I'm gonna miss the Dan, "The Hot Topic Teacher". He seemed like the "cool" teacher at your school - you know, the kind that likes BOTH A Nightmare Before Christmas AND Beetlejuice.
That Jeopardy episode was from the syndicated nighttime version from the mid 70s. The nighttime versions of daytime game shows always tried to seem higher end with bigger prizes and things like that, so I’m sure the tux was part of that.
My two cents: When did detailed knowledge of Harry Potter become a Jeopardy! prerequisite? Are these kids' books, or are are they considered great literature now? I get that they sold a billion copies and made a bunch of movies, but still. Of course, I could say the same thing about Shakespeare. I think I read one play in high school. Outside of English majors, do people actually read these for pleasure and memorize every character? Again, I get it that he's the greatest writer in the English language and all, but wow.
At the time the Harry Potter books were published the adult market for them was as great as the children/ youth market. And now all of those kids are grown up, too. The books were published between 1997 and 2005. Some kid who was 10 when the first book was published is now 37. Don't know if they're great literature, but due to tremendous book sales and film box office, they're considered classic children's fantasy literature; and they're within the realm of widespread, popular culture.
I'm sure I saw Peter Marshall wearing a tux on those special airings of Hollywood Squares and somewhere in my memory bank I seem to remember seeing Alex Trebek in a tux but I'm not sure which show it was.
I've tried reading the Harry Potter books, but didn't really care for them. I much prefer the movies. But I definitely read Shakespeare for pleasure and can name major characters for just about all his plays. The Shakespeare categories are by far my favorite on Jeopardy.
Earlier, this week, there was a poet answer where the right question was "Who is ee cummings?" I noticed the format of the answer was different and after a couple of seconds figured out that the answer was written in all small letters. It was a pretty cool way to present the clue.
I'm always leery when all three contestants look to be under 35 and Friday's crew didn't disappoint. No one recognized Terry Bradshaw and Pat Benatar? Ouch!
Maybe a Retro Jeopardy for us old people... with an old sliding panels board and clues about nothing newer than 1979! It isn't as though there wasn't garbage culture way back of course... How Much Is That Doggie In The Window is as awful a song to me as anything, and all those kooky named supposedly scary monster films with a bug or lizard blown up on very low budget supposedly attacking things. I don't want those things taking up any brain cells to start with never mind reinforced or trying to compile lists of Reptilicus and Gorgo (oops, I've started).
