However, he infamously lost his last game when he wrongly answered the Final Jeopardy round. The clue was “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year.” The correct answer was H&R Block, which his contestant, Nancy Zerg, answered. But Jennings answered “FedEx,” breaking his huge winning streak. Zerg was shocked and thrilled, of course, but naturally, Jennings was sad to have ended his time on the show.
Sure, Jennings probably thinks of that moment quite a bit, but it’s been almost 20 years: He was over it. Until recently.
In a recent episode of Jeopardy that he was hosting, the final Jeopardy answer was “Adjusted for inflation, the nightly rate this company put in its name in 1962 is now $51.” Some may argue that it wasn’t that difficult of a question. And still, only two of the three contestants put down the correct answer, which was “Motel 6.”
The leading contestant of the game, Brian Chang, decided to purposefully put down a wrong answer, since he was going to win no matter what. But instead of writing any old wrong answer, he decided to add a bit of humor into it.
As Jennings read off each contestant’s correct answer, he finally got to Chang. Before even revealing his response, Chang was shaking his head no, only to say that he was going to be wrong.
When Jennings read off “H&R Block” as Chang’s answer, he knew exactly what Chang was referring to. However, he was a great sport about it and didn’t miss a beat in his response.
“I know from experience H&R Block is sometimes the right answer but not today,” Jennings said. “Even though you brought back some bad memories for me, you’re still going to go home with $13,201.”
Hilarous? Yes. Savage? Also yes.
See the moment for yourself in the video below!
Do you remember when Ken Jennings lost his winning streak? How do you think he handled his response in this recent episode?