Jeopardy! fans ‘so relieved’ as Ken Jennings announces reversal of bizarre ruling

Jeopardy! fans were happy to see a decision on an answer to a clue was reversed on the episode that aired on April 10

Ken Jennings first said the contestant’s answer was wrong (
Image: Disney via Getty Images)

Fans were happy to see that Jeopardy! reversed a decision that ruled a contestant incorrect.

The almost-controversy was on the episode that aired on Thursday, April 10. The episode of the ABC trivia game show saw one-day champion Andrew Hayes, a law student originally from Tulepo, Mississippi, facing off against Dave Widmayer, a trivia host and chemist from Portland, Oregon, and Kate Donahoe, a chemist from Modesto, California. During the first round of Jeopardy with five questions left, there was a clue selected from the category, Game, for $400.

The clue was, “Released in 1996, the ’64’ version of this video game series gave its star new abilities like backflips & triple jumps.” Dave answered the question with “What is Super Mario?” at first and when host Ken Jennings went uhhh implying it was not correct, he said “What is Mario.” Ken then told him he was wrong and that the correct answer was specifically “Super Mario Brothers”

Fans were ready to rage online at that decision and then after commercial break Ken told the trivia host and chemist that the judges have deliberated and are counting his response of “Super Mario”. Dave received the $400 in his score.

Dave answered the Super Mario clue ( 
Image:
Jeopardy!)
Fans took to the Jeopardy subreddit under the thread for the Thursday (April 10) episode and conveyed their relief and delight that Jeopardy! made it right for Dave. Although, they were still surprised that the ruling happened anyway.

“Glad they eventually reversed the ruling and accepted ‘Super Mario’ instead of ‘Super Mario Bros’ but it’s crazy that that (or just ‘Mario’) wasn’t already on the list of acceptable responses,” the fan said in part, while pointing out how Wikipedia, MarioWiki and the official Super Mario Bros Encyclopedia calls it “the Super Mario series.”

“Their sole intended correct response of Super Mario Bros is actually the one that I’d have to debate about whether it’s even acceptable. Super Mario Bros. may sometimes be used to refer to the Super Mario series as a whole or to the Mario series/franchise as a whole, but more properly, it’s a subset of Super Mario, which is itself a subset of Mario, and Super Mario 64 is not part of that sub-subset,” the first first fan continued.

Fans were appalled that the show didn’t take Super Mario or Mario as an answer ( 
Image:
GC Images)

Another said: “Was so relieved that Dave got a reversal for this! I don’t usually react strongly while watching Jeopardy, but I shouted ‘f–k off!’ when they didn’t take just Super Mario initially.”

Then Dave himself, responded under the first fan’s comment and addressed the moment: “While I tend to agree, this did let me cross off a low-key J! Goal, which was to get to be part of a score correction.

A fourth fan said: “I’m so glad I want the only one who got upset about this and was glad they reversed it. In my mind, Super Mario (or even just Mario) is like an overarching title for the games and Super Mario Bros. is very specifically the side scrolling platformer series with the name Super Mario Bros. in the title.”