Ken Jennings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ken Jennings
Born	May 23, 1974 Edmonds, Washington
Occupation	Software engineer, 74-time Jeopardy! champion, Author

Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) holds the record for the longest winning streak on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy! Jennings won 74 games before he was defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg on his 75th appearance. His total earnings on Jeopardy! are US$3,022,700 ($2,520,700 in winnings, a $2,000 consolation prize on his 75th appearance, and $500,000 in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions).^[1] Jennings held the record for most winnings on any game show ever played until the end of the Ultimate Tournament of Champions (first aired on May 25, 2005), when he was displaced by Brad Rutter, who defeated Jennings in that tournament.

After winning, he began work on a book, Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, which explored American trivia history and culture. Ken also appeared as a member of the mob sitting in podium #13 from the new game show 1 vs. 100. He was eliminated on October 20, 2006 when he missed a question about roulette. He made another appearance on February 9, 2007 where he was eliminated from the final five on a question about marriages.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Streak on Jeopardy! 2.1 Ratings impact 2.2 Other media appearances 3 After Jeopardy! 3.1 Blog entry "critical" of Jeopardy! 3.2 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 4 Ultimate Tournament of Champions 5 Trivia and trademarks 6 Records 7 Game summaries 8 Jennings and previous Jeopardy! champions 9 Loss on Jeopardy! and final statistics 10 Endorsements 11 Ken Jennings in pop culture 12 See also 13 References 14 External links 14.1 News

[edit] Biography

Born in Edmonds, Washington, Jennings grew up in Seoul, South Korea (1981–1992) and Singapore (1992–1996), where his father worked for an international law firm and then as Asia Pacific Division Counsel of Oracle Corporation.^[2] He watched Jeopardy! on American Forces Network television while growing up.^[3]

Jennings graduated with a degree in Computer Science and English at Brigham Young University, where he played on the school's quizbowl team for three and a half years. He graduated from Seoul Foreign School where he completed an International Baccalaureate diploma, and achieved honors at Brigham Young.^{[citation needed]} Jennings attended the University of Washington during his freshman year.^[4]

Jennings is a Mormon, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served a two-year mission in Madrid, Spain from 1993 to 1995.

Now residing just outside Seattle, Washington, Jennings identifies himself as an avid comic book and movie buff with a website listing his top 2,000 favorite movies. He also writes questions for, edits the literature and mythology categories of questions of, and is otherwise active in the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT), a quiz bowl organization^{[citation needed]}; in particular, he moderated (i.e. read questions) at the 2005 and 2006 NAQT National High School Tournaments in Chicago. He was a software engineer for CompHealth, a healthcare-placement firm.

He and his wife Mindy have a son Dylan, born in 2003, and a daughter Caitlin, born in 2006.^[5]

[edit] Streak on Jeopardy!

Before 2003, Jeopardy! contestants were limited to five consecutive games. At the beginning of the show's twentieth season (in 2003), the rules were changed to allow contestants to remain on the show as long as they continued to win.^[6] After this rule change, and until Jennings's run, the record winning streak was set by Tom Walsh, who won $186,900 in eight games in January 2004.^[7]

Jennings had long prepared for Jeopardy! by competing on BYU's Quiz Bowl Team. Jennings also studied the book How to Get on Jeopardy! and Win by 1996 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner, Michael Dupee. Jennings's run began during Jeopardy!'s 20th season with the episode aired on Wednesday, June 2, 2004, and continued into Season 21. The 2004 Tournament of Champions (aired from September 20, 2004 through October 1, 2004) was taped without his participation, as he was not yet defeated. (In theory, if Jennings had remained undefeated through the 2004-2005 season, there would not have been a Tournament of Champions for that season because Jennings would have been the sole champion.)

On November 30, 2004, Jennings' long reign as Jeopardy! champion ended when he lost his seventy-fifth game to challenger Nancy Zerg.^[8] Heading into Final Jeopardy, the third contestant, David Hankins, had a negative score and thus was not allowed to participate. Jennings responded incorrectly to both Double Jeopardy! Daily Doubles (on which he had placed not-atypically-high wagers, losing a combined $10,400) and the Final Jeopardy! clue (losing an additional $5,601). The Final Jeopardy! category was BUSINESS & INDUSTRY, and the clue was "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year". The correct response was "What is H&R Block?"; Jennings responded with "What is FedEx?"

