Jeopardy! has frequently been the recipient of mixed reactions, with many fans expressing their dissatisfaction with the producers. Recently, the viewers of the game show were outraged during the 2022 Tournament of Champions when the fans’ favorite, Sam Buttrey, was allegedly robbed out of a possible win.
In response, those fans have made certain proposals to producers that they believe would make up for a terrible mistake that has given the show such bad PR.
Sam Buttrey was robbed of a win
The disagreement arose during the last TOC when the three finalists — Amy Schneider, Andrew He, and Sam Buttrey — were given the clue, “Paul’s letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations” under the category “The New Testament.”
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Amy’s response, “Hebrews,” was deemed correct, while Sam’s answer, “Romans,” was tagged incorrect, thus making the other contestant, Andrew He, be declared the winner of the round. The verdict by the show’s producers has generated many arguments over how correct the given answer was.
‘Jeopardy!’ producers, defend their answer
Jeopardy! producer Sarah Foss and senior researcher Michael Harris have both commented on the controversial answer on an episode of the weekly Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “[We] just want to talk a bit about, you know, I understand authorship traditionally is attributed to Paul, although some say uncertain,” Sarah detailed. “And in that [traditional] case, there’s only one New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotes, and it is Hebrews.”
“So, when it comes to Bible categories, because there are various versions of the Bible, we have taken it upon ourselves as a show to use the King James Version as our ‘Bible of Bibles,’ so to speak. And we’ve kind of let the world know,” Harris explained further. “So, for the most part, when contestants come, they kind of know that we are referencing the King James Bible. This clue, in particular, we also reached out to a seminarian who had verified that our information, as written in the clue, was correct, and that’s when we went ahead and were like, ‘OK, we feel secure in our doing this clue.'”
‘Jeopardy!’ fans table their demands
The seemingly angry fans took to the internet in a long thread to express their disappointment at the show’s producers and offered their own possible solution.. “The fairest thing to do at this point is to just bump up Sam [Buttrey]’s winnings to match Andrew [He]’s. Ultimately Amy [Schneider] won the tournament,” a fan suggested. “So this mistake didn’t also affect her winnings, just Sam’s. Bumping him up doesn’t hurt Andrew. It just acknowledges the issue.”
Another viewer detailed what he considered to be the right thing to do by the contestant, “I’d be satisfied with them admitting their error… and apologizing to him, and giving him a slot in the next Tournament of Champions.” While a different fan noted, “This is 100% the correct answer, and it would be awful if they didn’t do that.”