Celebrity Jeopardy Tournament Week

[TLEberle]

Was any reason given as to why Andy Richter, the biggest winner of the preliminary games, was absent, and a wild card entrant brought in to replace him?

[xavier45]

Alex said he was on the road traveling with Conan O'Brian on his comedy tour.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'xavier45\' post=\'240516\' date=\'May 7 2010, 10:36 PM\']Alex said he was on the road traveling with Conan O'Brian on his comedy tour.[/quote]Baw, I fail. I'm pretty sure I had heard that somewhere.

[trainman]

To be a bit more specific, the celebrity tournament finals were taped Saturday, April 17th, while the Conan tour was up in Saskatchewan.  (If they'd been able to push the taping back a week, Andy might have been able to appear, since the tour was in L.A. on the 24th and 25th.)

[tpirfan28]

Going to branch this out a little bit, since it's still topical and to this point.  What is everyone's opinion on how they handled the whole celebrity tournament thing?  I found the every third(?) Thursday thing to be way to hard to remember to watch, then completely forgot about the finale week.  Are they going to repeat the whole tournament in the summer?

/No complaints about the cash awards.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'240526\' date=\'May 8 2010, 08:34 AM\']I found the every third(?) Thursday thing to be way to hard to remember to watch, then completely forgot about the finale week.[/quote]
I liked them dragging it out over the whole season like that, as it allowed me to see a lot more people play the game, and it made this week seem like much more of a Big Deal. My only disappointment was that Richter wasn't able to play in the final week, as he was my pick to win the whole thing.

[Jeremy Nelson]

I liked the format too- it made me feel less like "Why do I have to watch 2 weeks of this?" and actually watch some of the games.

Side note: I didn't know this until I went to the J! site to check the Celebrity tournament results, but the Tournament of Champions begins Monday.

[Craig Karlberg]

I thought they did a decent job spreading it out once a month like that(except the final 2 prelim matches back-to-back).  It made it seem less like a 2-week affair & more like a monthly series of matches leading up to the final week.  The only problem I had is with the taping schedule.  Couldn't they allowed Andy Richter to return a week later to finish the tourney?  At least then they would've swap the finals week with the ToC shows as far as airing them goes.  I had high hopes for Richter to win it all.  That's why I stayed away in the form of a silent protest.  The next time they try something like this, they should consider ALL celebrity schedules before committing to something like this.  That schedule conflict irked me.

[Jeremy Nelson]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'240545\' date=\'May 9 2010, 02:42 AM\']The only problem I had is with the taping schedule.  Couldn't they allowed Andy Richter to return a week later to finish the tourney?  At least then they would've swap the finals week with the ToC shows as far as airing them goes.[/quote]
Something doesn't set right with me either, considering the number one seed (and as far as I know, the only entrant to give the show some pop culture exposure due to his thrashing of Wolf Blitzer) gets canned so easily. Honestly, his $68000 performance and his pop culture exposure would have made me make sure Andy was the FIRST celebrity who was confirmed for the semifinals. No offense to Issac Mizrahi, but I had to look him up on Wikipedia to find out who he was.

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'rollercoaster87\' post=\'240544\' date=\'May 9 2010, 02:36 AM\']I liked the format too- it made me feel less like "Why do I have to watch 2 weeks of this?"[/quote]
Three weeks, even.  With the straight single-elimination, it ended up being 14 shows.

It could have been done slightly better (more pub and maybe put them a little closer together), but it was decent.

Since I didn't watch the final week, I'm interested if they cranked up the difficulty any.

[Jay Temple]

The Andy Richter situation is borderline unforgivable, but they made another tactical mistake, in my estimation. Since all previous shows aired on the third Thursday of the month, I assumed that was when the May installments would begin.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'240545\' date=\'May 9 2010, 03:42 AM\']The only problem I had is with the taping schedule.  Couldn't they allowed Andy Richter to return a week later to finish the tourney?  At least then they would've swap the finals week with the ToC shows as far as airing them goes.  I had high hopes for Richter to win it all.  That's why I stayed away in the form of a silent protest.  The next time they try something like this, they should consider ALL celebrity schedules before committing to something like this.  That schedule conflict irked me.[/quote]
Andy's episode aired September 17, 2009, three months into Conan's new gig, and four days into Leno's. That means it most likely taped sometime over the summer, when Conan's new show was even...newer. Now, you do realize that, at that point, no one in their right mind had any idea that Late Night War '92 2010 would be around the corner?

It's nobody's fault, and it would be insane to realign a game show taping just because one of nine contestants had a sudden obligation*, no matter how badass they played. I would've loved to see him return, but the show had a schedule to meet in order to get the tournament on the air by May, and they weren't going to jeopardize (pardon the obvious pun) tjat for one person. If I'm the sidekick of a late-night talk show and my job is taking me on a nationwide tour, I think I'm going to choose my job over 1-3 appearances on a game show that people will forget about in a week.

*I realize there was a very recent champion who returned at a later date to defend her throne. Keep in mind she was a civilian contestant, not a celebrity playing in a structured tournament.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'240579\' date=\'May 9 2010, 10:39 PM\']It's nobody's fault, and it would be insane to realign a game show taping just because one of nine contestants had a sudden obligation*, no matter how badass they played. I would've loved to see him return, but the show had a schedule to meet in order to get the tournament on the air by May, and they weren't going to jeopardize (pardon the obvious pun) tjat for one person.[/quote]
Exactly.  I don't see any way you fault Jeopardy for this.  These are nine (or ten) people with wildly divergent careers.  Change the taping date, one that had been set far in advance, in order to accommodate one player, and you'd likely bump into someone else's conflict.

On our much smaller scale, we find ourselves faced with this surprisingly often on QuizBusters.  Schools frequently ask us to change a taping date or time in order to accommodate one student or another who's involved in something else.  They don't seem to realize that there's another school involved, with their own schedules and conflicts, much less our own production schedule to consider.

What surprises me is that Richter didn't participate anyway.  He was a dominant player who stood a decent chance to win [DR.EVIL]ONE MEEELION DOLLARS[/DR.EVIL] for his charity, and was guaranteed $100,000 for showing up. Fly into LA for the single day of taping and you miss one, maybe two nights of the tour.  I'm told he's heavily involved in the live show, but it seems for a couple of nights they could give his bits to a writer and let Conan make jokes about Andy bailing on them to be on a game show.

[MyronMMeyer]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'240604\' date=\'May 10 2010, 04:03 PM\']What surprises me is that Richter didn't participate anyway.  He was a dominant player who stood a decent chance to win [DR.EVIL]ONE MEEELION DOLLARS[/DR.EVIL] for his charity, and was guaranteed $100,000 for showing up. Fly into LA for the single day of taping and you miss one, maybe two nights of the tour.  I'm told he's heavily involved in the live show, but it seems for a couple of nights they could give his bits to a writer and let Conan make jokes about Andy bailing on them to be on a game show.[/quote]

And Andy, who has no other steady work right now, gives up his paycheck for those 1 or 2 nights.

-M

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'MyronMMeyer\' post=\'240723\' date=\'May 12 2010, 01:03 AM\']And Andy, who has no other steady work right now, gives up his paycheck for those 1 or 2 nights.[/quote]
Pretty-much-guaranteed work in the fall, plus whatever part of the Conan settlement he got?

Somehow I don't think Andy's hurting.

I mean, point made, but I don't think the paycheck for 1 or 2 nights of live shows is really gonna keep the filet off of his table.