Jeopardy!’s most inaccurate clues of Season 40 as fans say there’s ‘way too many mistakes’ with Ken Jennings

JEOPARDY! Season 40’s inaccurate clues have fans complaining about the mistakes from Ken Jennings’s reign as the sole host of the game show.

From miscredited songs to incoherent responses, the latest season of the long-running game show has been under increased scrutiny amid a bevy of mishaps.

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ABC

Here are the most inaccurate clues, muddled responses, and incorrect answers of Jeopardy! Season 40.

TEMPERATURE TANTRUM

Earlier this month, producers were feeling the heat for an irrefutably inaccurate clue about units of temperature.

Fans called out the mistake on social media, and the reputable J-Archive website even confirmed that the game show was wrong.

Then-champ Adriana Harmeyer , who went on a 15-game win streak totaling 351,600 earned, faced Shira Gluck and Benjamin Nelson in her seventh game .

She selected the $600 clue in the “One Letter Says It All” category.

Host Ken Jennings , 50, read the clue, “50 degrees F. equals 283.15 degrees this.”

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Adriana was ruled correct with, “K.”

Ken explained, “Correct, for Kelvin.”

However, viewers took to social media saying the trivia game show was flat-out incorrect as Kelvin isn’t measured in degrees but has its own unit of measurement called Kelvins.

“Kelvin is not measured in degrees! It is measured as just kelvins, as it is not in reference to a standard like Celsius or Fahrenheit,” one Redditor pointed out.

Adriana replied to the user, saying she made a joke to this effect on-stage that was cut in post.

“Ha, I added a quip about that very detail after answering ‘Kelvin’ aloud,” she wrote back.

An X user roared, “Error: Kelvin (K) is an absolute temperature scale, so the temperatures there are not ‘degrees’ like Fahrenheit (°F) and Celsius (°C). ’50 degrees F equals 283.15 this’ would be the correct clue.”

One more lamented, “Jeopardy! said degrees Kelvin smh.”

J-Archive , the go-to Jeopardy! resource, which chronicles every clue in history that the champs use to study, also agreed it was wrong.

The website slapped a rare “erratum” under the clue to note the show’s mistake.

They wrote, “[ERRATUM: Kelvin is a base unit, and is not measured in degrees.]”

CAVE-FUSED

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Last week, Ken confused Jeopardy! fans and contestants with his reading of the correct answer to a clue.

Viewers called out the show for an open-ended question that no one understood on the most recent episode.

On the June 17 episode, Ty Patton, Kelsey Kaunisviita Vockrodt, and Adriana competed against each other.

With only two questions left on the board in the first round of Jeopardy! , Ty picked the category “Human Race” for $1,000.

The clue read, “Using animal fat and sticks, a team of Spanish researchers tried to solve this kind of obvious question about cave paintings.”

Ty buzzed in first and hesitated when Ken called on him.

“What is ‘how did they paint them?” he said.

Ken told him that his answer was incorrect as Kelsey buzzed in.

“What is ‘What kind of paint did they use?'” she said, in a questioning tone.

Ken quickly let her know that her answer was also wrong.

Adriana did not buzz in and time ran out before anyone could give the correct answer.

Ken tried to explain the correct answer but the contestants looked confused.

“They used animal fat and sticks to try to get some illumination in there,” he said.

“The question is, ‘How did they paint in a dark cave?'”

The contestants stayed quiet, looking confused, before moving on to the final clue.

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Reddit users called out the show for the confusing question that even Ken struggled to explain.

“Anyone else hate that cave painting question? It seemed really clunky and hard to tell what they were looking for as a response,” one fan asked.

“Yes, it was atrocious. Even Ken couldn’t really articulate the correct response well,” a Reddit user replied.

“The biggest problem is there are several answers that could’ve fit there in addition to the one they were going for,” said another.

They continued, “Both of Ty’s and Kelsey’s worked. The clue said this ‘obvious’ question. It wasn’t very obvious if none of the three players got it and two offered other plausible answers.”

“Yeah, I agree. Sometimes there are clues like that where the answer is some weird almost sentence that they are looking for,” a third fan added.

Another fan joked that maybe the clue was written in the dark, referring back to the answer.

FLATTS OUT WRONG

Handout

Earlier this month, Jeopardy! left fans offended after the game show mistakenly credited a country song to the wrong band .

On Thursday’s episode, the commotion started when Adriana picked the category “Songs in the Key of Life.”

“In the title of a Rascal Flatts’ song, ‘Life Is’ this type of road,” host Ken read from the prompt.

