Long-Lived Mistake

Nine minutes into Tuesday's episode, Trebek, whose principal responsibility is to read from a card, read the clue "A SHORT-LIVED CRAZE," pronouncing "LIVED" phonetically as "laivd" (as in rhymes with "jived"). "This could be evidence of decline in Trebek's mental capacity," an almost-certified speech-language pathologist posited. "It reveals a deficit in his orthographic input lexicon, causing him to resort to the orthography-to-phonology conversion route to read."

Johnny Gilbert? Nobody, but Nobody, Sees the Wizard of Oz...until now!

In an unprecedented move, Jeopardy! cameras focused on perennial announcer Johnny Gilbert during the waning moments of Monday's Jeopardy. Johnny was spotted in his little canary cage, perched aside the Jeopardy! studio set, from whence his divine voice radiates every night with a preamble on par with "We, the People" - THIS IS JEOPARDY!

Johnny G., however, seemed to lose his cool. While his tanned, Reagen-esque face is all smiles, he manages to mutter between his teeth a not so veiled threat to the cameraman: "What the hell are you doing here?" But before the camera can pan out further to reveal Elvis Presley playing Connect Four with Hosni Mubarak, the scene reverts back to Alex and his threesome at center stage. 'Twas a night to remember.

Posehn v. Eminem v. Mrs. Garret

Tonight's episode features some hardy laughs about Rwandan genocide as well as Cindy the crossing guard guessing Urethra Franklin.

And here is Yolanda Vega with tonight's lookalikes:

Cory "Hotel Rwanda" Biggs as Eminem, specifically in the Hi My Name Is video dressed up as Bill Clinton (note: Cory hails from Little Rock)







Cindy as Mrs. Garret from "The Facts of Life"

Unusual buzzing style (lookalike alert)

Watch Friday's episode to see the behind-the-back moves of this Brian Posehn lookalike.

Will this unusual buzzing style pay off ? tune in to find out...

we also would have accepted this as a lookalike ...mostly due to his choice of wardrobe

Israel Defeats Watson on Jeopardy!

Yes, it’s true. Watson, the super-computer designed by IBM that walloped Jeopardy!’s most celebrated competitors over three days in February, lost to an Israeli trio in a quiz show event organizers billed “The Trivia Brawl at the Wall” at the Wailing Wall on Thursday in Jerusalem’s Old City.


נצח ישראל לא ישקר
"The victory of Israel is not false"

This, from Tom Kunzen's Email (Possibly)

Though we can't confirm with certainty at RJM!, we would not be surprised if this picture popped up in Tom Kunzen's email:

Chevy Sitting Crow Chase v. the Dwarf? v. Rosie

Tonight's winner, Ted Sitting Crow Garner, not only speaks like a South Park character but also looks like the guest clue-presenter from last night's episode, Chevy Chase.


Also tonight, Jeopardy took a risk, making all the categories in double jeopardy based off of the Dwarfs, with the last category actually about little people. When the players finally step away from their playing stations after final jeopardy, it becomes readily apparent that Jennifer, one of the contestants, may be of such little stature herself. Whoops. Looks like Jeopardy has Eggland's Best egg on its face!

Alex Stupified, Learns Women Know how to Use the Internet (*Lookalike*)

It's been well-documented, by the RMJ blog and others worldwide, that Alex is a sexist, ranging from subtle patronization to more blatant condescension. On Monday's show, when confronted with Julie's statement that 21 million women are bloggers, Alex's response was: "more than the men?" This reminded of when an old man once asked me, "So, I hear there are girls in law school. I heard they do they do as well as the men - is this true?"

Well, Alex, your reward for such an attitude is another night facing off against tonight's winner, Denise O'Connor, who bears a striking resemblance to one of TV's most bombastic and un-womanly women, a fellow O': Rosie O'Donnell.

