Who Is… KEN JENNINGS?

Shortly after we got rid of the five-show rule, the records for consecutive wins quickly started to fall. First, a taxi driver, bartender, and student from State College, Pennsylvania, named Sean Ryan won six games. Then a writer from Washington, D.C., named Tom Walsh won seven games. All of us who worked on the show thought, Wow! Seven games straight! We were so impressed. And then toward the very end of that season, a thirty-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City, Utah, arrived. His name was Ken Jennings.

When I think of Ken, I think of a quality human being. Extremely bright—that goes without saying. Someone who’s not out to impress you. Somebody I can be very simpatico with because I think we’re the same type of person. We’re comfortable in our own skin and comfortable in dealing with other people and don’t feel we have to go out and impress or make a mark. He’s somebody I genuinely liked as a contestant on the program.

About the time he won his fifth game in a row, I knew he was something special. I knew the guy was going to be a force to reckon with. It turned out that Ken was on the show for sixteen weeks, winning seventy-four straight games and more than $2.52 million. Soon I started running out of questions to ask him during the interview segment of each show. So he would suggest things. I think he even made up some stories, such as how he likes airline food. He’s got a great sense of humor, but it’s not an out-there kind of humor. Reactionary humor. Not I’m-going-to-tell-you-a-joke humor. Maybe we had that in common from the get-go, or maybe we just developed this camaraderie because of the length of time he spent with me on the program.

One common misconception about Jeopardy! is that I become friendly with the contestants and have a great deal of interaction with them. That’s not the case. There’s no time. Because we are taping five shows a day, we only have fifteen minutes between each game. I go back to my dressing room, change my suit, get my makeup touched up, then come back out for the next game. The only opportunity I have to interact with contestants is during the actual game.

Even if I did have more time to spend with them, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was favoring one contestant over another or that there was some hanky-panky going on. I’ve heard plenty of stories like that about other hosts over the years. On one game show that will remain nameless, there was a very attractive female contestant. A few weeks after she appeared on the show, one of the staff members called her home to verify that she received her winnings. They were surprised to hear the host of the show answer the phone. That never happened on Jeopardy!

But if you’ve got somebody with you on the show for sixteen weeks and you are interacting during the conversation segments, that all mounts up. That’s thirty-seven hours Ken and I spent together. We got to know each other and feel comfortable with each other. Letterman joked about us taking out a license and moving to Massachusetts and getting married.

Ken had taped around forty shows before any of them aired. We weren’t 100 percent sure people were going to like watching a player be so dominant. “Good God, why are we watching this guy?” So that was sort of an unknown quantity. But then obviously the fans got invested and continued to tune in. Over the course of Ken’s run, the show’s ratings increased 22 percent compared to the same period the year before. And for several weeks during that time we were the highest-rated syndicated program on television.

Obviously I knew that Ken’s reign would come to an end eventually. Though I must admit I never expected it to happen the way it did. Going into Final Jeopardy!, he was in the lead with $14,400. The second-place contestant, a real estate agent from Ventura, California, named Nancy Zerg, had $10,000. The other contestant was in the red and didn’t make it to Final Jeopardy! The Final Jeopardy! category was “Business and Industry”; the clue was:

MOST OF THIS FIRM’S 70,000 SEASONAL WHITE-COLLAR EMPLOYEES WORK ONLY 4 MONTHS A YEAR

Since Nancy was in second place, we revealed her response first:

WHAT IS H&R BLOCK?

She was correct. She wagered $4,401, which put her ahead of Ken by a single dollar. Then I went to Ken for his response:

WHAT IS FEDEX?

Oh my God, I thought. He’s done.

Before I even had a chance to read it out loud, the audience gasped in shock. The camera then cut to Nancy, who put her hands over her mouth in utter disbelief. Later, when I thought about that moment, what amazed me was that before we revealed Ken’s answer on his monitor, I didn’t notice anything different about him. There wasn’t the slightest change in his face or body language that indicated what happened. I always thought that was a sign of what a class act he was. He was a true professional and great sportsman until the very end. He turned to Nancy and not only shook her hand but gave her a hug. I got the sense that he was genuinely happy for her.

“Congratulations,” I said to Nancy, “you are indeed a giant-killer!”

The studio audience rose to their feet and clapped—a standing ovation for both players.

There was definitely a sadness. I had tears in my eyes. It just all happened so quickly. Ken lost. I said something like, “Ken, you’re going away with a lot of money” and, to the viewers at home, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” The show ended. I remember thinking, “Ken’s gone. My buddy. My pal. This was getting to be The Ken and Alex Show.” To give viewers more closure, we brought Ken back before the next game so we could say a proper goodbye.

It was a great reminder about the importance of the categories on Jeopardy! There’s always the possibility that somebody will get lucky when their categories happen to come up and they’re able to take advantage. It doesn’t matter who you are. The categories are the great equalizer. Nancy Zerg experienced this herself. After beating Ken, she lost in her very next game.

A software engineer from Salt Lake City, Utah…