“What is ‘A Highway?'” the contestant answered.

“Yes, it is,” Ken replied, adding $400 to her score.

However, artist Tom Cochrane originally conceived Life Is a Highway for his second album, Mad Mad World, in 1991.

In 2006, the Rascal Flatts did a cover version of the single for the Cars soundtrack.

Fans jumped to X, formerly known as Twitter, and slammed the game show for the mistake.

“Very offensive to Tom Cochrane to call Life Is a Highway a Rascal Flatts song,” one blasted.

“Rascal Flatts did not write Life Is a Highway! You will pay for this disrespect!” another person jokingly warned

“Rascal Flatts was the wrong answer to a question on Jeopardy!” claimed a third.

D’OH!

X/thatbilloakley

X/Jeopardy

During the 2024 Tournament of Champions, Jeopardy! received a poor reception from some Simpsons writers.

Troy Meyer faced Ben Chan and Yogesh Raut in the ToC finals.

During their match, Ben selected the $600 clue in the category “Real Names of Unreal People.”

The clue read, “Robert Underdunk Terwilliger is the real name of this vengeful The Simpsons character.”

Troy correctly guessed “Sideshow Bob” but Jeopardy! had the incorrect real name of the sitcom’s famed villain.

“Yes [Jeopardy!] you made a rare mistake,” former Simpsons writer Bill Oakley wrote on X.

“It’s ‘Onderdonk.’ And @Joshstrangehill and I are certain cause we wrote that script. Cc: @KenJennings.”

Fans replied to the call-out where many were surprised by the error, while others defended that worse things had happened on the show.

“Next thing you know they’ll be calling Bart’s teacher ‘Crandall,” one fan quipped.

“Not that I need to tell you but it’s VERY clearly pronounced ‘ON-der-donk’ on the show,” wrote another.

“I think closed captioning spells it with a U though,” argued a third.

“Trebek would have never let this happen,” commented a fourth.

While Ken didn’t buzz in, Jeopardy!’s social media team copped to the mistake, quote-tweeting the post with a GIF of Sideshow Bob walking into a pole.

SHOOK UP!

Jeopardy

Jeopardy! fans were left scratching their heads after a ‘misleading’ clue about actress Zendaya.

During Tuesday’s episode of Jeopardy!, the $1000 clue in the “Names in The Making” category threw viewers for a loop.

Ken read the clue aloud, saying, “Before somehow making tennis steaming in 2024, this single-named star guested on Disney Channel’s Good Luck Charlie.”

Staci Garner buzzed in, correctly guessing Zendaya .

Jeopardy! Universe

Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, many spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here they all are:

Jeopardy! – (syndicated) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7 pm ET.

Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament.

Second Chance Tournament – 2022 to present features hand-selected non-winners from the season prior, where the prize is entry into Champions Wildcard.

Champions Wildcard – 2023 to present, features all one, two and three-day champions from the season prior worth entry into the Tournament of Champions.

Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (syndication) – 2023 to present, features past greats invited by producers to vie for a slot in Masters.

Jeopardy! Masters (primetime) – 2023 to present, features the six highest-ranked Jeopardy! champions competing against each other.

Celebrity Jeopardy! (primetime) – 1992 to present, has celebrities compete against each other to raise money for charity.

Pop Culture Jeopardy (streaming) – 2024 to present, will feature teams of three tasked with pop culture trivia on Amazon Prime, host and airdate TBD

Jeopardy! has done away with specialized tournaments like its College Tournaments, Kids Week, and Professor’s Tournament to gear towards a more sports-like model, with Masters being the top of the Jeopardy pyramid.

Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years as well, like Sports Jeopardy!.

Online, fans questioned the clue, claiming they didn’t recall the Euphoria actress ever appearing on the Disney Channel sitcom.

“Jeopardy just falsely stated that Zendaya starred in Good Luck Charlie,” one person posted on social media .

“Zendaya was not on Good Luck, Charlie….right?” another inquired.

“Jeopardy just said Zendaya was on Good Luck Charlie??” someone else questioned.

“Watching Jeopardy when was Zendaya on Good Luck Charlie?!?” a fourth fan asked.

Zendaya did, in fact, have a guest spot on Good Luck, Charlie, as she appeared as Rocky Blue, a backup dancer, on the show.

She only appeared in one episode but starred in three full seasons of the Disney Channel hit Shake It Up and later played the titular character on the network’s show series K.C. Undercover.

Her Shake It Up role was tied to her appearance of the clue from Jeopardy!, and her guest appearance on Good Luck Charlie was a crossover from the bigger show.

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