Tuesday, May 26, 2015

A Very Jewish Jeopardy!

I'm a big fan of Jeopardy! and try to watch every episode of the long running TV game show. I rarely watch an episode of Jeopardy! live, but make it a point to tune in to the episodes I recorded on my TiVo Roamio Pro.

Since Monday was the second day of the Shavuot holiday, I didn't watch that evening's episode until today. I started off doing very well getting the first dozen questions correct, but that's not what led me to blog about this episode of Jeopardy!

One question made me curoius as to whether they intentionally used this question on the episode that aired on Shavuot. The answer was the famous quote from The Book of Ruth in which Ruth says to Naomi, "Wherever you go I will go..." to which one of the contestants correctly provided the question, "Who was Ruth?" I thought to myself, I can't believe Jeopardy! used a question from The Book of Ruth on Shavuot.

And then another very Jewish question that had to do with the Red Tent. Alex Trebeck read the answer, which included mention of Anita Diamant's book The Red Tent (also a television series) and asked who the main character is (Jacob and Leah's daughter). The returning champion incorrectly answered "Rachel" and no one else wagered a guess so Trebeck said Dinah. I thought it was funny that he pronounced her name using the English pronounciation (the way a Bostonian would say "diner") rather than the more common Hebrew pronounciation (as in Dee-nah).

Already at this point, it was an interesting game of Jeopardy!, but then we arrived at Final Jeopardy! and things got hilarious.

The Final Jeopardy! category was "Hymns." The question was, “A Christian hymn and Jewish holiday hymn are both titled this, also the name of a Tony-nominated musical."

Jeopardy contestant answers Kinky Boots instead of Jewish hymn Rock of Ages

The correct response was "Rock of Ages," which is sung on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. None of the contestants knew the answer, but returning champion Choyon Manjrekar will go down in history for providing the funniest wrong answer in Jeopardy! history.

Manjrekar wrote "Kinky Boots" on the screen, to which Trebeck deadpanned, "Yes indeed, whenever people go to temple or to church, they sing, ‘Kinky Boots.'"

Not only did returning champion Manjrekar win Jeopardy! again last night, but with that incorrect answer he won the Internet too!


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