Keep Aspiring, Trey

Monday's Trey McCraw is an "aspiring novelist." He certainly has the southern looks for the back-cover of a best-seller and name that's good enough as any nom de plume. Unfortunately, Trey knows nothing about novels, as he failed to get a single question right in the category devoted to the topic.

The Pigman

Friday's contestant Eric Sebert was introduced as a pig and chicken farmer from Hominy Falls, West Virginia. Eric explains: "I kind of have fallen into it. I went home to help out my family. They were going through some tough times, and I just kind of fell in love with it. I really-- I have two beautiful pigs one's sarah ferguson, diana spencer, and you know, I really like being outside a lot. laughter) IT'S NOT THAT WRONG."

Sounds to me like Eric is unemployed, moved back home, and has some pets. Two pigs - with names - does not a pig farmer make.





Megan took a swipe at Eric, yelling "holy cow" when she hit upon a double jeopardy. But both must have been too busy wrestling in the hay, as Julie came away with the easy win.

Collara

Eric Sebert, the pig and chicken farmer from West Virginia and contestant on Friday's show, rocks a healthy collar. Though obnoxious in stature, the collar is a nice response to Trebek's d-bag patronization of his livelihood. Ultimately, Sebert's lack of fashion acumen cost him the game in Final.

Will the real Alex Trebek please stand up? (*LOOKALIKE*)

Which one of these is alex and which one is my college roommate's father?






results after the break....

Did Tom throw his final match?

Like many of you, I was shocked to see Tuesday's show ending in a dramatic defeat of the "Untouchable TOM", who was known to dominate his opponents during his previous five consecutive landslide wins. To make matters worse, his defeat came at the hands of a mere housewife from Maryland; a description of which Trebek is quick to remind us at the completion of last night's episode [see post game wrap up when Alex comments on Megan's three day total as "Most impressive for a STAY AT HOME MOM"]. That being said, I revisited Tom's doomed 6th game to see if there possibly exists a better explanation for the uncharacteristically poor performance and ultimate downfall of the third best player to ever grasp the prestigious Jeopardy buzzer, sorry, signaling device. Sure enough, a second viewing reveals an alternative theory for Tom’s precipitous decline.

This is a story wrought with sex, scandal, and conceivably the last ditch efforts of a person trying to rid himself from the clutches of a lustful suitor. On the surface, this may seem like just a regular episode where a contestant’s loss is nothing but matter of fact, but beneath his composure , lies unbearable pain…if only Stone Philips were here to do a special exclusive for Dateline NBC.

Our story begins on the ides of March nearly a week before the game in question. It is then when a nubile Tom Kunzen begins a jeopardy win-streak the likes of which we haven’t seen in quite some time. For a greater understanding of the scale of these wins, here are the graphs of Tom's performance in the five games relative to the anomalous 6^th game.

vs the uncharacteristic 6th game:

[graphs and stats are courtesy of our friends over at j-archive]

These wins (aside from 6th game) are so impressive that it becomes almost uneventful if not for the emerging side-story as Trebek begins developing a blatant man-crush on this tall, dark, and handsome geo-engineer from Florida. Given the numerous advancements and inappropriate flirtations that Alex thrusted upon Tom throughout his win streak as discussed earlier here and here , one cannot help but wonder if Tom’s guilt of toying with Alex’s fragile heart in order to gain an edge over his contestants actually drove him to do the unspeakable and throw his final match. Tom realized that the only way to salvage his chastity and rid himself of the shameful person he had become by prostrating himself in front of a lustful Trebek, was to sacrifice his jeopardy fame and fortune by purposely losing in final jeopardy. Tom knew that he would have to do so without arising any suspicion from the audience, from the judges, and most importantly from the longtime Canadian host. This self-sacrificing strategy, however, became patently obvious towards the end of the game when Tom uncharacteristically wages his entire bankroll of $18,800 in the Final Jeopardy round. This dwarfs his usual risk-averse bets of the previous 5 days of $600, $1,200 (despite being only person still in game) , $601, $4,000, and $3,801 respectively . While some would explain this striking difference in betting strategy on the mere fact that he was no longer in first place at the conclusion of Double J, I posit that this $18,800 wager was intentionally done. Moreover, we can tell from Tom’s body language that he purposely gave the wrong answer of Sari instead of Burqa and he very well knew it. Perhaps his final answer was another way of saying SORRY to the person he was hurting most if he were to succumb to his lesser self and continue to give false hope for any real relationship in exchange for a free ride to the tournament of champions; an apology meant for none other than your host, Alex Trebek!

