May your Mormon god bless you, Ken Jennings.
November 30th, 2004 | by Scott Jennings |Well, as was pre-ordained by the goddamned internets, Ken Jennings lost on Jeopardy! tonight attempting his 75th consecutive win. I won’t feel bad for him; he won north of two and a half million dollars, and he’s quite clearly the greatest game show contestant in history. But I’ll miss him behind the podium.
I’m really annoyed by the “Ken Jennings is boring/obnoxious/unlikeable” memes. His dominance during his run was an amazing thing to watch — he was good at what he did, he had fun doing it, he was a total professional. Nitpicking his personality and rooting for him to lose just because you’re “tired” of him really smacks of our societal urge to quash exceptional performance, especially intellectually. People even insisted upon making Ken Jennings play with some sort of handicap, to make the game more “fair” or “interesting.” Fuck that. It’s a fair game, and the man played it well. And it was delightful to watch.
I raise my Mormon-compatible non-alcoholic beverage to you tonight, Mr. Jennings. You’re quite tastefully named, you’re a hell of a game show contestant, and I can’t wait for the Tournament of Champions.
