What Is...? A Jeopardy! Podcast

It was a wild and weird week for Jeopardy! as superchamp Jamie Ding meets his end at the hands of Greg Shahade, a chess master and very solid champion who dominated the news cycle this week for not his gameplay but uhh...other reasons. We bid farewell to our beloved Jamie and discuss a very fun week of games as we get an anecdote flex, two Response of the Year candidates, and we dive deep on the Granny Smith apple. If you want something else that will help keep the doctor away, why not join our Patreon? Surely bonus episodes from our podcast will keep you in excellent health! And none better than our most recent, as John's Blocked Party cohost Stefan Heck returned to the show to review Jeopardy!: YouTube Edition with us. It was...an experience. You'll also get immediate access to our entire back catalogue of episodes and our Discord. What fun! Join today at patreon.com/jeopardypodcast. SOURCE: BBC: "Who Was the Real Granny Smith?" by Tanya Gupta; Australian Dictionary of Biography: "Maria Ann Smith" by Megan Martin Special thank you as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

That's right, one of our patrons, Paolo Pasco, has won the Tournament of Champions in dominant fashion, and so of course that means, in some small way, we won it too. We break down Paolo's fantastic performance and then we turn our attention to the JIT, which sees the immediate return of some of our faves. Emily was in attendance for a number of the games so she gives some expert opinion on that, Scott Riccardi gives us a contender for Response of the Year, and Paolo is so beloved by J! fans that the JFAF segment is us just reading praise of him. Plus, we dive deep on the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you want to lose your WIAJP Patreon virginity, you can head on over to patreon.com/jeopardypodcast, where we have tons of great bonus content for you to discover! You'll get a new bonus episode every month, plus access to our entire back catalogue, featuring a great interview with the one and only Paolo Pasco. It also includes "Paolo's Puzzle Corner", a segment where he wrote puzzles just for us! And you! So join today! SOURCE: Britannica: "U.S. Virgin Islands" Special thank you as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

The Tournament of Champions is HERE and we love to see a bunch of our faves back on the Alex Trebek Stage. John nails a bunch of his predictions (including the one about the herbal candies), we get some great sports-related anecdotes, and we see some great gameplay as we continue on with this Jeopardy! postseason. Plus, John finishes watching Heated Rivalry, Emily updates us on what fans think is an editing snafu, and we dive deep on the famous photo taken at Iwo Jima. If you want some more moments of this show that are so famous you may want to take a picture, why not join our Patreon? It's just $5/month and you'll get a new bonus episode every month including this week, as Alison Betts and Drew Goins join us to play a rock and metal music board that goes about as well as both of those J! legends think it will (badly). You also get immediate access to all of our back catalogue of bonus episodes, access to our wonderful Discord community, and MORE! Join today at patreon.com/jeopardypodcast. SOURCE: Colliers: "The Picture That Will Live Forever" by Joe Rosenthal and W.C. Heinz; Pulitzer.org: "Joe Rosenthal and the Flag-Raising on Iwo Jima" Special thank you as always to the Jeopardy! Fan and the J-Archive. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

The Champions Wild Card tournament begins and brings with it a fantastic week of games with tight races for first place in each game, strategic wagering for semifinal berths, and lots of very impressive gameplay. We also get Bill McKinley giving one of the funniest half-hearted attempts to explain away a poor Final Jeopardy! decision in the show's history. We also discuss Ken's Bluesky rants, Stella Trout's resemblance to Snail Mail, and we dive deep on guinea pigs. If you want to be a guinea pig for what it looks like to support the show, head on over to patreon.com/jeopardypodcast! Just $5/month gets you a new bonus episode every month, access to our full back catalogue, our Discord, and so much more! Plus, our latest bonus episode reunites Lisa Hanawalt and our own Emily Heller for the first new episode of Baby Geniuses in over two years! You won't wanna miss out, join now! SOURCE: National Library of Medicine: "Animal Models of Tuberculosis: Guinea Pigs" by Simon Clark, et al.; CBS News: "Peru Pushes Guinea Pigs as Food" by Rick Vecchio Special thank you as always to the Jeopardy! Fan and J-Archive. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