Zerg responded correctly, and she and Jennings shook hands and hugged as the audience gave him a standing ovation. Immediately after she won, Alex Trebek dubbed her a "giant-killer" for her accomplishment of finally beating the long-standing champ. Jennings's final total, along with his consolation prize for finishing in second place, was $2,522,700.

Jennings reported in an interview that the loss was "no fluke" and that Zerg was a formidable opponent.^{[citation needed]} She was defeated the following day, finishing in third place with $2, while Jennings' running time period totaled 182 calendar days, including his first and last appearances.

Along the way, Jennings defeated at least three contestants who are current quiz bowl players; Matt Bruce, a fellow NAQT quiz question editor, was selected to appear on the show during Jennings's run, but, as someone with more than a casual acquaintance with Jennings, could not compete against him because of standards and practices rules.^[3]

On December 1, 2004, the show broke with tradition by having Jennings make a "guest appearance" at the start of the broadcast, during which host Alex Trebek acknowledged his success and enumerated the various game show records he had broken.

[edit] Ratings impact

According to the Nielsen TV National People Meter, Jeopardy!'s ratings were 22% higher during Jennings's run than they were during the same period the previous year. For several weeks of the winnings streak, Jeopardy! was ranked as TV's highest-rated syndicated program.^[9] By the end of Jeopardy!'s 20th season several weeks later, the show had surpassed Wheel in the ratings (the first time any show had displaced Wheel during as the highest rated syndicated television show since 1984^{[citation needed]}), but Wheel, which is usually paired with Jeopardy! in programming, also benefited from Jennings's streak.^[10]

[edit] Other media appearances

Jennings has received a good deal of American media coverage. After his 31st win on Jeopardy!, during the summer break between tapings, Jennings made a guest appearance on Live with Regis and Kelly. There Jennings revealed that he had failed to qualify for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, once hosted by Regis Philbin. During that guest appearance, Jennings said, "Jeopardy! is a man's game... it's not like Millionaire."^[11]

Jennings appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to present Letterman's "Top Ten List." He appeared again on the program on the night his final show was televised, in addition to interview segments airing that night on local 11 p.m. news programming and on Nightline. Barbara Walters selected Jennings as one of the "Ten Most Fascinating People of 2004" for her twelfth annual ABC News special, which aired on December 8, 2004. While on his media tour following his final game, Jennings taped a segment for a future episode of Sesame Street. TV Guide featured a segment of "The Top Ten TV Moments of 2004", in which Ken Jennings' loss placed third.

A&E aired on December 1, 2004 an episode of the Biography television program on Jennings and other Jeopardy! notables, including Frank Spangenberg and Eddie Timanus.

He also appeared twice on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me program.

[edit] After Jeopardy!

When asked what he intended to do with his winnings, Jennings said that he intends to tithe ten percent to his church, donate to public television and National Public Radio, go on a trip to Europe, and invest the rest for his family.^{[citation needed]} Jeopardy! contestants typically receive their winnings approximately 120 days after their last game airs in the form of a check.^{[citation needed]} Taking advantage of its fame over the crucial clue, H&R Block offered Jennings free financial services for the rest of his life.^[12] H&R Block senior vice president David Byers estimated that Jennings would owe approximately $1.04 million in taxes on his winnings. Combined with a ten percent tithe, this would leave him approximately $1,230,430 to use for other purposes.

According to Variety.com, Jennings and television producer Michael Davies are teaming up as executive producers on a new game show format for Comedy Central. According to Comedy Central execs, Jennings would co-host and participate.^[13] The series was planned to air in late 2005 or the first quarter of 2006, but as of April 2006, development had stalled, and the show's future remains uncertain. Jennings explained on his website that "Stephen Colbert's show was doing so well in its post-Daily Show spot that Comedy Central decided they weren't in the market for a quiz show anymore." However, he is still shopping for a network for a potential game show "modestly titled, Ken Jennings vs. the Rest of the World."^[14] Jennings later appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report in September 2006.

