‘Jeopardy’ producers speak about champ Matt Amodio’s ‘what is’ answers

What’s a little grammar when winning hundreds of thousands of dollars on “Jeopardy?”

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For fans of the answer and question show, apparently, it’s a lot.

Current “Jeopardy” champion Matt Amodio has been annoying some viewers by answering “What is” or “What’s” for every question, the “Today” show reported.

“Jeopardy” producers have combed through the rules and despite fans’ furor over “what,” the candidate for a Ph.D. in computer science is well within the regulations, which state that the answers must be in the form of a question.

“It’s simple. ‘Jeopardy!’ doesn’t require that the response is grammatically correct,” the show said.

The show’s judges have even accepted “The Who?” as an answer since the answer is a question and answer all in one, and the phrase “Is it...”

But there is a limit on how much leeway judges will give.

A question like “What would occur in the event that...?” or “Could it possibly be that...? are not fully accepted because they’re long and use time. Contestants are told to keep answers short, the show said.

As for Amodio, after nine games he’s in the top-10 highest winning champions ever having earned $310,400.

You can see the most current rankings here.

His winning streak almost didn’t happen. He didn’t want to try out for “Jeopardy!” but was persuaded to do so by his father, who didn’t get to accompany his son to the taping due to COVID-19, Amodio told Entertainment Weekly.

As for his unique answering technique, he told Entertainment Weekly,” I guess I just want to say that I hope nobody’s offended by it. I do hear some people say that it’s disrespectful to the game, and I would counter that if there was a Jeopardy fan-club ranking, I think I would have a strong case to be No. 1 Jeopardy fan. I live and breathe the show, I love every aspect of it, and so I’m definitely not doing it out of any disrespect or undermining of the show.”

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