"Jeopardy!" Player Says Show Edited Out Major Ken Jennings Flub: "Had the Audience Gasping"
The slip-up was one of a handful of issues with the April 30 game, players and fans said.
The fast pace of Jeopardy! is one of its selling points: If you like to play along at home, you're trying to beat the contestants to the correct answers, all while they're competing to buzz in the fastest. But with these lightning-speed rounds, the game lends itself to mistakes—both from players thinking on their feet and from the host, who has to read clues and verify answers. While there are few better suited to stand behind the podium than Jeopardy! GOAT Ken Jennings, he's only human and does make mistakes. In fact, one player revealed that production edited out a major flub in a recent episode.
RELATED: Jeopardy! Producers Explain Major On-Air Flub: "Ken Made a Mistake."
During the April 30 Jeopardy! game, then four-day champ Amy Hummel was facing off against Bryan Carrasco and Laura Bligh. The players were in a close race leading up to Final Jeopardy—with Bligh and Hummel tied for the lead. But as for Jennings, fans said it wasn't his "best day."
One viewer alleged that Jennings unfairly ruled against Bligh in response to an $800 Double Jeopardy! clue in the Blank Verse category that asked, "Blake: 'Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the [blank] of the night.'"
The correct response was "forests," with Bligh originally responding, "What is a forest?" Before she could add the "s," Jennings cut her off and ruled her incorrect, allowing Hummel to buzz in and answer correctly. After he made the ruling, the host did say he "thought" but couldn't be sure if Bligh added the "s," TV Insider reported.
On the Jeopardy! subreddit discussion board, Bligh—who came in second behind Hummel—said that she thought she added the "s" in time, but the show measures time "in the hundredths of seconds." And while she was glad people were pointing out this arguable oversight, she said there was an even bigger error made during the taping that fans didn't get to see.
"Speaking of Ken mistakes, though, he made a whopper at the end of [Double Jeopardy] that had the audience audibly gasping," Bligh wrote, noting that she imagined it would be edited out. As it turned out, she was correct.
In a follow-up comment, Bligh wrote that production "edited it out so seamlessly that you'd never know it happened!"
RELATED: Jeopardy! Slammed for "Shameful" Answer Ruling: "One of the Worst Mistakes I've Seen."
According to Bligh, near the end of Double Jeopardy, there were two clues left. Having just answered the third-t0-last clue correctly, Bligh said it was her turn to select the clue.
"But Ken misread the board, thinking there was only the one clue left," Bligh wrote. "He said something like, 'So the final clue is in The Gap on Their Resume category,' and you could hear the studio audience gasping at the error, loudly enough that Ken heard them and turned his head toward them to see what was up."
Bligh then "firmly" said, "'No, Ken, I'll go with Five Syllable Words for $2000.'" According to Bligh, she "was definitely not interested" in the Gap category.
But the exchange, including the audience's gasp and her "No, Ken," were completely edited out, per Bligh.
In response, another Redditor asked if Jennings swore during the flub, but Bligh said that he "just carried on."
"Mistakes happen. If the staff hadn't thought they could edit it out, we would probably have had to do it over again," Bligh said.
RELATED: Controversial Jeopardy! Player Slammed for "Rude and Gross" Remark During Game.
Other Redditors said they picked up on her being "unusually determined" to select the syllable category, while another said that after they learned it was edited, the cut was pretty noticeable.
"Haha really enjoyed rewatching knowing the edit. You can definitely hear the inflection of the missing 'no Ken' in the remaining sound bite 'I'll go with five syllable words,'" one wrote.
More fans doubled-down on criticism of Jennings' hosting during this particular game, alleging that he should have let Carrasco know he could wager up to $2,000 when he landed on a Daily Double clue.
However, some came to Jennings' defense, saying this isn't an error on his part.
"That's not a mistake. I think the players are given the rules in a presentation before taping," a Redditor wrote. "They know what the rules are. Or should. When the host tells a player they can wager a max of 1k or 2k if they have less, it's just a reminder. There is no rule that the host must inform the contestant of this."
