Wichita the subject of ‘Jeopardy!’ questions twice this week, and no one knew the answers
Longtime quiz show “Jeopardy!,” it seems, has just developed a small Wichita obsession.
Local fans of the show, which airs at 4:30 p.m. weekdays on NBC, have noticed that Wichita-based questions have been included as part of the show’s Tournament of Champions twice this week. On Monday, Jeopardy! included a question about Wichita’s flag. (No one knew the answer.) Then on Tuesday, a Wichita Riverfest question was included. (Again, no one knew the answer.)
And those two aren’t even the only Wichita questions that have made it on “Jeopardy!” of late. Two others popped up earlier this year — one in March and one in April.
What’s with the sudden Wichita fascination in the “Jeopardy!” writers’ room? Local fans of the show have their theories, but mostly they’re just excited that Wichita has become trivia fodder for one of the most popular quiz shows of all time.
Teri Mott, who does communication and marketing for the Wichita Riverfest, said she and her staff have no idea how a Riverfest question ended up on the show, but they had nothing to do with it.
“I wish I could purposefully seek that kind of public relations,” she said.
All of the Wichita questions that have appeared on “Jeopardy!” over the past three months have been in the $1,000 category, which is the show’s most difficult. The two included this week would have been particularly challenging for anyone who lived outside of Wichita.
The question on Monday was in the category of “Flags:” “A domed dwelling of Southwest Native Americans, it’s represented on Wichita’s flag as a symbol of home.”
None of the contestants even attempted it, but the correct answer would have been, “What is a Hogan?”
Then, on Tuesday came the Riverfest question under the category of “Holidays & Festivals:” “Riverfest is a big annual celebration in Wichita, Kansas & this is the river.”
The answer, of course: “What is the Arkansas River?” Again, none of the contestants even attempted an answer. And locals noted that when the host, Buzzy Cohen, revealed the correct response, he pronounced Arkansas not how Wichitans would — ARE-Kansas — but how Arkansans would — AR-kan-saw.
Local “Jeopardy!” fan and trivia expert Josh Wood records the show every day and watches it later. Wood, a one-time Wichita Eagle staffer who now is a senior writer and editor at Greteman Group, said he has loved the show since he was a kid watching with his mom — who almost always knew the answers.
As an adult, Wood has tried out for the show multiple times and been called to in-person auditions four times, though he’s never been selected. Now, he mostly plays online trivia and is particularly fascinated by the behind-the-scenes workings of “Jeopardy!” especially since the death of longtime host Alex Trebek.
He was watching this week when Wichita appeared twice.
“I was stoked when the flag one showed up in Monday’s show,” he said. “While I got a heads up Tuesday that another one was coming, I was shocked that they’d have two in back-to-back episodes.”
Wood was also watching when the two Wichita questions appeared earlier this year. The question that aired on the March 11 show was under the category of “U.S. Landmarks.”
“Kiowa-Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin designed the Keeper of the Plains statue in this most populous city in Kansas,” was the question, and the first person who buzzed in correctly answered “What is Wichita?”
The question that was included in the April 15 episode under the category of “The President’s Airport” was, “Generally speaking, Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport was renamed in 2014 to honor this man.” Again no one even attempted to answer the question; the correct response would have been “Who is Eisenhower?”
Wood, who shared screenshots of all four questions on his social media this week, said it’s been fun to see Wichita included so much lately. Though the city has been referenced multiple times over the years, this year’s questions have been more substantial, he said. In the past, Wichita has often been a more tangential part of the question.
So what’s causing “Jeopardy!” writers to turn their focus toward Wichita this year? Wood said he wishes he knew.
“Probably just a coincidence,” he said. “Maybe there’s some Kansas connection in the writers’ room? Or maybe someone took a recent trip to Eisenhower Airport for Riverfest and fell in love with the Keeper and our amazing flag.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 11:39 AM.
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