Not everything can be accounted for in a live, relatively unscripted program, not even one that’s been going on for four decades like Jeopardy! Recently, a contestant came very close to answering a question correctly but his typo was so remarkable and NSFW that host Ken Jennings had to redo that part of the recording.
Jeopardy! has been in the midst of several themed tournaments, from a Second Chance competition to, currently, its Champions Wildcard, where former winners and near-winners join in for the Tournament of Champions. Even with such esteemed contestants, anything can still happen – and it sure did when an inappropriate blunder changed the course of the episode in more ways than one.
A contestant makes a spelling error that forces Jennings to redo his recording
It occurred during Final Jeopardy. Contestants had to work with a clue from the Music & Literature category. The hopeful winners were Brian Adams, Dave Pai, and Juliana Cotter. The correct response was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which Cotter correctly answered, and she was the only one – but she almost wasn’t.
Enter Adams with a very near win, except he had written out “repubic” instead of “republic.” This caused a moment of confusion for Jennings. However, viewers at home would not see this as the Jeopardy! team decided to redo how Jennings ruled.
That’s because, while Jeopardy! is forgiving with understandable typos, if a misspelling changes the meaning of a noun from one word to another, they will mark the answer wrong. So, while Adams might have thought he had a chance at moving on to victory, in the end, he did not.
A hymn for the champions
Cotter was ultimately the only one who qualified to move on. But she took to Reddit after her peculiar victory to answer questions about the round and said Adams took the sequence of events in good stride. As Adams answered, he appeared to form an “L” with his hands, which one Redditor hypothesized was a reference to the letter he realized was missing from his answer.
“I’m sure it was intentional,” Cotter theorized, “the judges didn’t notice the missing L the first time, so Ken’s ruling on his response had to be re-taped. Brian was an amazing sport about all of it–he’s able to laugh at himself with a lot more grace than most of us would manage in that situation. He really is a delight to spend time with, and very smart.”
In fact, even though she’s the one moving on in the competition, Cotter says she hopes she can be like him and have such poise and good humor in situations like that.