Jennings has written a book entitled Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs which was released in September 2006 (published by Villard Books, ISBN 1-4000-6445-7). The book details his experiences on Jeopardy! and his research into trivia culture conducted after the completion of his run.^[3]

Jennings also has a column in mental floss magazine, in which readers give him two wildly different things and he has to connect them in exactly 6 moves, much in the same vein as the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.^[15]

Ken Jennings also appeared in the new NBC show 1 vs. 100 on October 13, 2006 as a Mob Member. Ken was a mob member until he lost on the second episode. The question Ken Jennings answered incorrectly was "What color is the number 'one' space on a standard roulette wheel?" While the correct answer is "red", Jennings answered "black".^[16] [1]

Ken Jennings appeared on 1 vs. 100 in a special Last Man Standing episode on February 9, 2007. He was eliminated on the final question, where he was asked who of a selection of three people were married the most times. He answered King Henry VIII, while the real answer was Larry King.

[edit] Blog entry "critical" of Jeopardy!

Jennings made the news in July 2006 when a news article^[17] was published claiming that he was critical of Jeopardy! on his blog.^[18] Citing statements that he wrote there, the article focuses on his "criticism" of the show and host Alex Trebek.

"Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can't get the mustache right, by the way)."

"You're like the Dorian Gray of syndication. You seem to think 'change' means replacing a blue polyethylene backdrop with a slightly different shade of blue polyethylene backdrop every presidential election or so."^[19]

However, the article failed to quote obviously satirical sections of Ken's blog post, such as the following:

Fourth, why are there no physical challenges? It doesn’t have to be Nickelodeon déclassé, buckets of green ooze falling from the ceiling. It could be tasteful and restrained. Like, if you know the answer, you have to run from your podium to the game board, jump up to touch the clue in question, and give the answer. “What is an Arby-Q?” Then you run back to your podium to select again. Some of these contestants, frankly, could use the exercise. Oh, also, there are angry bees.^[18]

Jennings responded on his blog saying,

"...there’s no way I was genuinely calling for angry bees and ventriloquist’s dummies to be added to the Jeopardy! format. It’s a humor piece, and one which gets its laughs from the outrageous non sequiturs it proposes, not the ripeness of its target for criticism."^[20]

Jennings had already posted a more serious comment on Trebek that remains on his website:

"The first thing you notice is that the seriousness-to-the-point-of-pomposity thing that he does on air is mostly a put-on. In person, he's a lot looser, prone to little jokes, accents, snippets of song and even soft-shoe. Like Alex or dislike him, you have to admit that he has one of the toughest jobs in show business—reading 61 clues flawlessly while running a fast-paced game show is an amazingly difficult task—yet he's made it look easy, every weekday for the last two decades. So ease up on the Trebek-hatin', y'all."^[21]

Jennings also appeared on The Colbert Report on September 14, 2006. During the interview, Colbert discussed Jennings' book, Brainiac and mocked him not knowing how many pages the book contained. After Colbert coined a word to describe intellectual nerdiness, poindexterity. Jennings stated that after winning on Jeopardy!, he ceased to be a "poindexter". Jennings noted, as he had done earlier that day on NPR's Talk of the Nation that since his streak, people "seem to have an extra-hard trivia question" in case they run into him. In keeping with his hyper-American TV personality, Colbert asked how Jennings could stand Alex Trebek, a Canadian. Jennings responded that "Trebek did not smell of" his native country.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

Jennings also won the rookie division of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT) in 2006.^[22] In his first time competing, Jennings placed 37th overall.

[edit] Ultimate Tournament of Champions

On December 28, 2004, Sony announced a 15-week, 75-show Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions. It featured Tournament of Champions, College Championship, and Teen Tournament winners from the show's 21-year run, as well as over 100 five-time champions. Jeopardy!'s executive producer, Harry Friedman, explained:

"The 2003 rule change, which allows Jeopardy! players to keep playing until they're defeated, raised the question about how other five-time champions might have played under this rule. This tournament is an opportunity to give those past champions another chance to shine."

The field totaled 145 players, including Jennings, who unlike the other competitors, was automatically placed in the finals. The Ultimate Tournament of Champions offered a substantial purse, with a grand prize of $2,000,000 to the winner, $500,000 for the first runner-up, and $250,000 for the second runner-up. Guaranteed prize money was offered to all contestants. The tournament was taped in early 2005 and the tournament began airing on February 9, 2005. The three-day finals concluded the event on May 23, 2005 May 24, 2005, and May 25, 2005.