I believe the painful decision to throw the match was made by Tom as early as the opening scene of this final game where he could no longer bear the reality of the situation. After all, a man can only take so much before the guilt of toying with another’s emotions for the starts to take over. I could only imagine that Tom’s ability to play the game was so hindered by his guilty conscience that his entire attention was overcome with the beating of Alex’s tell tale heart full of love. The straw that broke the camel’s back must have come when Alex Trebek showed his true feelings for Tom as he opened the show with the following statement:

“Thank you Johnny…. for the past week we have been enjoying the pleasure of Tom’s company, and he has been enjoying wining $133,000 dollars on our program , it’s a fair trade off!”

It was at this point where Tom could no longer play the role of harlot to the master of the Jeopardy house no matter how much money Trebek promised in return. There was only two thing left for Tom to do: to apologize and throw the game so that he could leave with his integrity intact. Tom was able to accomplish both of these tasks with a single word in his final jeopardy response, “Sari”.

Awk-ward

Stay-at-home-mom and returning champ Megan Barnes told Trebek that when she lived in a convent, each room had a sink. This was her interesting story, and Trebek wasn't interested. He responded with an "OK," and left it out there awkwardly.

Meet Megan Barnes

So what do we know about our new Champ, Megan Barnes? This Baltimore native and proud mother likes to review books:

I was interested to learn that in Mandarin, people rarely use pronouns, and he and she are the same sound (ta). Chinese languages can be very difficult for English speakers to l earn, with so many homophones, and the emphasis on tones. Then there is the written language. Even lifetime speakers must continue practicing characters or they slip from their memory.

Dr. Fallows never became fluent in her time there, but she was able to slowly add some skills, enough to talk on the phone or recognize the sign for manicures. Like her, I feel like I only got a brief glimpse into Chinese language and culture from this book.

Storming the Barnes: Megan "the Housewife" Barnes Triumphs!

Tonight's episode featured Tom v. Barry v. Megan


Tom AKA Houston McLovin, is, as you may recall, Alex's lover. Try as Alex might, including by awarding Tom points for an erroneous "Samuel Adams" response - he rectifies the situation by awarding Barry points for "Budweiser" which bears no relationship to Tom's WRONG answer - Tom nevertheless walks away with a big 0 to his name, with Alex's tail between his legs.

Barry was quick on the draw - a little too quick, consistently prematurely ejaculating his responses.

While Tom is busying giving Alex wet dreams and Barry is hardly waiting for the nighttime, Megan - who Alex, true to his condescending misogynism calls "Megan the stay at home housewife" right before her response in Final Jeopardy - steadily stays in the game, and deals a deathblow by being the only correct respondent in Final Jeopardy. Megan looks like half my graduating class's girls. When you combine the ugly suit, the ugly necklace, the plastered smile, the chirpy voice, the weird headband, and the occasional bursts of glee that hearken back to the bat mitzvah girl's face when she gets lifted on the chair, you could swear shes a frummy from a Bais Yaakov. But to counter this assumption, the Jeopardy! cameras show you Megan's very modern Hilary Clinton-esque pants, disabusing you of such a notion. As icing, Megan then shakes Barry's hand, whispering thank you to him. I hope she washes that hand.

Trebek does College Football

Brilliant!

Sunshine State

After racking up more than $133,000, Tom Kunzen from Orland0, Florida got a nod from the producers -- and Alex T's loins -- with the a Double Jeopardy! category of the Sunshine State. Alas, he squandered home-court advantage.

