JEOPARDY!’s annual Tournament of Champions has been called off indefinitely, but fans think the move was a defensive one.
It came after winners like Cris Pannullo and Hannah Wilson declined to compete if it meant crossing the picket line.
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Season 39 of Jeopardy! ends on July 28, and the upcoming hallmark Season 40 was a completely open question since all writers are still on strike.
Jeopardy! reps have now cleared the board on what the game show will do.
They announced that regular episodes will return on September 11– Celebrity Jeopardy! will return as well.
But the touchstone winner’s tournament for the biggest winners from the prior season will not happen until the strike ends.
“Jeopardy! never had any intention of producing a Tournament of Champions for season 39 until the strike is resolved,” Sony stated on Tuesday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Further, no contestants from season 39 have been contacted regarding their availability for any postseason tournaments, including the TOC.
“The Jeopardy! postseason represents the pinnacle of our competition, and it should feature our strongest players playing our toughest original material,” the statement continued.
Reddit users called shade and think Sony decided to delay the treasured tournament because nearly all of its 2022-2023 champs boycotted it.
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‘OR SO THEY CLAIM’
Fans on Reddit think the statement was made in direct response to the frontrunners in the upcoming tournament all boycotted crossing the picket line and doing a tournament of recycled clues.
One person observed: “According to the article, they had never planned on taping the TOC until after the strike was resolved.
Another wrote: “Might be true or might be Sony just trying to save face. (If it was the former, they could have put out this press release a lot sooner.)”
A third wrote: “I would imagine the likeliest scenario is that they hadn’t decided one way or the other how they would proceed.
“If the strike was somehow magically resolved in the meantime, there would be nothing to decide. And then it would be true that they ‘never had any intention’ because they had not formed an intention yet.”
“In any event, a press release like that is for damage control, which you don’t issue before there’s damage to control.”
A fourth wrote: “So they claim now. Hard to know if it’s true.”
And a fifth wrote: “BULLLLLLLLLLS**T.”
‘SCAB TOURNAMENT’
Canadian contestant Ray Lalonde – who won 13 games in winter – blew the whistle on Friday.
Ray – a Toronto-based scenic artist and union member- titled his Reddit plea-gone-viral: “Starting The Season During The WGA Strike.”
He wrote: “There are now credible reports that the producers are making contingency plans to start filming the next season of the show with old and/or recycled material if the WGA strike remains unresolved.
“I have informed the show’s producers that if the strike remains unresolved I will not cross a picket line to play in the tournament of champions.”
The other frontrunners for fall’s annual $250K winners tournament, including Cris (21 wins), Hannah (8 wins), Ben Chan (9 wins), and Troy Meyer (6 wins), replied they would not participate either if so.
Fan-fave Hannah replied on Reddit: “I’ll stand with you, Ray! A TOC with all recycled clues doesn’t sound like much fun to play in, anyway.”
“Ray really stuck his neck out there by being the first one,” Hannah, who won $229,801 this spring, also told The Washington Post. “I don’t want to be in a scab tournament.”
Ben – who lost over a controversial Final Jeopardy typo – commented on Reddit: “Ray, thank you for taking this stand. If you are out, I am out.”
Cris, the 21-day $748,000 poker ace and TOC frontrunner, replied: “As I have already told Ray personally, I fully agree with his stance and will not participate in any games comprised of recycled clues while the WGA strike is in effect. Glad to see Hannah’s (edit: And Ben’s!) post here as well.”
Fans quickly applauded the contestants for coming together and agreeing they didn’t want to compete without writers and with repurposed clues.
One 2023 Tournament of Champions contestant did exclusively tell The U.S. Sun: “I’ve received no information yet about the current timing of the ToC, or how the writer’s strike will affect the production.”
Ray told The Post he doesn’t see the TOC happening without its biggest winners of the past season: “I don’t see how that’s going to go forward,” he said.
Then on Tuesday, Amy Schneider blasted the rumored move of using old questions bowing out of future specials filmed during the strike and under these conditions.
“Disappointed to hear that Jeopardy! is considering this course of action,” she tweeted. “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.”
THE SHOW MUST GO ON
However, nightly syndicated episodes will continue in September with the option the champs didn’t want for the tournament.
Starting September 11, Jeopardy! will kick off its new season but with repurposed clues, which is a slap in the face to many longtime viewers.
“Jeopardy! employs Writers Guild of America members, and the syndicated game show is planning to rely on material from prior seasons (39 years’ worth) as it begins taping shows for the 2023-24 season,” Sony noted in their statement today.
A 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.”
This leaves the glaring question of who would host, which would also require crossing the picket line.
Mayim Bialik, 47, stepped away from hosting the remainder of this season, and Ken Jennings, 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.
Meanwhile, Sony confirmed that Celebrity Jeopardy! will return on ABC this fall: “with original material written by WGA writers before the strike.”
‘NO JEOPARDY! WITHOUT THE WRITERS’
The Writers Guild of America announced on May 1 that it was going on strike after weeks of talks with Netflix, Amazon, Sony (Jeopardy!’s parent company), and more fell through.
Picket lines assembled the following day as writers protested over their contracts and pay – since SAG-AFTRA joined, all of Hollywood’s projects are in existential question.
Jeopardy! would be nothing without its head-scratchingly wonderful questions.
Head writers Billy Wisse and Michelle Loud recently told Variety: “Our words are on the screen every night.”
“There is no ‘Jeopardy’ without writers. Without us it’s just an empty blue screen.”
The writers are still currently on strike going from studio to studio, including Sony, where Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune film.
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