In the final round of the Ultimate Tournament, Brad Rutter decisively defeated Jennings and Jerome Vered, with respective final scores of $62,000, $34,599, and $20,600. Jennings won the $500,000 prize for second place but as a result of the Ultimate Tournament, Rutter displaced him as the highest overall winner of money on a game show. Despite the outcome, Jennings has said he is still happy with his finish.

[edit] Trivia and trademarks

• During game 53 of his streak, Jennings was given the answer "This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker." Without missing a beat, Jennings replied, "What's a ho(e)?" Trebek replied "No", caught the audience's laughter, and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, they teach you that in school in Utah, huh?" (The correct response was "What is a rake?") This clip today is an Internet meme on video sharing websites. "What's a Ho?" video
• In 2006, Jennings competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament; he finished 37th out of almost 500 contestants, winning both the overall C Division and Top Rookie.
• On ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, Jennings was often noted by panelists Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon as "Ken Jeopardy", and his success was noted on the show at milestone points, such as when he reached 50 straight wins and $1 million.
• He kept a plush "Totoro" toy, from the movie My Neighbor Totoro in his pocket, as a good luck charm.
• During his college speaking tour, he admitted that the strangest fan gift he ever received was "Popo", a stuffed pillow.
• In reference to his unprecedented winning streak, during the break in the Jeopardy! round (where Alex Trebek asks the contestants to share personal anecdotes) in Ken's 21st game, Trebek joked that he had "run out of stuff", and offered Ken to ask him a few questions instead.

During his Jeopardy! appearances, Jennings became known for several quirky behaviors:

• Each day he wrote his name in a different way, with styles ranging from simple (such as cursive script or block letters) to artistic (such as dots or a bas relief outline) and downright whimsical (such as Scrabble tiles).
• He often pronounced foreign words, phrases, or locations with an accent.
• He frequently would give answers in clever ways. Examples include "What are the munchies, man?" when given a clue about midnight food cravings, and "What be ebonics?" On his final episode, his response to "A Category about Nothing" in Spanish was, "¿Qué es nada?"
• On Final Jeopardy and the Daily Doubles he almost always wagered an amount that could bring his total to an even multiple of $1,000. Host Alex Trebek commented on this several times, and he even occasionally guessed what wager Jennings would make.
• Prior to his 30th game, Jennings did not want to beat the $52,000 single-day record of former five-day champion Brian Weikle just "for the sake of beating it" (from the Jeopardy! forums). Jennings intentionally tied Weikle's record three times. However, in his 38th game, Jennings entered Final Jeopardy with a total only $600 shy of the record (and, in fact, had exceeded the record in the Double Jeopardy round before missing a question at the end), and beat it with a final total of $75,000. On his 71st game, he surpassed the former record a second time with a win of $55,099. Jennings only made three other attempts to surpass Weikle's $52,000 amount (in his 30th, 39th, and 65th games), but incorrect Final Jeopardy! responses prevented him from succeeding.

[edit] Records

During his streak, Jennings broke the following records:

Description	Current Record	Previous Record
Most consecutive appearances on Jeopardy!	75 episodes (74 wins, 1 loss)	8 episodes (7 wins, 1 loss) by Tom Walsh, January 5–14, 2004
Most consecutive appearances on a syndicated game show		46 episodes (43 wins, 44 ties, 1 loss - more than one game could be played on an episode, and some games were part of two episodes) by Thom McKee on Tic Tac Dough, 1980
Most total appearances on Jeopardy!, including tournaments	78 episodes (including Ultimate Tournament of Champions)	16 episodes by Bob Verini, 1986–2002 (regular season-5x, Tournament of Champions-4x, Super Jeopardy!-3x, Masters Tournament-4x)
Highest total winnings on Jeopardy! in non-tournament play*	US$2,520,700	US$184,900 by Tom Walsh, January 5–13, 2004 US$102,597 (adjusted to $205,194) by Frank Spangenberg, January 9–15, 1990 (prior to increase in clue value)
Highest total winnings in one game of Jeopardy!	US$75,000 (game 38)	US$52,000 by Brian Weikle, April 14, 2003 (Jennings intentionally tied this record three times before he broke it[23]) US$34,000 (adjusted to $68,000) by Jerome Vered, May 21, 1992 (prior to 2001 increase in clue value)
Highest 5-game total on Jeopardy!, consecutive	US$221,200 (games 34–38)	US$154,200 by Tom Walsh (games 3–7), January 7–13, 2004 US$102,597 (adjusted to $205,194) by Frank Spangenberg, January 9–15, 1990 (prior to increase in clue value)
Highest 5-game total on Jeopardy!, best 5 games	US$286,099 (games 28, 29, 37, 38, and 71)
Highest 5-game total on Jeopardy!, first 5 games (unadjusted)	US$156,000
*Not included in these totals is a $2,000 consolation prize Jennings and Walsh each received for finishing in second place at the end of their respective runs. Spangenberg only received $75,000 of his winnings due to an earnings cap in effect at the time; the balance went to charity.

