The great Ken Jennings

[beatlefreak84]

Hello everyone,

74 games won on one of television's toughest game shows.  A record which I don't think will be broken for a very long time.  I was mesmerized watching Ken Jennings and his lightning fast buzzer speed, his amazing capacity of knowledge, and his all-around "nice guy" demeanor on the show.  A truly great contestant and I'm glad he won as much as he did.

He certainly was a very skilled player at "Jeopardy!"  So, that got me thinking:  If good ol' Kenny boy were to go on other game shows, would he post just as impressive numbers?  My parents joked that he'd probably go on WOF and solve the puzzle once the first letter is revealed and/or figure out the perfect way to spin the wheel to get the big money every time.  I'm not sure about that, but it is fun to think about, huh?  

Here is a partial list of shows (past and present) that I think Kenny boy would do very well on:

Any big money quiz show from the Millionaire days or the 64K ? days; his vast quantity of knowledge would easily milk these shows for big bucks.

$OTC; his lightning-fast buzzer speed would whomp the other contestants and probably rack up that required $750 to walk away with all the cash and prizes in a matter of a few days.

WBSM; need I say more?  I'd love to just see the second round with him going up against Ben with the buzzers; that would be so much fun!

Can you guys think of any more?

Anthony

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' date=\'Jul 2 2005, 05:55 PM\']Here is a partial list of shows (past and present) that I think Kenny boy would do very well on:

Any big money quiz show from the Millionaire days or the 64K ? days; his vast quantity of knowledge would easily milk these shows for big bucks.

$OTC; his lightning-fast buzzer speed would whomp the other contestants and probably rack up that required $750 to walk away with all the cash and prizes in a matter of a few days.

WBSM; need I say more?  I'd love to just see the second round with him going up against Ben with the buzzers; that would be so much fun!

Can you guys think of any more?
[/quote]
There are very few reasons why any of this would be as guaranteed as you claim.

Millionaire and WBSM: if he got the wrong stack of questions, he'd be screwed. As knowledgable as he was, there were some very obvious holes in his knowledge. He simply compensated by being VERY good in the stuff he DID know about.

Sale: He ALWAYS had the benefit of hearing the entire question, and a little bit of time to think about it, due to the way in which the Jeopardy buzzer system works. Do we have any proof that he would be able to play a game where the key is in anticipating the question before someone else does?

Yes, he's very smart. Yes, given a visual stimulus he's very fast. Does this translate to guaranteed success on any other show? Not necessarily. At all.