“Jeopardy!” viewers jumped to Twitter this week to weigh in on how the show handled two contestant’s responses – and scored them differently – during an episode that aired on Monday.
The questions over the show’s rules follow a response from contestant Stephen Webb, who won his eighth-straight game on Thursday, as he took a shot at host Ken Jennings’ clue about “the corpse flower,” Newsweek reported.
“Is that the corpse blossom? What’s the corpse blossom, corpse flower?” Webb said in response to Jennings on Monday.
Jennings approved the response but one contestant, Karen Rittenbach, failed to get points in response to a clue about Harry Chapin’s hit song “Cats In The Cradle.”
“What’s Cat’s Cradle?” Rittenbach responded before Jennings said “no.”
“What’s ‘Cats in the Cradle’?” she continued.
“I’m sorry, Karen, I’d already ruled against you by the time you corrected yourself,” Jennings replied.
Fans jumped to Twitter to address the two contestants’ responses.
The difference in the ruling of the two contestants’ responses, as echoed by some Twitter users, stems from a rule that states “contestants may change their responses as long as neither the host nor the judges have made a ruling.”
“IMO Ken is actually really good at managing this in the moment, if the contestant has completed their answer (like Karen w/ Cat’s Cradle) he usually rules quickly before they rephrase it,” wrote Nelson, who is known as a “Jeopardy Fashion Connoisseur.”
“But he waits longer if the answer is partially correct and just needs additional info.”
She added that Webb has been “quick to squeeze in multiple versions of an answer” although it’s within the rules of the show.
