Jeopardy! fans are seriously annoyed after an incorrect clue was featured during Double Jeopardy!
Reigning champion Alison Betts was playing against her competitors, Sarah Avery and Brian Phillips, when she opted for a $1,200 clue in the “American Birds” category.
The San Jose, California native’s clue was a video featuring a brown-winged bird as it fluttered its wings.
Host Ken Jennings read the clue to Alison: “The Cooper’s type of this bird of prey is soon to be the TBD type as American birds will no longer have people in their common names.”
When Alison’s guess, “Finch,” was deemed incorrect, Ken told her the correct answer was, “Cooper’s Hawk.”
But, some hawk-eyed (pun intended) Jeopardy! viewers pointed out that the bird in question wasn’t a hawk but a falcon.
Jeopardy! fans say writers missed the mark with a recent video clue
Over on Reddit, critics discussed the error in a discussion thread and called out the “confusing” mishap.
“Why did they show a photo of a falcon for the clue for ‘Cooper’s Hawk’?” asked one Jeopardy! viewer.
“That was really confusing,” they added. “Falcons and hawks are in different bird orders.”
According to another Redditor, this isn’t the first time Jeopardy!’s writers have made a mistake.
Critics call out multiple errors on Jeopardy!’s part in recent months
“They’ve done this before – just a few months ago, actually,” added u/This-Is-Leopardy. “It’s pretty aggravating.”
Another Redditor claimed Jeopardy! writers have made a similar mistake before this.
“They made an almost identical mistake back in December! I don’t remember the exact clue but they showed a falcon and expected the response of hawk,” their comment read.
According to u/JilianaOnJeopardy, Jeopardy! has been “having issues” with stock photos of animals.
“They’ve been having issues that (I think) stem from mislabeled stock photos of animals that they didn’t investigate further,” they wrote.
“It happened in one of my games about 6 months ago and someone (maybe The Jeopardy Fan?) tracked down the original picture (of a cow in that case), which had the wrong label on it from the stock photo site,” the comment concluded.
Regardless of the Jeopardy! clue faux pas, Alison made out just fine.
The mother of two earned $33,100 for the week and her missed Double Jeopardy! video clue didn’t impact her winnings in any way.
I’m sick of people picking on Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune! Turn off the TV and quit gripping!