The Most Embarrassing Jeopardy! Flubs That Cost Contestants

"Jeopardy!" has graced televisions since 1964, when the first iteration of the game show was hosted by Art Fleming until 1979. The modern version of the popular game show, hosted by the late Alex Trebek, began in 1984. After the quiz show's beloved, long-time host died from pancreatic cancer in 2020, the popular "Jeopardy!" champion, Ken Jennings, was named as an interim host, while the network considered candidates to replace Trebek permanently. In 2022, it was announced that Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings would share the hosting duties for "Jeopardy!"

Although the quiz show has changed a bit since losing Trebek, it remains popular, in part because of the contestants and their often humorous wrong answers. On November 13, 1986, Gary Giardina, an opera singer from New York City, cracked the audience up during the 1986 Tournament of Champions quarterfinal game, when he answered the clue, "By the 4th Century A.D., Rome had 28 public ones stacked with rolls of papyrus." Gerry said, "What are public toilets?" without missing a beat, but lost $300 when his opponent revealed the correct answer was "What are public libraries?" Despite missing this answer, Garry was the winner of Episode #504, proving you can make a mistake and still take home the prize.

Over the years, the contestants on "Jeopardy!" have blessed the viewers with a bevy of hilarious wrong answers. Stick with us as we review the most embarrassing flubs and what they cost the contestants.

Just because Ken Jennings set records, going on a 72-episode winning streak on "Jeopardy!" doesn't mean he didn't give some wrong answers during his time as a contestant. In this clip, Jennings confidently answered, "What's a hoe?" instead of the correct answer, "What is a rake?" to the clue, "This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker." The entire audience cracked up before Alex Trebek playfully admonished Jennings for his subtly sexist response, saying, "They teach you that in school in Utah, huh?"

Although the answer only lost Jennings $200, it was an embarrassing gaff for the squeaky clean "Jeopardy!" favorite from Utah. Jennings actually addressed the viral wrong answer on the game show while hosting "Jeopardy!" in 2022. When an audience member asked why his answer was wrong, Jennings jokingly asked the audience, "Yeah, why didn't I get it right? I think the idea is the clue says it's 'an immoral pleasure seeker,' and we don't want to characterize all hoes that way. Rakes, apparently, we're okay with that aspersion on their character."

This hilarious wrong answer did not end Jennings' historic winning streak — that would come later when he answered, "What is Fed Ex?" instead of "What is H&R Block?" to the clue, "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year." Although Jennings could easily have been embarrassed by his flubs, the "Jeopardy!" champion took everything in stride.

Tom Imler, a data repair technician from North Carolina, wrongly answered the clue "In common law, the age of this, signaling adulthood, is presumed to be 14 in boys and 12 in girls," but it wasn't exactly funny. His answer was probably the most embarrassing wrong answer in "Jeopardy!" history. When Imler answered, "What is the age of consent?" in a questioning tone instead of "What is puberty?" he lost $400 and opened himself up to public ridicule.

Imler's mortifying answer went viral in 2015, and the public branded him a creep and pedophile for his embarrassing gaffe. "It pissed me off," Imler told The New York Daily News, before adding, "It's 127,000 percent untrue. But when it started to snowball, I started to worry that people might think it was true. I started to think, 'Holy cow. What if one day I come home from work and there's a cop waiting outside my door.'"

Thanks to the internet being the gift that keeps giving, this viral wrong answer experienced a resurgence in 2021. Having this humiliation come back again obviously wasn't welcome and brought up negative feelings about the experience. Imler told Newsweek that people were saying things like, "This guy is a pedophile. Wow. Somebody check his basement. Somebody check his hard drive," adding, "I was just astounded at how fast it exploded. It was the wrong answer to a poorly worded question."

Another instance of a contestant needing to broaden their knowledge base before competing on "Jeopardy!" happened when Joe Morse, a Coast Guard helicopter mechanic, missed the easiest hockey question ever. The pace of the show is brisk, and having fast reflexes and the ability to think on your feet is incredibly important if you want to win the game. But knowing the acronyms for professional sports is also important, or you might wind up embarrassing yourself with a wrong answer.

From this clip, it's obvious that Morse flubbed up when he answered the clue, "100+ assists in an NHL season has been accomplished only 13 times, 11 times by this player," with a baffling, "Who is Magic Johnson?" Alex Trebek's response, "Oh no," made it obvious that Morse gave the wrong answer and lost $400 dollars. The correct answer was clear from the question, but Morse guessed wrong and will probably never live it down with his fellow mechanics. Everyone knows that Johnson never played in the NHL, but Wayne Gretzky sure did, and he was the correct answer.