Emily is finally feeling well enough to record a pod and so we do a truncated recap of last week's games, which we are calling "Guy Branum's Second Chance, Presented by Guy Branum, featuring Guy Branum". In other news, Guy Branum joins us to discuss his run to the Second Chance Finals, from feeling like his Jeopardy! journey is satisfactorily complete to what the green room vibes were like. We also watch Michelle Tsai play so well people "react" to a FJ response of hers (they don't even fume!), John gets grilled about watching "Heated Rivalry", and we dive deep on the strange and dark origins of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". If you want to have yourself a belated merry little Christmas, why not donate to the show? It's just $5/month at patreon.com/jeopardypodcast to support the show AND get a bunch of bonus episodes. You'll get a new one every month plus access to our whole back catalogue and we have a VERY special bonus episode coming early next week you won't wanna miss. Join today! SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly: "How 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' Became One of the Season's Most Beloved Songs" by Chris Willman Special thank you as always to The Jeopardy! Fan and J-Archive. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

A category about holiday movies gets us in our Christmas bag as we discuss Christmas Vacation, Jingle All the Way, and Emily's early crush on Bernard the Elf. Will Riley jingles all the way to bank this week with cash stuffing his pockets after a very impressive run and a very, very confusing finish to it. We also have Jeopardy! fans (and the hosts) fuming over a bizarre category that made no sense and we dive deep on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If you want to guide your sleigh to a worthy destination, head on over to our Patreon to support the show! For just $5/month at patreon.com/jeopardypodcast, you'll get access to ALL of our bonus episodes, our Discord, and you'll get a new episode every single month. This month, we sat down with recent 14-game champ Harrison Whitaker for a fantastic interview that is our most popular bonus episode ever. You won't wanna miss it! SOURCE: Smithsonian Magazine: "The Magical Animation of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'" by Michelle Delgado; Geekwire: "The Geeky Tech Behind Rudolph" by Frank Catalano Special thank you as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

The imperial run of Harrison Whitaker marches on, and though he faces a couple tough challenges throughout the week, he heads into the weekend a 14-day champion. Ken also gets to feel like a champion on this episode as we get a few wonderful Ken's Korner moments, Jeopardy! fans fume about his Simpsons residuals, and we dive deep on Jim Thorpe. Plus, Harrison unknowingly gives us a couple gems of anecdotes and a response that tickles us. If you want to be tickled, why not donate to our Patreon? We won't actually tickle you, but our content might! Head on over to patreon.com/jeopardypodcast, where $5/month gets you a bonus episode every month, access to our entire back catalogue, access to our Discord, and MORE! Join today! SOURCE: Smithsonian Magazine: "Why Are Jim Thorpe's Olympic Records Still Not Recognized?" by Sally Jenkins Special thank you as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

Now that we have your attention, it's another episode of our Jeopardy! podcast! Googling ourselves leads to some mixed results but there were no mixed results for new champ Harrison Whitaker this week, as he steamrolls the competition on his way to a fantastic week and perhaps superchampdom. Plus, we wonder about his British accent, we dive deep on Queensland, and a contestant gets absolutely brutalized by Ken in the anecdotes. If you wanna get brutalized by more of our content, you can head on over to patreon.com/jeopardypodcast and donate to the show! You'll get a new bonus episode every month, access to our entire back catalogue immediately, and access to our very cool Discord, where we're always talking Jep! (and other stuff). Join today! SOURCE: The Moreton Bay Courier: "The Arrival and Reception of His Excellency Sir George F. Bowen"; Brisbane Times: "Proclamation Day, When Queensland Became a New Colony" by David Gibson; Queensland State Archives: "The Birth of Modern Queensland" Special thank you as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan. This episode was produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.