Monday, September 21, 2009

Big fan

We've got a bunch of Jeopardy! episodes saved up on the TiVo, for viewing during dinnertime. The rapidly changing dollar totals in the contestants' podiums never fail to absorb Archer.

Lately -- at least lately in our DVR-delayed viewing -- the show's been celebrating its 30th anniversary by showing historic episode. And tonight was the first one we've seen featuring all-time champion (and Noel's secret best friend) Ken Jennings.

Archer knows about Jennings from his Guinness Book Of World Records, as well as from Noel telling him all about the millions of dollars he won and the length of his championship run. So when he spotted Ken Jennings in the contestant list, he was transfixed. A delighted smile crept across his face. Periodically he would update us on Jenning's score. Then, when his over two million dollar total winnings were announced at the time, Archer made sure we all knew the extent of the fortune: "His 75-day cash total is two million three hundred thiry-five thousand six hundred twenty!" (Or whatever it was. Archer's signature move is the rapid-fire recitation of specific numbers with a bunch of digits, and when he gets started, you can't interrupt him until he gets the whole number out.)

It's a trip to see him all starry-eyed at this giant of accumulating scores and setting records. I know that he has no greater ambition than to have a lot of money (because that's how you keep score in the game of life) and be a winner. If only there were some way to start feeding him trivia so that he could follow in Ken Jenning's path.

1 comment:

Adam Villani said...

Did you tell him I was one of Jennings's victims? And do you have a copy of Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac? It's by far the best trivia quiz book I've come across.