On 'Jeopardy!' tonight

[Dargo]

I'll bet the vast majority of SSO forum regulars at least knew the answer to tonight's Final Jeopardy question this evening, and which none of the contestants knew.

This being: The shared last name of the three men who missed the premiere opening of 1927's 'The Jazz Singer', because the fourth had just died the previous day.

Two of them guessed it was "Marx" and one of them guessed it was "Jolsen"[sic].

(...the correct answer of course being: Warner...was kind of surpised none of them knew this...damn, I keep telling myself that I gotta try out for this show...have been on 4 other quiz/game shows years ago, ya know...did pretty well back in 1980 and when I won $10,000 on a short-lived syndicated quiz show titled 'Bullseye' and which was hosted by my old buddy Jim Lange..."old buddy" used here because he hosted the very first game show I ever appeared on back in 1971...yep, that's right...one of the other shows I was on was 'The Dating Game' and when I was all of 19 years old...aah, the memories)

[Detective Jim McLeod]

I knew it, though I just recently watched the TCM documentary The Brothers Warner

[KayFrancis]

Yes, I knew it too. I also knew the answer of Hawaii 50 the night before, since I loved the original Magnum. None of the 3 players knew that one. I'm sure most here would have guessed the Warner Bros.

[Dargo]

Yes, I knew it too. I also knew the answer of Hawaii 50 the night before, since I loved the original Magnum. None of the 3 players knew that one. I'm sure most here would have guessed the Warner Bros.

Yep, that was another one I couldn't believe any of the contestants didn't figure out as well, Kay.

[Sepiatone]

And Kingrat's response up there made me wonder if he got you mixed up with-----




Sepiatone

[Dargo]

AutoCorrect strikes again. My apologies, Dargo.

No problem, KR.

[Allhallowsday]

I can't name all of 'em but I knew it was WARNER...

[CinemaInternational]

Yes, it was the Warner Brothers. I might still not be able to name them all separately, except for Jack, but it was them, and their brother's death forever put a cloud over all of them. I think they claimed that The Jazz Singer and sound film killed their brother.

That said though, it is not entirely surprising that none of the contestants knew it. I am an avid viewer of game shows in general and watch Jeopardy on a nearly daily basis, and over the years, even some of the smartest contestants are a bit shaky on the subject of movies, both past and present. (Two of their top contestants of all time were undone in a tournament over a final question concerning '90s Oscar winning films) It was a nice surprise though when a thirtysomething contestant got a question about Sullivan's Travels last week.

On the other hand, different shows have different rules. The Game Show Network (GSN) has started airing reruns of Who wants to be a Millionaire with the late Regis Philban. These shows would now be over 20 years old, and its fascinating to look back at them (I was a child when they first aired, and watched it quite a bit back then). But what's striking is that there are very few questions that are outright difficult to answer, and sometimes very easy ones were worth a lot. There was a question about the musical Anchors Aweigh on there, about the famous sequence where it made it look like Gene Kelly was interacting with Jerry the mouse. Almost everyone here probably knows about that scene, but just to know the name of Jerry the Mouse was worth $125,000 on the game show episode from 2000. Its remarkable.

[TikiSoo]

You'd be very surprised at what trivia people do/don't know today as compared to 50 + years ago. I listen to old Radio Shows every night and they often have an hour of "game shows" https://www.wrvo.org/podcast/tuned-to-yesterday

It's amazing how many commonly known facts we take for granted everyone knows.

I remember one question was something to the effect - "What prehistoric monument can be visited in England?" and neither of the married couples at the microphone knew or had even heard of Stonehenge.

It kind of illustrated for me how much our world knowledge has expanded. I do not credit the "internet" for this either.

[Sepiatone]

I usually flub the Jeopardy clues concerning the Oscars, as I don't really register and store most of that information. Except if movies and actors I really like have won. I'm like the girl in CITY SLICKERS who said she wouldn't know who played third base for Cincinnati in '53, I have no idea who won best supporting actress in '53.

Sepiatone

[Dargo]

And now, here's another recent Final Jeopardy question that I was surprised none of the contestants knew the answer to:



(...it took me all of ten seconds to figure out that it was a reference to The Maginot Line which failed to protect France against the advancing German Blitzkrieg in the Spring of 1940...evidently the category title of "20th Centry Eponyms" threw off the contestants and most likely due to them not knowing that the term "Maginot Line" would then soon become synonymous with the idea of a failure for something to achieve its designed initial goals or purpose)

[Detective Jim McLeod]

, I have no idea who won best supporting actress in '53.

Sepiatone

[Dargo]

, I have no idea who won best supporting actress in '53.

Sepiatone

And with of course a bit of irony in the cases of both actresses nominated for their performances in 'From Here to Eternity' in their respective categories having been cast against type, with Best Supporting Actress winner Donna Reed and Best Actress nominee Debroah Kerr having been fixed in the minds of the movie going public of the time as primarily playing "the good girl" type.

(...what a great film...what great ADULT film, and as compared to the much more "juvenile" attempt at telling a similar story to it which was released in 2001 titled...well, YOU know)