‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Question Answer Ruled Wrong After Ken Jennings’ Acceptance

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the September 18 episode of Jeopardy!]

The Second Chance Tournament featuring Season 37 players continued on Jeopardy! with digital journalist Matt Walks, community outreach supervisor Deanna Bolio, and history and Latin teacher Elliott Goodman, and it was early on that one of them got a bit of bad news.

Before her interview following the first commercial break, host Ken Jennings informed Deanna, “I’m afraid I have to give you the bad news first. I inadvertently accepted your response of Chief Joseph instead of Crazy Horse in the first round, so we’re going to have to knock that off your score. But it’s early. You’ll be back.” That took her from $2400 (already in third to Matt’s $3200 and Elliott’s $2600) to $400.

The clue in question came in the category of American History. The $1000 clue read, “Native American leaders at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn included Sitting Bull & this Oglala chief, killed the following year.” After Deanna rang in and gave her response, Jennings said “right” immediately.

At first, one fan on Reddit assumed that the required response was “Crazy Horse” versus “Chief Joseph,” but another weighed in after a bit of research. “I didn’t know it, but after googling, those are two entirely different people. Odd that Ken initially accepted it (and that the judges didn’t immediately stop the taping). Did he think it was an AKA?” that person asked.

It was a third viewer who had an answer to that: “Whoever wrote it wasn’t on hand, which would explain why it took so long to be corrected.”

Jeopardy! has returned for its 40th season and kicked off with a Second Chance Tournament involving Season 37 players, due to the ongoing writers’ strike. As a result, the show is using recycled clues and material written prior to the strike (though Jennings did not address that in the September 11 season premiere).

Despite that hiccup, Deanna did end up winning the game and had even locked it in heading into Final Jeopardy, with $19,600 to Elliott’s $8,800 and Matt’s $8,000. Though she did get the Final Jeopardy incorrect, she still ended up the week’s first finalist, with a score of $18,674. She’ll compete against the September 19 and 20 winners in the September 21 and 22 games to see who will move on to the Champions Wildcard competition later this fall.

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