Not Funny?

The Trebek courtship of Houston McLovin continues. First cool-guy Alex takes an implicit shot at the Jeopardy! writers, confirming with Tom that the pun-filled question was not funny. Then Alex openly invites Tom to join him in living in LA, where it's prime for "seismic studies," then looks Tom in the eyes. As if the entendre wasn't clear enough, Tom's rebuff -- "But then I would have to live here" -- leaves Alex visibly defeated. Hey, I tried, his body slumps toward the camera.

What a Nice Pair of Chinchillas on Her!

Not surprising, coming from the guy whose interview story was about womanizing over young Swedish girls...

//

Wouldn't Want to be Near Him the Next Day

I liked Stephen Huey, Monday's runner-up. I fell for his constant nods of reassurance when choosing a category, and I was taken by his hair-dye story from his college days at Duke. He bet it all in Final and immediately reached for Tom's hand to congratulate him for his $1 victory margin. Tom, of couse, in his funny/I'm-awesome-so-piss-off manner, reluctantly and slowly accepted Stephen's offering.

But I would not want to be in the office next to Huey after he gets a hankering for some Aloo Gabhi. This from his Facebook profile: I have a massive sweet tooth, and can consume half my body weight in Indian food a day.

NY Post: Secrets of a Jeopardy! Champ

Grand Theft Auto 4 is the key to Jeopardy! success.

Trebek the Apologist

After Tom got the final clue of the first round incorrect, Alex apologized to him -- much to the consternation of the other opponents. During the opening minutes of Monday's match, Tom still appeared to be brooding over his $9,000 Daily Double loss during Friday's Double Jeopardy!. Trebek's come-ons did little to soothe McLovin Houston, but he picked it up in Final Jeopardy thanks to some Halle Berry Chism.

If Jeopardy! Wanted to Portray a More Stereoptypical Italian, It Would Have Had to Track Down The Situation!

from 1/31/11...a classic

CONTESTANTS
Johnny Marigliano, a pizza maker originally from Brooklyn, New York
Jean Dupon, a college chemistry instructor from San Carlos, California
Eureka Nutt, a paralegal from Canoga Park, California (whose 1-day cash winnings total $18,801)

OPENING REMARKS
Alex: Thanks, Johnny. Thank you all very much and welcome to our show. Johnny, a medium with pepperoni and sausage after the show, please.

Johnny (the contestant): You want it to stay or to go?

Alex: To go. You and Jean have to watch out for Eureka. She knows how to play the game.


Alex: Johnny's people are working on that pizza. Johnny Marigliano, originally from Brooklyn, New York, and you had an incident with a celebrity, and you didn't recognize him at the very beginning.

Johnny: Not right away. I was crossing 6th Avenue, and this big guy almost hits me on a bicycle.

Alex: Uh-huh.

Johnny: I was about to say, "Oh, what are you doin'?" And it turned out, it was Tony Soprano.

[Laughter]

Alex: James Gandolfini.

Johnny: James Gandolfini, yeah, not the actual, so--

Alex: Fellow Italian.

Johnny: Hey, yeah.

Alex: Did you get to talk to him at all? No?

Johnny: No, he gave me this little smile, and I got a little starstruck.

Alex: Okay, good for you.

_______

Alex: And, eureka, before I ask you to make your wager, we have a change in score to announce, , and it will benefit johnny, because we failed to put "for the common man" in quotation marks. "Tantara," your response, is acceptable.

Does Alex have a crush on Tom? (*LOOKALIKE*)

We will continue to document Alex's favoritism for Tom. It runs the gamut from giving Tom credit for questionable responses, to Alex licking his lips after his little interview chats with him (watching on DVR slow-mo is actually creepy), to focusing all of his attention on Tom during the post-game credits.

Also we bring you a *Lookalike Alert*


Tom = Allan Houston + McLovin (from Superbad)