Jeopardy! producer divulges rare game show secret while apologising for ‘horrible error’
A Jeopardy! producer has divulged a show secret while apologising for a “horrible error” in a recent episode.
On 9 March, viewers tuning in to watch the game show were frustrated after a shot of the contestants’ final scores was shown during host Mayim Bialik’s opening speech.
The moment spoiled the entirety of the episode, and now executive producer Michael Davies has revealed why the error occurred.
Speaking on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, Davies said: “Right off the bat, apologies to our entire audience.”
He continued: “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.”
Davies, offering a rare insight into the production of the series, then said the opening part of the show is often re-shot after the game has been completed, with cutaway shots including the contestants’ final scores replaced by the same shots from the start.
He said that while “it is standard procedure to take the scores in the podium back to the original level”, for some reason “it didn’t happen” on that particular day – and nobody in post-production caught the mistake,
“It’s a series of errors and it’s somehow remarkable they all happened,” Davies said, but assured viewers that protocols are now in place “that will prevent this from happening again”.
He stated: “My whole thing is to always focus not on what happened and why did this happen in order to punish people. It’s what happened and why did it happen so we can build a protocol to make sure it never happens again.”
Davies apologised to “anybody whose experience of this program was ruined”, continuing: “We take these mistakes to heart so hard, the self-flagellation that happens across the senior management team and the post team and everybody involved.”
“That’s a good thing about Jeopardy. We take mistakes really, really seriously.”
