A Real-Life ‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Tried Cliff Clavin’s Losing Strategy
Legendary Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek sure made a lot of cameos in ‘80s and ‘90s TV shows, usually playing himself, and one time portraying a shadowy government agent who looks exactly like Alex Trebek. But arguably the greatest Jeopardy!-themed episode of television was Cheers’ “What Is… Cliff Clavin?”
It found the titular Boston watering hole’s resident know-it-all competing in the primetime game show. To his friends’ surprise, Cliff actually slays the competition, mostly thanks to a lineup of categories that are conspicuously right up his alley, including “Beer,” “Mothers and Sons,” “Bar Trivia” and “Celibacy.”
But after earning a huge lead thanks to this Slumdog Millionaire-esque luck, Cliff blows it all in Final Jeopardy. The category is “Movies,” and the clue simply reads, “Archibald Leach, Bernard Schwartz and Lucille LeSueur.” Cliff responds, “Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?”
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Unfortunately for Cliff, he had bet his entire $22,000 total and loses the game, with Trebek revealing that the clue refers to the real names of stars Cary Grant, Tony Curtis and Joan Crawford. “Be that as it may Alex, those people have never been in my kitchen,” Cliff argues.
“They haven’t, but obviously not what we were going for when we wrote up that clue,” Trebek explains.
“Obvious to who?” Cliff fires back.
Later that day, Trebek visits Cheers and tells Cliff that “a case could be made” for his “point of view.” He also says that the debate caused him to rethink his entire career. “It’s a funny thing, you spend years hosting a show, and you get into the habit of thinking there’s just one correct question for every answer,” Trebek confesses. “But life doesn’t always work out that way. The world is much more complex. And you discover there are many different ways of looking at the universe.”
After announcing his intention to quit Jeopardy! to “maybe spend a little time in Tibet,” Cliff convinces Trebek to stay. Although the host later reveals that he made it all up because Cliff “scares” him.
Even though Cliff’s attempt to outsmart the Jeopardy! judges completely blew up in his face, at least one contestant attempted the Clavin strategy in real life, with far better results.
The winner of the 1990 Jeopardy! College Championship was a junior at Rutgers University named Michael Thayer.
According to J! Archive, in the last game of the tournament, the three contestants were virtually tied going into Final Jeopardy. The category was “The Supreme Court,” and the correct response was “Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.” But Thayer wrote down, “Who was someone I never met?”
“Michael, looks like you were watching that episode of Cheers,” Trebek quipped.
While the judges didn’t accept the student’s response, unlike Cliff, Thayer didn’t wager everything. In fact, he bet just $0. And because the other two contestants made big bets, but similarly failed to come up with the correct response, he ended up winning the whole thing.
Another plus: None of that game’s categories were about celibacy.
