Remember when Jeopardy! was overrun by a ridiculous scandal involving someone named “Mike Richards”? Luckily it didn’t destroy the nations’ brainiest prime time game show. Instead it quickly bounced back with some record-busting winners. First there was Matt Amodio, whose streak coincided with the Richards affair. Then there was Jonathan Fisher. Now there’s Amy Schneider.
As of the last day of November, the Oakland native had plowed through 10 shows without a defeat. With over $300,000 in winnings so far, she already qualifies for the show’s annual “Tournament of Champions.” On top of that, she’s the first transgender contestant to do so. As Schenider’s streak continues, she spoke with Clue Crew’s Jimmy McGuire about her game-changing run.
“I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t think I could do good, but this has just been so much better than I thought I could do,” Schenider said, adding, “it’s really hard to say what it means yet.”
After only 10 days, Schneider is already within striking distance of some of the show’s all-time greats. When asked who she’d most like to beat, she went big. “I mean, I’d like to beat James Holzhauer, I think,” he said, laughing. “He seems very confident, I guess I’ll say. I would sort of feel good, in a way.”
Schneider also spoke about someone who inspired her after she moved out to San Francisco and got involved in the comedy scene. She was moved by local comedian, Natasha Muse, who’s also trans. “Growing up in the Midwest in a conservative family, I got kind of a distorted idea of what it meant to be trans,” Schenider said. “So seeing her, being smart and funny and cool and just a normal person with a normal life and kids and all that, just showed me that it was something that I could possibly be.”
You can watch Schneider speak in the video above.