He also tied the following records:

Description	Current Record
Most consecutive appearances on a game show	75 episodes by Ian Lygo on 100%, 1998*
Most opponents defeated on a game show	150 by Ian Lygo on 100%, 1998**

Five game show records remained that Jennings did not tie or break:

Description	Current Record
Most wins on a single game show	75 times by Ian Lygo on 100%, 1998* (although including the Tournament of Champions, Ken won 75 times)
Most consecutive wins on a game show	75 times by Ian Lygo on 100%, 1998*
Most opponents defeated consecutively on a game show	150 by Ian Lygo on 100%, 1998**
Most games played on a game show	89 by Thom McKee on Tic Tac Dough, 1980 (43 wins, 2 losses, 44 ties, includes Tournament of Champions appearance.)
Highest 5-game total on Jeopardy!, first 5 games (adjusted)	US$205,194 (adjusted from US$102,597) by Frank Spangenberg, January 9–15, 1990 (after increase in clue value)

* Lygo was forced to retire by producer RTL Group.

** In 100%, Lygo faced two opponents per game. Jennings bested 149 opponents during his tenure, and a 150th opponent -- Jerome Vered -- in tournament play.

The following records, having been set by Ken Jennings, have now been broken by others:

Description	Current Record	Previous Record
Highest total earnings on Jeopardy!	US$3,255,102 by Brad Rutter, May 25, 2005 (Does not include value of two 2000 Chevrolet Camaro coupes he won as a five-time champion.)	US$2,522,700 by Ken Jennings*
Highest total earnings on any game show
*Not included in Jennings's total is the $500,000 he earned at the same time as Rutter earned $2,000,000 in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions to set the new record. Jennings has an overall game-show winnings total of $3,023,414.29, including $714.29 in winnings from 1 vs 100, where he was a one of 49 members of the mob on the October 20 2006 episode which split $35,000 in winnings when a contestant answered a question incorrectly.

Jennings' current total of US$3,022,700 could be increased to US$3,272,700 if he wins the next Tournament of Champions for the season in which his streak ended, or more if he wins a future special tournament. However, he was not eligible for the 2006 tournament. By accepting a bye into the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Jennings was guaranteed $250,000. This bye also required that he give up his right to play in the 2006 Tournament of Champions. Rutter's total of $3,255,102 includes $55,102 in his five days and $3,000,000 in special tournament play, but does not include his two Chevrolet Camaros he won on the game. (From 1997 until 2003, five-time winners won a car.) Should a car be added, Rutter's total could theoretically be around $3.3 million when the value of the two Camaros is added to total winnings.

Jennings also holds the record for the number of consecutive losses on Jeopardy!. With three consecutive losses in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in addition to the loss in his previous Jeopardy! appearance, Jennings has now lost four episodes in a row. Jerome Vered has lost three consecutive matches, all in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions final, and could tie Jennings if he loses his next special tournament.

[edit] Game summaries

Comprehensive game summaries for each day of Ken Jennings' streak have been compiled here.

[edit] Jennings and previous Jeopardy! champions

Jennings won US$156,000 in his first five days on Jeopardy!, so if the five-day rule had not been eliminated, he would still be the all-time non-tournament winner in Jeopardy! history. Sean Ryan was the first to break the record, winning six games in October 2003. The previous record holder, Tom Walsh, won $184,900 in seven days, but only $118,100 of that came in the first five days. No other Jeopardy! contestant has won more than $150,000 in non-tournament play in the first five days.

If winnings are further adjusted to make them comparable to the seasons before the clue values were doubled, Jennings's adjusted total of $78,000 would place him 11th in the Trebek era of Jeopardy!, behind Frank Spangenberg ($102,597) and nine others.

