Sydney Morning Herald - Latest News
· collected 2026-09-04 · by John Saxby
An adage I’ve long tried to live by, with varying degrees of success, is that it’s better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
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it → try → doubt
Certain situations – being asleep, being underwater, intubated – are easy.
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situations → intubate → ?
The long-running US game show, which airs in Australia weeknights on SBS and SBS2, has clues arranged into categories, presented in the form of answers.
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which → run → answers
Contestants must phrase their response in the form of a question.
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Contestants → phrase → question
Were the category “Opening Lines”, for example, this is what it might sound like on the couch at our place:
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it → sound → place
Clue: “Before we proceed any further, hear me speak”.
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me → proceed → ?
Most winners enjoy one or two victories, pocket a few thousand dollars and bow out.
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winners → enjoy → dollars
Five wins in a row earns an invitation to the Tournament of Champions.
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wins → earn → Champions
Host Ken Jennings, himself a former contestant, won 74 games in a row, a record that still stands.
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that → win → row
He is also a Mormon, something I thought remarkable until I learnt that Johnny Gilbert, who introduces Ken and the three contestants, is 98 years old.
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who → think → Ken
Until 2025, Jennings also held the US record for being the highest-earning game show contestant ever – more than $US4.5 million ($6.8 million) from Jeopardy! alone.
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Jennings → hold → Jeopardy
Slate magazine called him “the Michael Jordan of trivia” and “the Seabiscuit of geekdom”.
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magazine → call → geekdom
“I was aware, from a young age, about being a know-it-all,” Jennings once told The New Yorker.
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Jennings → know → Yorker
“You immediately realise that America doesn’t like that, that it’s not a hit with girls in your class to know Captain Kirk’s middle name …
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it → realise → name
It is kind of silly to know this weird stuff but we can have a good time with it.
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we → know → it
It’s better than not knowing it, right?
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It → ’ → it
As a contestant, Jennings knew enough weird stuff and more to provide thousands of correct responses.
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Jennings → know → responses
But it is a single incorrect answer that still haunts him.
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that → haunt → him
The year was 2004, the category was “Tool Time” and the clue was: “This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker”.
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term → handle → seeker
Jennings, who looked then, as he does now, like the Mormon missionary to Madrid he once was, answered: “What is a hoe?”
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What → look → Madrid
“No,” responded Alex Trebek, the show’s then-host.
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Trebek → respond → ?
“Ooooh … they teach you that in school in Utah?” he quipped.
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he → teach → Utah
“What is a rake?” another contestant replied correctly.
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contestant → reply → ?
In the US, where the show attracts 20 million viewers a week, fans online endlessly dissect and relive such moments (as well as debate whether Jennings will ever match the still-beloved Trebek, who appeared in 37 seasons before he died of pancreatic cancer in 2020).
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he → attract → 2020
Recent chatter concerned Bevin Blaber, a writer originally from Schenectady, New York, whose tendency to sway when answering made viewers at home dizzy.
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viewers → concern → home
Klay Frappier, an accountant from McHenry, North Dakota, also drew attention for solving clues one category at a time, a strategy known as the “Forrest Bounce” for reasons nobody will remember, were they to read them here.
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they → draw → them
It will surprise absolutely no one to learn that the median age of the audience in the US is 70.
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age → surprise → US
But the show is also a beacon of inclusiveness, insight and intelligence at a time when America appears light on all three.
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America → appear → three
From 40-game winner Amy Schneider (the first openly transgender contestant and first woman to win more than $1 million in a regular season), to a guy the other night who was more excited about the Beyoncé concert he was going to after the taping than being on the show itself, to stay-at-home dad Andrew He and stay-at-home son Brendan Liaw (who attends 12-hour gin rummy marathons with his three retired aunts), what often makes these people interesting is not their cleverness – some are just as clueless as me – but their ordinariness.
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some → win → me
Nor are the show’s writers afraid to get (slightly) political.
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writers → get → ?
Recently, the correct response to a “Bodies of Water” clue was “What is the Gulf of Mexico?” – despite coming after President Donald Trump’s executive order to start calling it the Gulf of America.
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What → come → America
One hopes a similar act of subversion will take place in a future episode, when the correct response will be “What is Lake Ontario?”
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Ontario → hop → episode
At a time when America has abandoned soft power for psychodrama; when fewer Australians are choosing to holiday in the US and flocking instead to that bastion of political, cultural and religious freedom, China; a time when even North Korea looks, well, not exactly sane by comparison but America is – to quote The Simpsons’ Helen Lovejoy (who was referring to the Middle East at the time) – looking “a little iffy”, Jeopardy! is one of the few US exports that allows us to forget tariffs, Tehran and Trump, and to concentrate on what really matters: trivia.
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what → abandon → matters
Jeopardy! airs weekdays from 6.40pm on SBS2, two episodes a night.
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Jeopardy → air → SBS2
Celebrity Jeopardy! airs Fridays at 7.30pm on SBS2 and SBS On Demand.
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Jeopardy → air → Demand
- Femme fatale: Why killer women are better than boring alpha men
- Nice guys finish first: Why this film is criminally underrated
- Binge-watching: Short seasons are ruining TV; bring back the 22-episode season
- Killer ballerinas: Why is Hollywood so obsessed with them?
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Hollywood → finish → them
