Sunday, 27 June 2004
An amazing championship run: Jeopardy! superstar, Ken Jennings
PERSPECTIVES - THE COMMENTARY
By Michael Kwan, for The Commentary
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Tic Tac Dough. The Price is Right. The $100,000 Pyramid. Family Feud. Wheel of Fortune. Concentration. Street Smarts. Password.
Game shows have been a part of North American culture since the early days of television. We have always been fascinated by people winning cash and prizes, and that captivation extends into our own lives. Nearly everyone of legal age has, at the very least, purchased a lottery ticket of some sort, and possibly at most, won (or lost) their life savings on a single spin of the roulette wheel in Vegas. But roulette, lotteries, and others of that ilk are simply games of chance. Your fate lies entirely on chance, and in the long run, you would lose; the odds are simply against you.
Jeopardy! on the other hand, is a different game. Although chance may play a role, Jeopardy! combines academic knowledge, knowledge of pop culture of past and present, quick reflexes and a good deal of strategy. With this rare combination of skills and abilities, Ken Jennings is the current champion, having won 18 consecutive games, amassing $601,760 in the process. Needless to say this software developer's record-setting run is among the greatest in all of game show history. When Jeopardy! did away with the rule that ends a champion's run at five days last fall, everyone wondered, how far could a champion go?
Tom Walsh, the previous record holder, made his mark by becoming a 7-day champion, winning $184,900. Jennings has smashed that record, and he's still going on strong. That's not to say the 30-year-old from Salt Lake City hasn't had his share of scares. Just tonight, on his 18th appearance on the show, Jennings was sure he had another win in the bag, but one of his opponents hit a Daily Double late in Double Jeopardy. With one part guts and another part prayer, Michael made it a true daily double and got it correct. As a result, Jennings went into Final Jeopardy with just over $28,000, with his closest opponent, Michael, not far off with just over $24,000. The Final Jeopardy category was medicine, tapping into knowledge of a clinic in Hawaii that specializes in the treatment of leprosy. Both Ken and Michael provided the correct response, and both wagered right around $20,000; that $4000 buffer between them made all the difference.
Who is Ken Jennings? He is a Brigham Young alumnus, and edits literature and mythology questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournament. A software developer for a Healthcare Placement firm, he is happily married and has an 18-month old son. A devout Mormon and a former missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he has promised a portion of his winnings to his church - a full 10%.
What we are watching now was taped in February and March, and it has been noted that Ken Jennings has been back home for quite some time. So clearly, he has lost. But the questions remain, how long did he last? And what juggernaut was able to topple this giant among Jeopardy! contestants? And where does this place him among the greatest game show contestants of all time?
As far as the biggest dollar-value handed out to a single individual, that title is held by Kevin Olmstead, a Michigan engineer, who won $2,180,000 on one of the special episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? back in April of 2001. Olmstead by that time was no stranger to the trivia game show environment, having become a 2-time champion on Jeopardy! in 1994. It seems very unlikely that Jennings will be able to match that dollar figure; at his current pace, he would need to win a total of 65 games. Olmstead had to win but one game, and beyond the fastest finger question, had no opponent but himself. Olmstead admits, Jeopardy! was a more challenging experience than Millionaire.
So, perhaps a pure dollar figure is not the best measuring stick. If we were to go by number of wins, that title is still held by Lt. Thom McKee. He appeared on Tic Tac Dough in 1980, and amassed $312,700 in cash and prizes. Tic Tac Dough, like Jeopardy!, is a question and answer type competition, but unlike Jeopardy!, it is mostly pop culture. Thom McKee appeared on 46 episodes that season, playing 88 games in total including ties, and winning 43 of them before finally losing. Retired from his military duties, McKee is now involved with commercial real estate. Somehow I don't foresee Jennings becoming a 43-time champion, but I would not be disappointed if he proved me wrong.
Jeopardy! can be found in Vancouver, Monday through Friday at 7:30pm on KOMO-4 (ABC) and Channel M.
Visit The Commentary's Senior Contributing Writer Michael Kwan's own website, Now That's Entertainment. . .