Ken Jennings dissed!
July 25, 2006 4:39 PM   Subscribe

I've really been enjoying Ken Jennings' weblog, especially his hilarious, satirical Dear Jeopardy letter (with later faux-correction (bottom)]. But some people don't get it. Michael Starr of the New York Post wrote at length this morning that Jennings is biting the hand that fed him. It gets worse: AP has picked up the story, which is where I first saw it: as a headline - 'Jeopardy' Champ Ken Jennings Blasts Show - on U.S. News & World Report. Ken has a response. Mine is disbelief...
posted by Sean Meade (41 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
slow news day, eh?
posted by mischief at 4:43 PM on July 25, 2006


I must know more.
posted by Joeforking at 4:51 PM on July 25, 2006


Hi! I'm Mike Starr. I spend all day surfing the "Web". Then I whimsically write about things I read on web logs or "blogs". I'm a journalist. If you post something cool on teh (the) "Web", let me know. I may write about it.

Mike Out-
posted by rex dart, eskimo spy at 4:52 PM on July 25, 2006


That's one funny Mormon nerd.
posted by persona non grata at 4:55 PM on July 25, 2006


Why doesn't that genius put up some Google ads?
posted by deadfather at 4:57 PM on July 25, 2006


I wonder who would win in a Korean fight, our wonderchicken or this guy.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 4:59 PM on July 25, 2006


Ken Jennings is the only man besides myself who I'd let impregnate my wife. I'm just sayin'.
posted by ColdChef at 5:01 PM on July 25, 2006


RTFA
posted by Flashman at 5:01 PM on July 25, 2006


See also Prisoner of Trebekistan [google video]
posted by Rhomboid at 5:02 PM on July 25, 2006


Previously.
posted by Gator at 5:07 PM on July 25, 2006


Web browsers should come with "sarcasm detectors" for people like Michael Starr and that guy with the pro-choice blog from two weeks ago.
posted by easternblot at 5:08 PM on July 25, 2006


Ken Jennings is surprisingly witty.
posted by vronsky at 5:25 PM on July 25, 2006


Rhomboid: you owe me a new keyboard (oh, and another toaster!)
posted by jewzilla at 5:34 PM on July 25, 2006


From Jennings' response to that nonsense in the Post: "Making goofy jokes about TV shows isn’t 'bashing.' I believe it’s the whole reason Al Gore invented the Internet."

Nice. He's a funny guy.
posted by diddlegnome at 5:51 PM on July 25, 2006


Also, from our July 19 column: we regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek’s robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a “cyborg,” not a “robot.” Ken-Jennings.com regrets the error.

haha. I like the guy.
posted by xmutex at 5:59 PM on July 25, 2006


I'm sorry, but your comments must be phrased in the form of a snark.
posted by aaronetc at 6:03 PM on July 25, 2006


Wait a sec. Dude's got no RSS feed. WTF.
posted by xmutex at 6:05 PM on July 25, 2006


re: RSS feed. see that green box on the left hand side...
posted by Sean Meade at 6:16 PM on July 25, 2006


you owe me a new keyboard

Some Bon Ami cleaner ought to take care of that...
posted by Rhomboid at 6:25 PM on July 25, 2006


Which leaves me wondering: does he know how asinine this non-story is? Despite working for the Post, I’m sure his reading comprehension is just fine.

Zing! I'm starting to like the guy!
posted by clevershark at 6:26 PM on July 25, 2006


Wait a sec. Dude's got no RSS feed. WTF.

I still don't know what an RSS feed is. *proud*
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 7:11 PM on July 25, 2006


Damn, now this tempest is on the front page of Yahoo.

As one who was disdainful of his blog at first ("I'll take another fifteen minutes for $500, Alex"), I now have to give the guy a lot of credit for (1) being a genuinely witty and clever writer, and (2) knowing exactly what he, and no other person in the world, could write about that would generate a lot of publicity.
posted by yhbc at 7:32 PM on July 25, 2006


his style of writing on the whole rest of the site is pretty funny too. i also find myself liking him a lot more than i did before checking it out.
posted by teishu at 8:34 PM on July 25, 2006


I'm with a lot of the other commenters, I liked him much more after stumbling across his blog (which I did, actually, a couple of months ago.) The news articles, on the other hand, are... sad.
posted by blacklite at 8:39 PM on July 25, 2006


That was surprisingly funny. Who knew?
posted by mosk at 8:42 PM on July 25, 2006


"Some more Bon Ami cleanser! Some more Bon Ami cleanser!"
posted by cortex at 8:44 PM on July 25, 2006


Had the NYP writer not been Clueless, I would not have known Jennings *had* a blog; I bow before his children.
posted by baylink at 9:22 PM on July 25, 2006


Ken Jennings has cracked me up since his outrageous months-long Jeopardy run. His blog is funny as hell, perfect geek humor.

