‘Jeopardy!’ Shocking Triple Strike Out On Johnny Cash Song
In a shockingly rare occurrence, all three “Final Jeopardy!” contestants misidentified a Johnny Cash song after omitting the same single letter.
The February 8 episode of Jeopardy! wasn’t a particularly thrilling one. The game was nearly a runaway for Alex Gordon, a surgical resident originally from Somers, New York. With a total of $26,000, he boasted a $10,000 lead second-place contestant, Suzanne Goldlust. Ed Petersen, who struggled to match Gordon and Goldlust’s pace for the entire game, had just $1,000 entering “Final Jeopardy!”
But the episode took quite a turn when each contestant took a stab at the game’s final clue.
There’s No ‘I’ In This Team
Entering “Final Jeopardy!” the category was Country Music. “Let’s find out which of our contestants is a little bit country,” quipped host Ken Jennings before reading the clue. “‘It was kind of a prodding to myself to play it straight,’ said Johnny Cash of this 1956 hit.” After Jennings finished reading the clue, it didn’t take long for each of the three contestants to write down their response. It seemed as if they all knew exactly which song was the correct choice.
When Jennings informed Petersen that his answer of “Walk The Line” was incorrect, it became apparent that his competitors were in the same boat. Following Goldlust and Gordon’s incorrect responses of “Walk The Line” as well, Jennings couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “Unfortunately, the full name of the song is ‘I Walk The Line.'”
Despite his incorrect answer, Gordon still managed to hold onto $19,000 and earned his spot in the semifinals.
Remembering Johnny Cash’s song ‘I Walk The Line’
Perhaps the “Final Jeopardy!” triple strikeout is a prominent occurrence of the “Mandela Effect.” According to Britannica, the “Mandela Effect” is a phenomenon in which a group of people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner.
Or maybe the contestants all conflated the song with the 2005 film, Walk The Line. The movie chronicled the life of Johnny Cash. One user on the Jeopardy! YouTube page noted the possible connection. “I thought this one seemed a bit too easy. I think they wrote the clue expecting that the contestants would make that exact mistake, because of the movie title,” the user wrote. “Unsure if I would’ve got it. Cash singing ‘I walk the line’ popped into my head immediately, and I think I would’ve just wrote that. But is it ‘Ring of Fire,’ or ‘The Ring of Fire?’ I’d be just as clueless.”
In the Reddit daily episode discussion thread, one user also pointed to the film as the reason for the blunder. “Okay. It was an understandable miss in “Final Jeopardy!” because the film changed the title for the known song. Hell, before the film came out I knew people who referred to the song without “I” as the title,” they wrote. “I wonder if that possible confusion wasn’t discussed in pre-production/vetting of the clue.”
What do you think? Would you have made the same mistake? Let us know in the comments section.
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