Week of December 23: Essential Herbs

Explicit content warning

12/31/24 • 84 min

We got to celebrate Christmas with our listeners, and now it's time to celebrate New Year's, with this NYE episode that has us feeling great about 2025! And it must have Laura Faddah feeling great too, as she retires for a few months a 7-day champ with a little bit of luck and some very timely responses carrying her to a ToC berth as we head into the J! post-season. It was a fun week all around as John vibes with a Québécois contestant, Emily vibes with a particular Daily Double response, and we dive deep on Smokey Bear (not Smokey THE Bear, as you'll learn). Plus, Emily herself fumes as this week sees a near-record number of unread clues.

SOURCE: Alta Journal: "Smokey Bear: More Than an Icon" by Joshua Wheeler; Smokeybear.com: "About the Campaign".

Special thank you as always to The Jeopardy! Fan and J-Archive.

This episode is produced by Producer Dan. Art by Max Wittert. Music by Nate Heller.

SOURCE: Alta Journal: "Smokey Bear: More Than an Icon" by Joshua Wheeler; Smokeybear.com: "About the Campaign".

Special thank you as always to The Jeopardy! Fan and J-Archive.

This episode is produced by Producer Dan. Art by Max Wittert. Music by Nate Heller.

Previous Episode

Week of December 16: The Christmas Eve Spectacular

An episode of your favorite Jeopardy! podcast on Christmas Eve?! What a gift! Emily and John share some memories of Christmas past as we also share some memories of this week of games which see Ashley Chan fall just short of the ToC threshold, but as Ken says: we'll see her again. We also get another couple of NASTY Final Jeopardy! clues that leave J! fans FUMING about the writers maybe being on VACATION (but still writing the clues while doing so apparently), we get some strange wagers from the contestants, and John helps Emily avoid jail time by diving deep on the RICO Act.

SOURCE: Federal Criminal Appeals Law Firm: "What is the RICO Act?"; TIME: "Law: Showdown at Gucci" by Alain L. Sanders and Priscilla Painton

Thanks to the Jeopardy! Fan and J-Archive.

This episode is produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

Next Episode

Week of December 30: Second Chancey Will Yancey

The Second Chance Tournament is BACK and with it comes a whole host of our favorites from Season 40, including our man Will Yancey, who we were pulling for back in his first appearance on the show and we pull for him this week as he makes it to the finals. Can he hold off Kaitlin Tarr and Colleen Matthews? We find out here as Kaitlin has a potential harbinger of doom for an anecdote, Colleen becomes a master of wrong answer adlibs, and we learn that David Madden isn't the only Jeopardy! contestant to own several parrots. Plus, J! fans are fuming about the Jeopardy! calendar and we dive deep on Ulysses S. Grant's prolific smoking habit.

SOURCE: Grant Cottage: "Champion of the Weed: A Study of the 'Legendary' Smoking Habit of Ulysses S. Grant"; Oral Cancer Foundation: "Political Figures: Ulysses S. Grant"

Thanks as always to the J-Archive and The Jeopardy! Fan.

This episode is produced by Producer Dan. Music by Nate Heller. Art by Max Wittert.

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