A ‘Jeopardy!” Contestant Had Two Of The Worst Guesses In The Show’s History (But Still Almost Won)

Jeopardy! has always attracted the best and the brightest. It’s Wheel of Fortune that tends to score terrible guesses. But every now and then someone has a massive brain fart, maybe two. That’s what happened to Sharon Bishop, a high school Spanish teacher hailing from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, who had not one but two all-time bad responses — before almost winning the game.

As per The Big Lead, Friday night’s show saw Bishop ringing in for a $200 answer in the category “Messin’ with Texas.” The clue: “In 2014 Decatur, Texas rescheduled this holiday back to the 30th, as it conflicted with Friday Night High School Football.” The correct question: Halloween, of course.

That’s not what Bishop said, though. She went with…”football.”

These things happen! In fact, sometimes they happen twice.

Later on the show, Bishop dinged in on a $400 clue for the category “Real Fast,” which concerned a track record held by Sifan Hassan, when she clocked in at 4 minutes, 12.33 seconds. Which event was it? Bishop answered with “the 50-yard dash.”

Suffice to say, no one’s going to win a medal taking a handful of minutes to run 50 yards. Even host Ken Jennings had to make a light joke about it before revealing it was really a mile run.

It’s cool, though, because otherwise Bishop did really well. By the time Final Jeopardy reared its head, she was up $17,000. She ultimately lost, but second on Jeopardy! is nothing to sneeze at. Hey, it’s not in the same universe as that episode that had a whopping 23 stumpers.

(Via The Big Lead)