American lit), even some Frost maaaaaannnny years ago, and I had no clue.  Didn't get Salinger either, but then I've never read anything by him.  But missing Virginia Wolfe when "a room of one's own" was in the clue?  That seem more egregious to me.

 

Got the Heinz FJ as a guess based on the "57 varieties" slogan, but had not one clue about last night's.

[proserpina65]

I was not a fan of the final jeopardy clue.  I got hung up thinking of keyboard commands - and I wouldn't consider backslash to be a keyboard command.

 

I got stuck trying to make "Control-Alt-Delete" fit somehow.

I assume John uses a female pen name.

 

So do I.  Having worked in a bookstore for more than a decade (now nearly a decade ago!), I can honestly say I don't remember ever seeing a male author's name on a romance novel.  Erotica, now, that's a whole different bag.

 

[Bastet]

All I needed was the "reaction to social change" part of the clue to instantly think backlash, so that there is a backslash on the keyboard just confirmed it.  If I'd been trying to work my way forward by visualizing all the keystrokes, who knows.

[Totale]

I sat looking at the keys on the computer for a long time - and our computers don't have a backslash

 

On IBM-PC type machines it usually shares the pipe character | , just below the Backspace key on mine.  Don't know about Macs.  I never would have gotten it because clued by the wording of the question I was running through the "command" keys, which the backslash is not, any more than an ampersand or a comma is.

[peeayebee]

I have a Mac, and the backslash is the same as on yours. I should have tried figuring FJ out like Bastet did, starting with the "reaction to social change" part of the clue. Instead, I was thinking not just of a keyboard, but of the keys with words on them, like CONTROL, ESC, and SHIFT.

[Roaster]

I read all those Jules Verne books when I was 12-13.  They hold up remarkably well and remain readable.  The point being - I got FJ right away.

 

Poor Alex.  He is so disappointed when the game is a runaway.

[mojoween]

Aww Kodak as a TS makes me sad. And Merry Widow? No one?

I thought Hansel and Gretel and Watson on the $1000 slots were too easy.

I knew the answer of Aaron Burr, and I'm not ashamed to admit this, because I freaking LOVED this Got Milk ad. Who says TV is not educational?

And I still just randomly say "aaron burr" in that forlorn tone for the hell of it.

That guy on the end looked like he knew Freakonomics and was pretty sad about it.

I garbled FJ by thinking "Journey to the Bottom of the Sea" so I'm not very bright.

So the romance novelist got a literature question right, go figure heh. But I hate his facial fur too.

[GreekGeek]

"Heidi" as a FJ guess was funny, but I thought Alex rubbed it in a little too much.

[CarpeDiem54]

FJ was an Instaget for me tonight. I love Jules Verne books.

What was up with Mr. Beatnick Beard towards the end of DJ? He acted like he was deliberately trying to slow down the game the way he was delaying selecting clues.