“Jeopardy!” fans ripped Ken Jennings over two differing rulings in a “dumb” wordplay category.
Returning champ Jesse Matheny, Eric Anderson — who became the new champ during this episode — and Rebecca Bailey were facing off when Jennings, 48, introduced the category “A_B_C_D,” explaining that “each response will have those four letters in that order.”
The $800 clue selected by Matheny read: “It’s a longer way of saying vitamin C.”
“What is asorbic acid?” Matheny responded — notably missing the first “C” in the word “ascorbic.”
Jennings paused for a bit, then said, “Yeah, we’ll take that; I think the ‘C’ is pronounced.”
But fans took issue with two parts of the mess-up.
First, viewers said the answer was clearly supposed to be “ascorbic acid,” and Matheny, a customer success implementation manager from Indiana, pronounced it as a different word.
Fans also had a problem with the clue itself: The first “C” in “ascorbic” actually comes before the letter “B,” so if the category were true to follow “A_B_C_D,” then the actual correct response wouldn’t fit.
In the same category, the $1,000 clue said: “If you ‘go’ this 7-word phrase, you’ve exceeded what your obligations require.”
Anderson, an operations director from Brooklyn, answered with, “What is above the call of duty?” — which is seven words, including the “Jeopardy!” standard “What is.”
The correct response was supposed to be “above and beyond the call of duty.”
From there, viewers piled on.
One person on Twitter questioned that, writing, “why doesn’t ‘above the call of duty’ work? It’s ABCD.”
“My thoughts exactly,” someone responded.
“Jeez. Asorbic should not have been an accepted response. It’s ASCORBIC. It is not pronounced any other way,” another tweeted about the first error.
“I didn’t hear the ‘c’ from Jesse’s response of ascorbic acid. I heard ‘asorbic’ acid,” someone else pointed out.
According to Jeopardy.com, responses to clues “must be phonetically correct and not add or subtract any extraneous sounds or syllables.”
That rule would make “asorbic” an incorrect response, though it was ruled to be accepted.
The Post has reached out to “Jeopardy!” representatives for comment.
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