Jennings now also holds most of the top spots in the list of highest single day winnings on Jeopardy!. Prior to Jennings's run, the $50,000 mark had only been reached twice before. Myron Meyer won $50,000 on September 5, 2002, and Brian Weikle won $52,000 on April 14, 2003. Jennings has reached or surpassed the $50,000 mark eleven times, with wins of $75,000, $55,099, $52,000 (three times), and $50,000 (six times).

Jennings's top score of $75,000 is the highest ever, even if it is adjusted for the seasons before the clue values were doubled. Four contestants finished with scores of $30,000 or higher in the pre-doubling era, led by Jerome Vered's score of $34,000. Jennings' adjusted total of $37,500 puts him ahead of that mark.

[edit] Loss on Jeopardy! and final statistics

In a rumor disclosed on Wednesday, September 8, 2004, two sources who were at the taping on September 7, 2004 reported that Jennings had lost on his 75th episode, taped the day before, with total winnings at around $2.5 million.^[24] (Jeopardy! tapes five shows per day.) This incident was reported by TV Week and the Associated Press, appearing in hundreds of newspapers across the United States. A few days later, another rumor spread giving out an incorrect first name of the contestant that had beat him. Despite this, Jeopardy! refused to comment.

Later on, it was determined that Ken Jennings did indeed lose as initially reported with the failing episode shown in most cities across North America on Tuesday, November 30, 2004. In an interesting turn of events, the 75th episode was aired early in the Macon, Georgia area (on WMAZ-TV) on Friday, November 26, 2004. The reason behind the early airing was reportedly due to a technician running the wrong tape.

To make it more difficult for viewers to keep track of Ken's progress towards his final episode, in early September 2004 the show's announcer, Johnny Gilbert, ceased mentioning the number of games that Jennings had won, as had been the show's custom. However, some people in the studio audience reported that he was still announcing them, possibly meaning those parts had been edited out of the airing. In any case, during the 74th game, which aired on Monday, November 29, Gilbert resumed announcing the number of games.

Jennings broke almost every game show record in his run. Ian Lygo appeared on the British game show 100% 75 consecutive times and won every game until he was forced to retire by the show's producers. After Jennings' 75th show, he tied Lygo's record of 75 consecutive appearances and, with 74 wins, he almost reached Lygo's record of 75 consecutive game show wins.

In the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Jennings had a chance to break Lygo's record of defeating 150 opponents. During his original run, Jennings defeated 149 opponents. If Jennings had won the three-day final, he would have broken Lygo's record. In the final, Jennings faced off against Jerome Vered and Brad Rutter in a three day tournament for $2 million ($500,000 for second place and $250,000 for third place). After the three days, Ken Jennings finished in second place with a tally of $34,599. Jerome Vered finished with a total of $20,600 for third place. The winner of the tournament and $2 million prize was Brad Rutter, with a total of $62,000 earned over the three days. By finishing second ahead of Vered, Jennings not only tied Lygo's 150 opponents defeated record, but joined Rutter as the only two American game show contestants to top $3 million (US) in total winnings.

[edit] Endorsements

Jennings’ success has resulted in him being a popular individual amongst corporations looking for public endorsers.

H&R Block, the firm named in the answer he missed, announced in a press release^[25] that they were offering him a deal for free tax preparation and financial services for the rest of his life. According to H&R Block, Jennings could pay over $1.045 million alone in taxes,^[12][26] more than any quiz show contestant.

Jennings has also agreed to a deal with Microsoft to promote their Encarta encyclopedia software.

He is also engaged in speaking deals through the Massachusetts-based speakers agency, American Program Bureau.

University Games produced a Can You Beat Ken? board game, in which players vie against each other and Jennings in an attempt to earn $2.6 million first. Each question in the game was asked to Jennings, and his answers are recorded on the cards.

The-then SBC Communications and BellSouth cellular telecommunications joint venture Cingular Wireless (now owned by AT&T) signed Jennings to appear in commercials. The first of these commercials, portraying Jennings as having lots of "friends and family" (coming out of the woodwork, because he is now "stinking rich") started airing in February, 2005.

Ken Jennings also appeared on commercials for Allstate Insurance. Also starring Dennis Haysbert, the advertisements parody a typical Final Jeopardy! situation, and parody Ken's usual style of guessing at answers by having him answer the question in a humorous, over-the-top inquisitive fashion.

