Jeopardy!

Wokeness ended my backroom Jeopardy! habit

In May I got a Facebook message from a guy named Mikey Walsh, who I’d met once at a trivia night at Mister Tramps, one of the diviest dive bars in Austin, Texas. He told me he’d been running a quiz called “Buzz In Buzzed,” which was exactly like Jeopardy!. Several of the regular players had been on Jeopardy! like me, and he was looking for more contestants to play. “This is not a business,” he said. “It’s free to play, and there’s no prizes. It’s just nerds playing trivia for fun.” This wasn’t the kind of offer I turn down. The opportunity to play fake Jeopardy! in the back of the bar for no money? Sign me up, I said. A couple of weeks later, I went to Buzz In Buzzed.

jeopardy

I watched everything except the Super Bowl

Who did you cheer for in the Super Bowl last night? The asteroid? Evan McMullin? (OK, let’s not go too crazy.) Rarely has a third-party option looked so good. This was one of the least appealing Super Bowl match-ups in NFL history—and it’s the second time these two teams have met in a championship game in just three years. In one corner, football’s new dynasty, the Kansas City Chiefs, like the New England Patriots of yesteryear except everyone has a make-up artist on retainer. The Chiefs might play on the wind-swept plains but they’ve imported Hollywood into the NFL like never before.

super bowl

Jeopardy! is in trouble

THIS...iiiiiis Jeopardy! And it’s time now for today’s final answer. This pack of gibbering monsters is witlessly tearing down everything that’s good and decent about our society. What is us? All of us. The vicious and grievance-obsessed people we’ve become. Jeopardy! is that rarest of American traditions, one that really hasn’t changed. The quiz show has remained a granite bulwark against the pop-cultural tides: same sober presentation and aesthetic, same challenging questions and unforgiving pace. There are no blazing graphics, no CGI car chases through downtown Montpelier during the ‘State Capitals’ category. There hasn’t even been a crossover with the Real Housewives — ‘Bitch, the largest fossil-fuels producer in Central Asia isn’t Uzbekistan!

jeopardy