I look forward to his quiz show. Comedy Central was supposedly working on it, but Colbert ended up being so good that they passed on putting Jennings' show in that time slot. Maybe it will turn up somewhere else.

Somewhere up there, Ken's brothers Waylon and Peter are smiling.
posted by kenlayne at 9:31 PM on July 25, 2006


Why has he not written for McSweeney's yet?
posted by basicchannel at 9:54 PM on July 25, 2006


> Somewhere up there, Ken's brothers Waylon and Peter are smiling.

Hee.
posted by baylink at 10:04 PM on July 25, 2006


Very nice post. Funny blog entry. Even more funny MSM response to the blog entry. Funny...and sad.
posted by snwod at 10:30 PM on July 25, 2006


From his response:

Making goofy jokes about TV shows isn’t “bashing.” I believe it’s the whole reason Al Gore invented the Internet.

Zing! Gold!
posted by zardoz at 11:24 PM on July 25, 2006


Good grief. I can't believe anything MSM is jumping to this story.
posted by frecklefaerie at 11:42 PM on July 25, 2006


It seems as if he reads MeFi?
posted by anjamu at 11:47 PM on July 25, 2006


Could there be a more trivial source of reading material, anjamu?

But yeah, interesting catch. C'mon, Ken—you've got five bucks to spare. Pony up and say hello!
posted by cortex at 6:19 AM on July 26, 2006


Top story on AOL this morning (in the "News" section, not the "Entertainment" section:

Trivia Champ Rips 'Jeopardy'
He cleaned up on quiz show
Is Jennings being too harsh?

posted by ColdChef at 6:26 AM on July 26, 2006


NEWSFLASH: Irony is dead.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:36 AM on July 26, 2006 [1 favorite]


That's one funny Mormon nerd.

I used to play Quiz Bowl with Ken Jennings, and I can assure you that he has the same dry, understated sense of humor in real life that he has in his blog.

I even have my own personal Ken Jennings story. My team from Berkeley used to play against his team from BYU. After we'd get done with our academic tournaments, we'd play another tournament of "trash," i.e., sports and pop culture trivia. We'd write our own questions, just like we'd do for the academic tournaments. In one trash tournament, I wrote a toss-up question where the answer was "penis enlargement pumps." (The first Austin Powers movie had just come out with a recurring penis pump gag, so it was a relatively easy question to write.) Anyhow, I had specified that the person answering the question had to say all three words of "penis enlargement pumps" to get the points for a correct answer. If the person "buzzing in" gave a partial answer, then they were prompted until they gave the full answer.

This is how it went down. I read the question, and then Ken Jennings buzzes in. Here's approximately how I remember it:

Ken: *buzz* (pause)... Pumps?
Me: Prompt.
Ken: Enlargement pumps?
Me: Prompt.
Ken: mumble...mumble...penis pumps?

Technically, he was supposed to say "penis enlargement pumps," but I was so happy that I got a Mormon to say "penis" out loud that I gave him the points anyway.
posted by jonp72 at 6:37 AM on July 26, 2006 [1 favorite]


Yo Ken! [snaps]
posted by nofundy at 7:13 AM on July 26, 2006


I too am utterly amazed that anyone thinks Ken is ripping the show.
posted by Mitheral at 8:40 AM on July 26, 2006


Bravo, KJ. Ironically, I had just signed up to contribute to his message boards (which is becoming a true nerd playground) hours before the "humor-impaired sock puppets" attacked and crashed his whole site (he has since taken the boards offline). So, we know about being "slashdotted" and "farked" and "digged" and even "metafiltered"... this the first I'd heard of anyone being "NewYorkPosted"....
posted by wendell at 10:09 AM on July 26, 2006


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