KEN Jennings was left flustered before newcomer Lucas Partridge's sound victory on Wednesday's Jeopardy! episode.
The Final Jeopardy category name was so straight-laced that it scored an unexpected laughing fit off-camera.
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Returning champ Julie Sisson faced Alex Muhler, a policy analyst from Oakland, California, and Lucas, a school counselor from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Julie is a library circulation assistant from Everett, Washington, who returned with a 1-day total of $11,210.
Rivals Lucas and Alex both had their game faces on in Double Jeopardy!, trading off correct responses, but Alex missed a $4000 Daily Double.
By Final Jeopardy, Lucas - who shared he concocted 50 state drinks in 50 days - had a runaway or ensured win with $20,100, Alex had $6,000, and Julie $3,200.
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'THEY'RE LAUGHING ALREADY!'
Ken, 49, then introduced the category that Final Jeopardy would be about as per usual.
He announced it was “Opera Source Material.”
Apparently the formality of the name was funny to the contestants as they could be heard laughing out of frame.
Ken was surprised and could be seen slightly blushing.
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He said with a huff: “They’re laughing already! Back with the clue in a moment.”
When the episode returned, Ken admitted: “We’re getting a little highbrow today, here’s the clue.”
It read: “Henri Murger, who was broke & lived in a freezing attic apartment in Paris, wrote the source material for this 1896 opera.”
Thankfully, it was about the most famous opera around, and everyone was correct with La Boheme.
Lucas bet a flat $0, happy to win with $20,100.
Fans were impressed by Lucas' win as one wrote: "It would be interesting if Lucas was the first and last contestant this month to make it to three wins. A very good game for him today!
Also, an opera FJ was a triple get...sure, it's a popular one, but that's still impressive to me."
BIZARRO WEEK ON JEOPARDY!
The laughing break - amid major drama with the game show- wasn't the only moment of levity this week.
During the last episode's interview segment, Ken, 49, turned his attention to Andrew Knowles from Portland, Oregon.
Ken goaded: “I’m told, meaning it’s on my card, that you have a really long tongue."
Andrew replied: “Yeah so I figured out at a young age I had a long tongue, and the nose-to-tongue thing was easy.
"And one day, I heard that licking your elbow is impossible."
Andrew then proceeded to lick his elbow for the masses.
Some audience members sounded grossed out as others cheered.
Ken applauded him and said he could lick his nose but didn’t know the elbow move was possible.
Twitter was up in arms, so to speak, as one person wrote: "A contestant just licked his own elbow on #Jeopardy. We’ve now seen it all."
Another reacted: "What the hell is happening on Jeopardy? One of the contestants just stuck out his tongue and licked his elbow during the dumb “let’s talk to the contestants” schtick. Alex Trebek is rolling over in his grave right now!"
LATEST ON JEOPARDY! DRAMA
Meanwhile, in more serious Jeopardy! news- the 2023 Tournament of Champions has been postponed indefinitely amid the WGA strike.
The move comes after many of the 2023 TOC frontrunners boycotted crossing the picket line and bowed out of competing in the fall.
On Friday, Ray Lalonde - who won 13 games this winter - claimed that Jeopardy! was going to repurpose past material to film the annual tournament.
The other frontrunners for the $250K touchstone tournament, including Cris Pannullo (21 wins), Hannah Wilson (8 wins), Ben Chan (9 wins), and Troy Meyer (6 wins), said they would not participate either if so.
Instead, Season 40 will debut on September 11 but with recycled material from past decades of the show, which has caused quite a stir in itself.
Amy Schneider tweeted on Tuesday: "Disappointed to hear that Jeopardy is considering this course of action. For what it’s worth, I, too, will not be participating in any Jeopardy productions that don’t use new clues written by their amazing, unionized writers under a fair, collectively bargained contract."
Another former contestant wrote on Twitter: "It would shock the average person how many old Jeopardy clues we have accidentally memorized by studying. Recycling clues becomes a memory contest, not trivia."
Meanwhile, Sony confirmed that Celebrity Jeopardy! will return on ABC this fall: “with original material written by WGA writers before the strike.”
That still leaves the question of who will host.
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Mayim Bialik, 47, stepped away from hosting the remainder of this season, and Ken, 49, has already been criticized as a so-called scab to wrap things up.
Ken would face tremendous scrutiny if he crossed the picket line again, but given Mayim's prior stance, Ken's hosting seems likely.
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