Jeopardy! fans are demanding that the show put a stop to contestants writing shout-outs in their Final Jeopardy! responses, which is a great idea because they're unnecessary, distracting, and take away from the prestige of the game. During Jeopardy! games, contestants must hand-write their answers to the Final Jeopardy! question, which allows them the freedom to write whatever they want as responses. As a result, some add personal messages to their family to their answers, or even write them as their only responses if they don't know the answer to the question.

These Final Jeopardy! shout-outs have become increasingly popular in more recent years of Jeopardy!, especially after Ken Jennings took over as the permanent host of the show in 2023, after beloved host Alex Trebek ed away. This trend has also infiltrated the tournament games, as well as Jeopardy! Masters, which is currently airing its third season in primetime.

Fans Don't Want "Hi Mom" Responses Anymore

Some Fans Enjoy Seeing The Personal Shout-Outs

In a Reddit thread in the Jeopardy! subreddit, peter4256home expressed their distaste for personal shout-outs in Jeopardy! final question responses. In a thread titled, "Enough already with 'Hi Mom' on FJ responses," they wrote, "The personal shoutouts on FJ responses are getting obtrusive and annoying. Rules need to be changed to either nothing but a legit response on FJ, or allow or require personal notes on all other responses. E.g., 'What is Europe? Hi mom.' 'What is James & The Giant Peach? My favorite book in 1st grade.'"

A fan agreed, stating that perhaps Jeopardy! contestants could make better use of their time during the short thirty seconds they have to answer the Final Jeopardy! question. They wrote, "Yeah, I believe they should only do that if they intentionally wager very little or $0. If it’s a very competitive game and they wager a lot of money, they should probably use the entire 30 seconds to think of their best response instead of using some of that time to think of which person they wanna give a shoutout to, in my own opinion."

Some fans thought that host Ken was handling the messages correctly by mostly ignoring them. One fan responded, "I noticed that Ken has just been ignoring them when the outcome of the game is still in question, which I think is the right move." Another person wrote, "It has become more prevalent since I imagine future contestants see current ones writing their little greetings. With that said, I have no issue with it and would probably do the same if I was going to be on the show. With rare exceptions, Ken doesn't read them out loud so it doesn't affect the show at all."

However, other fans saw nothing wrong with the Final Jeopardy! shout-outs and expressed their disagreement with the original post. One person wrote, "I really don’t see the problem. Nobody’s getting hurt. No one is taking up half the show to tell a story. There’s nothing wrong with it. Honestly it’s kind of cool. Your system is a big reason you’re on that stage in the first place after all. Nobody can do it alone. That’s just straight up discouraging." Another Jeopardy! fan added, "Alternatively, you could just ignore [the messages]."

Jeopardy! contestant Anise K. Strong-Morse also defended adding personal messages to Final Jeopardy! responses, citing her own experience as a reason why they should be allowed. She wrote, "Well, I wish you could have seen my 9YO daughter literally leap in the air for joy when she saw her own name written on the screen last night."

Anise continued, "I was thanking her for, of her own volition, meticulously keeping score with tally marks for me for every single Jeopardy game for 6 whole weeks. That's going to be one of my most cherished memories of this whole experience - and I don't really see how it detracted at all from my clearly written correct FJ answer. But you do you."

Should These Personal Greetings Be Banned?

Final Jeopardy! Shout-Outs Ruin The Integrity Of The Show

Jeopardy! is the most prestigious game show on the air today. It requires an incredible amount of prior knowledge, preparation, and natural intelligence. When a contestant writes a personal greeting in their Final Jeopardy! response or uses it for their response when they don't know the answer to the question, it ruins the integrity of the show by reducing it to something cutesy and irrelevant. However, banning these shout-outs seems overly harsh.

One Reddit pointed out that it would be difficult to enforce a ban on the messages. They wrote, "Personally I'm fine with the little notes, but you're absolutely entitled to your opinion on this. I just wanted to mention that by all s, based on what contestants have shared here, production discourages them from writing the notes, but obviously it happens anyway. Beyond that, I'm not sure what more the show could do. I don't think this rises to the level of needing rules prohibiting the behavior. What would the punishment even be? Take away money? Invalidate a correct response? None of these would go over well."

Another noted that these personal messages might be the Jeopardy! contestants' only chance to mention their loved ones on the show, writing, "Well, where else besides the contestant chats are people going to thank/greet their families/relatives?" Another agreed and added, "The contestants are getting their 30 minutes of fame and one time chance on TV, I don’t care if they want to take a couple seconds to make a shoutout. It takes away absolutely nothing from my enjoyment of the show. I think you may just need to learn to be a little more tolerant about the small things in life." Although this might be true, Final Jeopardy! is not the time or the place for a personal shout-out to a family member or friend.

Because Jeopardy! is so strict about answering in the form of a question and being very specific when the questions call for it, it seems strange that the show would allow personal messages on the screen for Final Jeopardy! Technically, adding a shout-out to an answer makes that response wrong, so personal greetings shouldn't be allowed. While penalties shouldn't be in place for them, they should be highly discouraged and maybe even banned.

Are Fans Being Too Judgmental?

Final Jeopardy! Shout-Outs Need To Stop

I don't think that Jeopardy! fans are being too judgmental about contestants adding personal shout-outs to their Final Jeopardy! responses. In fact, I've been saying the same thing for a long time. I understand that contestants want to acknowledge their loved ones on the air, but I don't agree with them doing it on the screen where they write the answer to the most important question of the game because it's distracting and unnecessary.

I especially dislike it when Jeopardy! contestants only write something like, "Hi Mom!" instead of making an educated guess for their answer. It feels like they just gave up, and ruins the suspense of the game. In addition, in my opinion, there's nothing worse in a game of Jeopardy! than a Final Jeopardy! answer of "What is ... I had fun."

Although writing personal shout-outs isn't hurting anyone and might even be seen as a harmless quirk, I wish Jeopardy! had another way for contestants to acknowledge their loved ones. Perhaps at the very end of the end of the show, after Final Jeopardy!, they could write a message to their loved ones that would display on their screens when Ken chats with them during the end credits. This would be a good compromise that would keep irrelevant messages out of the game, but also allow the contestants to send love and gratitiude to their families and friends. This small change could keep all Jeopardy! fans happy.

Jeopardy! airs weeknights. Please check your local listings for time and channel.

Source: peter4256home/Reddit