Somehow I’ve gotten into the habit of answering reader e-mail every Monday morning. Mostly out of laziness, probably. What, you think it’s easy to obsess about breakfast cereal and 1970s children’s TV five days a week?

A very close Jeopardy! viewer named Paul asks:

I remember noticing during your Jeopardy run that 2 nights in a row there were 2 nearly identical question/answer pairs. As I recall the first night’s questions became the second night’s answers or vice-versa. I remembered that I had emailed a friend about it so I dug up my old email to jog my memory about the questions and air-dates so I could double-check my memory against the J-Archive.

Sadly, those episodes (July 19 & 20, 2004) are not in the archive ( http://www.j-archive.com/showseason.php?season=20 ) so I am forced to bother you about it.

The questions in question were H.G. Wells as author of Time Machine and the other about Sinclair Lewis’ remains being in Minnesota, both in the category “Authors”. I assume that Jeopardy’s question/answer pairs are selected randomly from a pool well in advance. Is this correct? Do you remember the details? Am I high?

It’s true that the big lacuna in the otherwise omniscient J-Archive is Jeopardy!’s twentieth (2003-04) season, but that’s no accident. It’s because an older site, Ronnie O’Rourke’s Jeoparchive, already has that whole season catalogued. Also, unlike the J-Archive, the Jeoparchive has a bizarrely fascinating account of the author’s pet parrot appearing on Jeopardy!

I don’t remember the clues you mention, but the Jeoparchive shows them appearing in the July 20 game but not the July 21 one. I noticed many a repeat during my run (plug: a partial list is on page 181 of Brainiac) but I think I would have noticed two repeats back-to-back.

My understanding is that Jeopardy! categories are arranged into game boards in advance by a team of writers and producers (the better to “balance” the categories). But the choice of which set to use at which taping is random and/or top secret, so there’s no conceivable way contestants could know which questions they’ll be playing on.

An old-school trivia fan named Jeff says:

Just read your swell book. A couple of years ago, I spoke to a guy who not only took Edison’s test but had a job interview with the Great Inventor himself. The guy was the then 105-year-old Yeardley Chittick who I believe is still alive.

As for Fred Worth, I think I can help him with a very obscure bit of information regarding an movie actor who was once a member of “Murder Inc.” (Gangy Cohen/Jack Gordon) and if you think he would be interested in contacting me about this, please give him my email address.

Fred doesn’t have e-mail (jeez, even Yeardley Chittick is probably texting nowadays) but if you really want to track him down, his contact info is publicly available, which is how I found him. Ken-jennings.com, encouraging stalkers once trivia writer at a time.

Possible non-kook Jason has a beef:

I know you’re going to think that I’m just another kook writing to complain about Jeopardy. And I probably am. But here me out anyway.

I think the game is fundamentally flawed because of the huge significance of buzzer timing. I can’t stand seeing three people all jerking their arms simultaneously on every clue, only to see one random person get called upon.

To me, the solution is simple. Simply allow players to ring in at any time, even before Alex has finished reading the clue. This makes winning Jeopardy more about very quick thinking than buzzer timing.

Now I know the immediate objections to this–it would be annoying to viewers, Alex will rush the clue readings, etc. But none of these problems has to exist. Let players ring in early, but let Alex finish reading the clue at a normal pace. Then he can call on whoever was first at the same pace that the game is played at now. The penalty for wrong answers will still prevent frivolous ringing in.

What do you think? I don’t have any illusions about this change actually happening, but I’m wondering if you have any special insight into why the rule exists as it does.

As old-timers know, players were allowed to interrupt the moderator during the Art Fleming years and Trebek’s first season. The change was partly for viewer-friendliness reasons, as you surmise, but it was also to prevent the dubious strategy of contestants buzzing right as Alex began the question, then using their five seconds to scan the rest of the clue in hopes they knew the answer. (One obvious problem with your let-Alex-finish-the-question suggestion is how much it rewards this strategy: any player could buzz in immediately, then have the benefit of Trebek reading the rest of the clue.)

I often wonder how many Jeopardy! games really come down to the buzzer. My reasoning goes like this: the highest-value clues are the ones that often determine the game, and those are the ones that are least likely to be a buzzer race. Also, the Jeopardy! format rewards sheer luck in so many regards (Daily Double placement, category selection, etc.) that buzzer timing merely becomes one of many non-knowledge factors in play.

Finally: best Tuesday Trivia unsubscribe e-mail ever:

I wish to unsubscribe. I really wish I didn’t have to, but as I am only 14, most of this material is over my head. I am smart though, don’t get me wrong.

Noted.