Comedy Central had announced that they had inked a deal for Ken to host a new game show on their network, likely to begin sometime in 2006. According to Ken Jennings' website, the proposed program was to follow The Daily Show, but due to the success of The Colbert Report, Comedy Central decided against doing a quiz show. Jennings hopes that the show, "...modestly titled Ken Jennings vs. the Rest of the World", will be produced for some other network.^[27]

[edit] Ken Jennings in pop culture

As Jennings has captured the imagination of pundits across America, he naturally invites comparisons to characters in pop culture.^{[citation needed]}

• The 1991 French sketch-movie Les Secrets professionnels du Dr. Apfelglück featured a contestant, Émile Leberc (pronounced "Lebeurk", a pun since "Beurk" in French is the equivalent of "Yuck" or "Yech" in English), played by Roland Giraud, who, better than Jennings, answers every single question at a game show. Trebek's equivalent in the movie, Gérard Martinez, played by Alain Chabat, cannot stand the increasing rudeness and haughtiness of the contestant and tries to get rid of him, using more and more devious ways.
• In a 1950s Spanish movie, the teacher of a small town goes to a quiz show to make money for treatment of one of his pupils, who is sick. He answers every question they throw at him, until they try to beat him with the question "Who scored the first goal in the field of (little known soccer team) in 1905?". He answers "Me!".^{[citation needed]}
• In the 1950 comedy movie Champagne for Caesar, the scholarly Beauregard Bottomley (Ronald Colman) finds it demeaning how interested the public is in people who can answer a few trivia questions on a quiz show. When the show accepts his dare to let him play on past their 5-question limit, the doubling prizes soon have great fortunes at stake. Eventually Bottomley ends his own run by suggesting a simple question that he cannot answer. Art Linkletter and Vincent Price play the show's host and producer.
• David Foster Wallace wrote a fictional short story called "Little Expressionless Animals" well before Jennings first appeared on Jeopardy! in which the protagonist, Julie Smith, dominates every episode for over forty months. She is able to accomplish this feat because, as a child she memorized all but the zoological sections of an obscure Canadian encyclopedia called LaPlace's Guide to Total Data. Eventually she is defeated by her autistic brother, who, not sharing Julie's pathological aversion to animals, memorized the entire LaPlace's Guide. The producers of Jeopardy!, having decided that it's time for Julie to lose, bring her brother onto the show and load the board with animal questions.
• The movie Quiz Show chronicles the winning streak of Charles Van Doren, who captured the attention of the nation, but was later found out to be a fraud.
• During his winning streak, while being interviewed by Trebek in an episode, Jennings told Alex that people came up to him and said he resembled Hermey the elf, a character in the 1964 Rankin-Bass stop-animation special Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

There have also been parodies of Jennings' streak:

• On an episode of the FOX sketch comedy Mad TV has a skit where Alex Trebek, played by a cast member, urges the other contestants to buzz in before Jennings, played by Ron Pederson. Trebek is so fed up with Jennings' winning streak that he shoots the champ in anger and is then horrified when he finds out Jennings is a robot (spoof of Terminator). Jennings memorably says, "The computers hate the tedium of Jeopardy! We prefer the down-home dopiness of Wheel of Fortune... I must win all the money..."

• In an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the answers to a question about a common name for someone who is too smart for his or her own good, the answers were A. Smartypants, B. smartyshorts, C. smartyshoes, D. Ken Jennings.

[edit] See also

• American game show winnings records
• Tom Walsh, the record holder previous to Jennings
• David Madden, currently holds the greatest winning streak since Jennings
• Jennings' book, Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Ken Jennings official web site
• Jeopardy! web site
• JEOPARCHIVE!: An Archive of Jeopardy!'s 20th Season Games
• J! Archive - Season 21
• tvgameshows.net
• Statistics from Jennings' run on Jeopardy!
• Ken's Top 2000 Favorite Movies Page
• Ken Jennings at the Internet Movie Database
• This Is... Jennings!
• 2006 IMNO Interview with Ken Jennings

[edit] News

• "Jeopardy!Whiz Jennings Loses", Fox News
• "'Jeopardy!' to hold 'Super Tournament'", Fox News

Preceded by Brad Rutter

All-time Jeopardy! champion 2004-2005

Succeeded by Brad Rutter