Jeopardy! Fans Outraged as Host Ken Jennings Faces Backlash for ‘Incorrect Ruling’—Did He Unfairly Award Points for a Partial Answer?

Jeopardy! fans accuse host Ken Jennings of ‘incorrect ruling’ and claim he gave contestant points for ‘partial response’

JEOPARDY! host Ken Jennings has been accused of letting a partially correct response fly on Wednesday’s episode.

Deb Bilodeau guessed a clue for Zooey Deschanel with “Who is: Deschanel,” and was not prompted to be more specific as expected.

Ken Jennings presented an $800 clue under the category ‘TV’Credit: Jeopardy!

The contestant was deemed correct with ‘Who is: Deschanel’Credit: Jeopardy!

One fan wrote: ‘A little surprised they didn’t ask Be More Specific, since Zooey’s sister and mother are also actresses’Credit: Jeopardy!
Returning champ Deb Bilodeau, a winemaker from California, faced Ben Spilsbury, a sales engineer from Long Island City, New York, and Devin Lohman, an architectural designer and Master’s student from Peachtree City, Georgia.

The clue read: “In the ’60s Marlo Thomas was “That Girl”; from 2011 to 2018, she played “New Girl”, Jess.”

Deb – who wound up losing the game – simply responded: “Who is: Deschanel” and was rewarded the points by Ken, 48.

Fns across the internet expressed disagreement with the breezy Jeopardy! ruling and Ken’s lack of asking for clarity as there is more than one actress in the Deschanel family.

‘EXPECTED KEN TO ASK FOR CLARIFICATION’

One Twitter user wrote: “Emily Deschanel will be filing a strongly worded protest with #Jeopardy regarding Ken’s failure to prompt ‘be more specific’ on the ‘New Girl’ clue.”

“Shouldn’t they require a [be more] specific on Deschanel since there are [other] current acting options? #Jeopardy,” wrote another.

“I thought the same thing! Fully expected Ken to ask for clarification and was very surprised when he didn’t,” replied a third.

On Reddit, another fan similarly penned: “A little surprised they didn’t throw a Be More Specific on Deschanel, since Zooey’s sister and mother are also actresses.”

“Absolutely, especially when I never heard of the correct response one,” wrote another.

A fifth fan also agreed: “Zooey Deschanel probably has a higher fame level than her elder sister Emily, but Emily was the star of a show that ran for twelve years.

This may be the moment that finally convinced me that ‘Be More Specific’ has been permanently retired as a concept.”

The widely-understood rule is that if a last name only refers to one person, the first name isn’t needed- but if there is more than one person the clue could possibly be for it is needed.

A Reddit user put it: “Sometimes first/middle names are necessary for clarification.

“For example in a question about U.S. presidents, ‘Who is Obama’ is usually enough information to know you mean Barack Obama, but ‘Who is Bush’ is not enough information to know whether you mean George W Bush or George HW Bush.

“If the first name is not necessary for clarification, people may omit it because 1) it’s faster than saying the full name and/or 2) it’s easier to remember just the last name.”

QUESTIONABLE!

Ken and actress Mayim Bialik, 47, succeeded the late, great Alex Trebek, who had hosted since 1984.

The hosting announcement hasn’t been the only big change for Jeopardy!, as executive producer Michael Davies – who replaced the ousted Mike Richards – filled a job that before them, hadn’t changed hands in decades either.

While Davies has been focused on the upcoming Jeopardy! Masters, the microscopes are out for traditionalists, and they’ve spotted plenty of rulings they haven’t liked in the regularly airing show.

Earlier this week fans disagreed with a rhyming clue that asked for “‘Sake and ‘Jokey'” – Ken told a Twitter critic to “Buy a dictionary.”

Ken was also recently accused of being more lenient with 8-day-champ Stephen Webb than another contestant.

Stephen responded: “Is that the corpse blossom, what’s the corpse blossom, corpse flower?” – and Ken decided after a slightly generous number of tries he was correct.

Later on, in the same episode, rival Karen Rittenbach buzzed in and responded: “What’s Cat’s Cradle?”

“No,” Ken said. She then, like Stephen, tried correcting herself: “What is: Cats In The Cradle?”

The host ruled it was a no-go: “I’m sorry Karen I’d already ruled against you by the time you corrected yourself.”

One viewer tweeted: “What’s up with Ken Jennings [being] so quick with the ‘no’ for Karen, but Stephen gets 3 tries for the correct answer?” and another: “That was crappy. He let Steven answer 50x.”

Another contestant was deemed incorrect in his pronunciation of the word Gethsemane in March- he was docked $1600 and the $3200 swing proved costly when he was the only one correct in Final Jeopardy but still lost.

Yet in another March game, then-champ Melissa Klapper was allowed to guess what sounded like “Ewan Gregor” instead of “McGregor.”