By Harvey Oberfeld
June the 5th, 2015
Alex Trebek must not be the only Canadian working on the popular Jeopardy television show … a viewer favorite on both sides of WHAT latitudinal parallel?
The 49th …correct!
Because, for Canadians, the show quite often contains a bonus …. perhaps put there purposely by Canadian ex-pats working on the show just to give us extra laughs … exposing how little most Americans … even their brightest ones … know about this country.
For your amusement, I want to reprise for you what happened on a Jeopardy broadcast earlier this week.
The contestants … including a four time champion who had already won $99,999 …. were a lawyer, a US Army Public Affairs Chief and a library assistant … very bright people, all of them.
Until in Double Jeopardy one of the categories was “Canadian Cities”.
Uh-oh!
It was the last category ANY of the contestants chose … only because ALL the other categories/questions were gone.
I knew instinctively this would be great fun! After all, I vacation quite a lot in the US and have visited/talked to Americans in many states; I have also met and dined with many, many Americans on many cruise ships; and I have watched them respond to “Canada” questions before on Jeopardy. I like Americans… some of my best friends are …forget it …. this, I just knew this would be a hoot!
But even I could not believe how dumb … and how funny …. these brighter lights actually were.
Question: An intersection in this provincial capital is the original Western terminus of the Trans-Canada highway. No one ventured even a try at answering. Take that, Victoria viewers and their Mile “O” marker!
LOL!
Question: Daily Double, no less … The swan is a symbol of this Ontario city; each year white and black swans are released into its Avon River. Answer given: What is Edmonton? Oops! Stratford clearly needs a better publicity campaign.
LOL! LOL!
Question: This Alberta resort was the first municipality to be incorporated within a Canadian national park. Response: What is Whistler? (Neither of the other two even tried a response.) Bad news for Banff …but isn’t it great at least one of them knew about Whistler … even if not where it actually is!
LOL! LOL! LOL!
Question: In 1992, this city’s velodrome, once used in the Olympic Games, was transformed into an environmental biodome. No response at all from ANY of them.
MONTREAL .. you &#*%s, I’m now shouting at the t.v.! And also laughing out loud.
Last Question (Thank God!): Residents of this Saskatchewan city are called Moose Javians. Answer offered … not kidding now … What is Winnipeg?
Not ONE correct answer given by ANY contestant in the entire category about Canada …and on TWO questions, no one even tried! And these were some of America’s brightest.
Even Alex was smiling broadly at the end … and remarkably restrained himself from banging his head on his rostrum.
Very Canadian, Alex.
And thanks to the Jeopardy producers for the special fun added to the show to amuse Canadian viewers..