Broadway actor Brad Weinstock selected Women Authors for $2000 in a Double Jeopardy round. After hearing the clue, "This native of Jackson, Mississippi, wrote the novel 'Delta Wedding' about a Southern plantation family," he completely forgot the category's title before answering. Weinstock's wrong answer, "Who is Faulkner?" was made even more hilarious when the host, Ken Jennings, roasted Weinstock for giving the wrong answer.

While Faulkner was from Mississippi and a celebrated literary figure, the host said, "I think Faulkner would be surprised to find himself in a women author's category. It's Eudora Welty." Weinstock's response to his embarrassing flub was classy and confident, when he joked, "Oh no! I hope I don't go viral." Despite having a hilariously wrong answer that cost him big, and guessing wrong intentionally during Final Jeopardy, Weinstock still came in second and proved he had a sense of humor while playing "Jeopardy!"

An IBM AI named Watson took on "Jeopardy!" champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in February 2011, and we have David Ferrucci, then an AI expert at IBM, to thank for this entertaining episode of the quiz show. From this clip, we can see that Watson decimated the competition but didn't have the right answer in Final Jeopardy. The category was "U.S. Cities," and the clue was, "Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle." Watson's competitors guessed correctly that the city was Chicago, Illinois, but Watson's unsure answer, "What is Toronto?????" made it clear that the AI wasn't so sure of its answer. Watson only lost $947, making a smart wager while effortlessly winning the game.

This baffling answer leads to many questions. Does AI experience embarrassment? Does Watson not recognize international borders? Did the AI program not understand the difference between U.S. cities and North American cities? Does Watson have plans to take over Canada? Regardless of the reasoning behind Watson's wrong answer, it was good for a laugh and eased our collective worries about AI taking over the world. "'Watching you on Jeopardy! is what inspired the whole project,' one IBM engineer told me, consolingly. 'And we looked at your games over and over, your style of play. There's a lot of you in Watson,'" Jennings wrote in Slate about playing against Watson.

This clip of CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer's terrible appearance on "Celebrity Jeopardy!" featured one flub after another, sticking Wolf in the hole by $4600. Although some audience members reveled in Blitzer's downfall, with one gleefully tweeting, "I will never, ever get tired of seeing this image of Andy Richter curb-stomping Wolf Blitzer on 'Celebrity Jeopardy,' host Alex Trebek had another opinion. "Wolf had done well on a previous appearance on 'Jeopardy!,' but on this game, the categories didn't line up with his areas of expertise," Trebek told The Washington Post, adding, "And Andy Richter was probably as good a 'Celebrity Jeopardy!' player as we have ever had on the program."

Although this experience on "Jeopardy!" may have been embarrassing for the journalist, another contestant, Stephanie Hull, holds the record for the worst score in "Jeopardy!" history. Hull dug herself a $6,800 hole during her game. Five years after her history-making flub, Hull publicly addressed her poor performance. "One of the things people who haven't been on the show don't necessarily realize is they pretty much tape it in the same amount of time that it takes to air," Hull told Slate, adding, "So each episode, the contestants are up there for less than 20 minutes." She continued to describe how intense the experience was, admitting, "It's kind of a blur."

Sometimes "Jeopardy!" makes a flub, and fans call the game show out. In 2022, the show had the wrong Long Island city named in their clue, "Type of institution that has a 'row' in Garden City on Long Island, including one about firefighting and a children's one." The answer was, "What is a museum?" The museum row the clue was referring to is actually in Uniondale. One Long Island legislator, Siela Bynoe, wrote a letter to "Jeopardy!" explaining that they named an affluent community, rather than the working-class neighborhood where the museums are actually located, and admonished "Jeopardy!" for not giving the community of Uniondale the recognition it deserves.

In another recent snafu, as we see in this clip, host Ken Jennings allowed a contestant to change his answer. In the Season 39 opener, three-time "Jeopardy!" winner Luigi de Guzman, answered the clue, "Here's a typical early 19th-century landscape by this British painter," with, "Who is Constant?" Jennings allowed de Guzman to take another stab at the answer by telling him, "Say it again." When de Guzman's second response was, "I'm sorry. Who is Constable?" Jennings accepted the answer, and de Guzman's competitors lost a chance of adding $1000 to their winnings. This infuriated fans later in the episode, when Harriet Wagner wasn't allowed to change her answer mid-sentence. Both of these instances could have changed who won that episode of "Jeopardy!"