‘Dumbest Jeopardy! player in history’ explains ‘Cliff Clavin’ fail

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You might have had a bad week, but Karen Morris’ disastrous outing on Jeopardy! probably has yours beat.

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The veterinary student from Virginia had built up a healthy lead during Wednesday night’s episode. But following a series of inexplicably bad wagers, Morris quickly saw her fortunes evaporate on the way to a last-place finish.

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Morris was firmly in the driver’s seat with $21,800, while her competitors trailed her with $7,100 and $6,400.

When she landed on a Double Jeopardy, Morris tried to leave the other contestants behind by wagering $10,000. But the clue under “Hans Solo” — “This artist the younger was working on yet another portrait of Henry VIII when he died in 1543” — left her stumped.

“I’m sorry — Hans Holbein the Younger, the painter,” host Ken Jennings said when she failed to give an answer. “Cost you $10,000.”

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But as she headed into Final Jeopardy, Morris was still in the lead with $11,400.

“He served with an airman named Yohannan in World War II, and despite what readers might think, he enjoyed his service,” Jennings read the clue from the the category “American Novelists” with the answer being Catch-22 author “Joseph Heller.”

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Zach Wissner-Gross in third place with $7,200 guessed correct, but bet nothing. Melissa Klapper, the champion, was next up and also wrote down the right answer. The Jewish studies prof added $8,000 to her total to take her to $16,700.

“Karen Morris had a big lead before tangling with that final Daily Double — she needs to get Heller here,” Jennings said highlighting the importance of her response.

But Morris looked completely stunned as Jennings said, “She wrote down Hunter S. Thompson. And now I’m sorry, she’s going to drop down $6,001, putting her into third place.”

With a dumbfounded look on her face, Morris listened on as Jennings announced Klapper was continuing on as a three-day champ.

On social media, Jeopardy! fans had a field day dissecting Morris’ missteps.

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“Karen Morris might be the dumbest #jeopardy player in history,” one viewer swiped. “She had a $14k lead with only $2,400 in clues left on the board, and she wagered $10k on a Daily Double she got wrong LMAO.”

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“I’ve watched Jeopardy! regularly for 35+ years and can’t remember anything that stupid,” another critic blasted.

One person predicted Morris might one day be an answer on the show. “This person made worst Daily Double bet of all time — costing her sure win and putting her in third place. Who is Karen.”

“What an absolute bed s—ing by Karen Morris,” a fourth viewer chided.

After she was likened to goofy Cliff Clavin from Cheers, Morris later took to social media to try and explain what was going through her head as she made the series of blunders that lead to her third-place finish.

“OK I’m gonna run down the episode step by step and then I will look up who ‘Cliff Clavin’ is,” Morris wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread.

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“In the beginning I was worried about buzzing because motor skills are not my jam, and I have two brothers who are pretty serious gamers (one PC, one console) whereas this freakin game has only one button, yet was so intimidating to me.”

Once she was confident in her buzzer skills, Morris became “focused on hunting for Daily Doubles.”

Morris ran through her thought process for several other categories, before addressing “The Big Wager.”

“Making an appropriate wager requires considering the likelihood of knowing the correct response, which requires assessing your competency in the category, which requires awareness of what the category is, which, at that moment, I DID NOT HAVE,” she wrote.

Morris detailed how she was able to get an earlier answer in the category — “Hans Zimmer” — correct, before admitting to followers that the only name coming to mind during her Daily Double meltdown was Justin Bieber.

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Later, she tried the question out on her sister, who guessed, “Hans Picasso.”

“Maybe you’re thinking ‘Hans Picasso is a stupid guess’ but I assure you, gentle reader, that ‘who is Hans Picasso?’ would have been a MASSIVE upgrade because in that moment I was thinking ‘name an artist! NAME AN ARTIST!’ and THE ONLY NAME I could think of was Justin Bieber.”

Morris made the decision not to give an answer, knowing that going down $10,000 would still keep her in the lead.

When it came time for Final Jeopardy, Morris said that she “carefully wagered based on the algorithm that my cousin David taught me,” but just didn’t know the answer.

“I never read Catch-22; I picked an American guy who wrote about badass stuff and was younger than Hemingway,” she wrote.

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“Ultimately, I did what I did, and I had THE MOST FUN, and at the end of the day (I’m sorry Mom, I know you hate that phrase) it’s a game, and it’s a show, and it’s a game show … #SorryNotSorry for The Big Wager.”

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Even though Morris’ loss made her the butt of jokes on social media, her gameplay was defended by several watchers, including 2022 Tournament of Champions contestant Margaret Shelton.

“Everybody who wants to talk s— about a contestant’s wager on Jeopardy!, beat it,” Shelton tweeted. “It’s tough AF up there, and we all do our damnedest to win. As much as you may want us to win, WE WANT US TO WIN MORE. But you get up on that stage and show me how it’s done. Shout me out, k?”

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Morris’ gaffe was the latest debacle on Jeopardy! this month. Earlier in the week, Klapper caused an uproar when she seemingly mispronounced actor Ewan McGregor’s name.

The show also had to apologize after it accidentally revealed the final scores of the players during host Mayim Bialik’s opening monologue on the first night of the High School Reunion finale.

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Executive producer Michael Davies later apologized for the gaffe, saying that the show “totally blew it.”

“Right off the bat, apologies to our entire audience,” Davies says on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “We totally blew it at the top of the show. We made a horrible error where we revealed the final scores at the end in the opening cutaway shot during Mayim’s monologue.”

Meanwhile, Klapper lost after three victories on Thursday evening’s episode.

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