Thursday, September 20, 2007

Jeopardy! catches up to Detectives Beyond Borders, then gets one of its own questions wrong

Loyal readers will know I've posted several Shakespeare comments recently, noting instances in which the Bard drew from the same wellspring that inspires current crime writers.

Someone in TV land must have read those posts, because tonight's Jeopardy! including the cleverly titled category "C.S.I.: Shakespeare." Once they'd run through categories of '70s hits and words with the letter z, the contestants correctly answered, in ascending order of monetary value, questions that amounted to the following: Who kills the king who married his (the killer's) mother? Who stabs a king? What play has two dead lovers in it? and Which king who suffers heavy losses had three daughters?

Only the fifth question posed any kind of a test, asking, in effect, who drowned the Duke of Clarence in a cask of wine. None of the cautious contestants took a stab at that one (the answer was Richard III).

I expect a note of gratitude and a hefty royalty check from the Jeopardy! folks any day now.
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If money and thanks fail to arrive, I'll console myself with the rare pleasure of having seen the show's question writers and host Alex Trebek make a mistake. A category called "The Star-Spangled Banner" asked: "Which two (sic) times of day" are mentioned in the U.S. national anthem? One contestant answered: "Dawn and night," which was closer to correct than Trebek got it. No, Trebek said, the answer is dawn ("by the dawn's early light") and twilight ("at the twilight's last gleaming").

Question for Alex Trebek: "This word completes the following line from `The Star Spangled Banner': `Gave proof through the ________ that our flag was still there.'"

(On second thought, I hope the question did not refer to the first verse of the anthem, in which case Jeopardy! would be right. Yikes!)

© Peter Rozovsky 2007


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7 Comments:

Blogger Linkmeister said...

Another opportunity to use the word Schadenfreude. Four or five years ago I'd never had occasion to utter that; now I seem to find it useful almost weekly.

September 20, 2007  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Damn, you read my mind! I was going to use it in my post, but I was afraid I would have seemed like a show-off. I'm happy to boast of my readers' erudition, though, so I'm glad you used it.

September 20, 2007  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I'm guessing you use Schadenfreude in reference to friends, colleagues and loved ones who voted for George W. Bush.

September 20, 2007  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

Actually, no, not in reference to people I know. There it's more true to say I feel sorry for them.

I reserve schadenfreude for the true believers in the compassionate conservativism which never was and the fiscal responsibility so heavily preached before he was elected. Then there's the restoration of honor and dignity to the White House so quickly demolished when lies were required to fool the public into believing there were WMDs in Iraq, then that we were going to bring democracy to the Middle East, and so on and so on.

Ok, it's a book blog, not a political one; that's more than you needed. Sorry.

September 21, 2007  
Blogger Uriah Robinson said...

You Americans are so amusing with your regular elections.
Here in the UK an unpopular leader such as George W Bush would have been removed by a cosy little coup d'etat as were Maggie Thatcher in 1990, and Tony Blair this year.
They both won three elections which qualified them for removal by the chattering intellectual elite.
Elections are just unpredictable with all those "hicks" voting and they are far too expensive.

September 21, 2007  
Blogger Linkmeister said...

uriah, for those of us opposed, it got beyond amusing a long long time ago.

September 21, 2007  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Yes, the term "no confidence" applies rather well to feelings about George W. Bush these days even if the system of government does not permit the practice.

Here in the U.S., where the never-ending campaigns for members of the House of Representatives are an occasional subject of observation and complaint, and presidential campaigns last almost two years, the idea of a snap election is virtually inconceivable. I remember that the timing of Canadian holidays a few years ago necessitated what one newspaper called an unusually long campaign for a federal election in that country -- six or eight weeks.

September 21, 2007  

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