1. Kenneth Wayne Jennings III was born on May 23,1974 and is an American game show host, former contestant, and author.
53 Facts About Ken Jennings
1. 2.
Ken Jennings appeared on other game shows, including The Chase, and hosted the Omnibus podcast.
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Ken Jennings holds the record for the highest average correct responses per game.
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Kenneth Wayne Jennings III was born on May 23,1974, in Edmonds, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.
5.
Ken Jennings's father was an international lawyer and moved the family to South Korea when Ken was in the first grade.
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Ken Jennings's mother was a school teacher and worked for the Department of Defense in that capacity overseas.
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Ken Jennings spent 11 years living in Korea and Singapore; he graduated from the Seoul Foreign School.
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Ken Jennings is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and spent two years as a volunteer missionary, serving in Madrid, Spain.
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Ken Jennings played on the school's quizbowl team, at one point serving as captain, and graduated in 2000 with a double major in English and computer science.
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Ken Jennings met his wife, Mindy, at BYU; they have two children.
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Ken Jennings was given three weeks to prepare for his taping, and he prepared extensively, using a couch as a podium, his young child's toy as a buzzer, and having his wife use flash cards and keep score.
12.
In that first episode, Ken Jennings's entire winning streak nearly ended before it even began.
13.
Zerg, whom Ken Jennings called a "formidable opponent", finished in third place on the next show.
14.
Ken Jennings's run was interrupted by the off-season break, 2004 Kids' Week, the Tournament of Champions, the 2004 United States presidential election, and the College Championship.
15.
Ken Jennings did not participate in the Tournament of Champions, as invitations are extended only to champions who have been defeated.
16.
On December 1,2004, the day after his defeat, Jennings made a guest appearance at the start of the broadcast, during which host Alex Trebek acknowledged his success and enumerated the various game show records he had broken.
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Ken Jennings's run on the show brought significant media attention and television ratings.
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Ken Jennings was credited with boosting the program's popularity as a whole, which at that point had been on the air for two decades but primarily attracted an older demographic.
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Ken Jennings guested on several television programs, including The Tonight Show, Nightline, Live with Regis and Kelly, Sesame Street, and the Late Show with David Letterman, where he read the Top Ten List of Ways To Irritate Alex Trebek.
20.
Ken Jennings commented, "That was when I realized the Democratic Party was [screwed] in '04".
21.
Ken Jennings donated ten percent of his winnings to the LDS Church.
22.
Ken Jennings's streak made an impact backstage at the show as well, with the producers implemented some changes during his run.
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In 2023, Ken Jennings's entire run was made available for the first time, streaming on Pluto TV.
24.
Ken Jennings returned to the program several times over the years as a contestant in its tournaments.
25.
Ken Jennings won the $500,000 prize for second place, but as a result of the Ultimate Tournament, Rutter temporarily displaced him as the highest overall winner of money on game shows.
26.
Ken Jennings returned for the 2011 Jeopardys "IBM Challenge", which featured the company's Watson against Jennings and Rutter in two matches played over three days, the first man-versus-machine competition in the show's history.
27.
The winner of the competition was Watson, winning $1,000,000 for two charities, while Ken Jennings was second and Rutter was third, receiving $300,000 and $200,000, respectively.
28.
Ken Jennings placed second, winning a $100,000 prize, and Rutter won first place, securing a $1,000,000 prize.
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Ken Jennings was widely viewed as an heir to the role as host; Trebek had reportedly considered Ken Jennings his rightful successor.
30.
Ken Jennings was announced as the first in a series of guest hosts of the program in November 2020.
31.
Ken Jennings's episodes aired from January 11 to February 19,2021.
32.
Later, The Wall Street Journal reported Ken Jennings was indeed intended to be sole host, but controversy over his remarks on social media hurt his standing, with poor ratings from focus groups and Sony executives fearing his selection could cause backlash.
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Ken Jennings has written five books for his children's series, Junior Genius Guides.
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Ken Jennings has written and edited literature and mythology questions for the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, a quiz bowl organization.
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Ken Jennings has read questions as a moderator at the 2005,2006, and 2009 NAQT High School National Championship Tournaments in Chicago.
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Ken Jennings wrote a trivia newsletter called Trivia Tuesday, which ran from 2006 to 2021.
37.
Every Tuesday, beginning on July 4,2006, Ken Jennings sent out an email containing seven questions.
38.
Outside of his writing career, Ken Jennings won the rookie division of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2006.
39.
Ken Jennings was an active member of the trivia app FleetWit, regularly playing in the live trivia races.
40.
Ken Jennings competed regularly in LearnedLeague under the name "JenningsK".
41.
Ken Jennings was involved in speaking deals through the Massachusetts-based speakers' agency American Program Bureau.
42.
Ken Jennings taped a pilot for a proposed CBS revival of Pyramid, titled Million Dollar Pyramid, and was a contestant on other game shows including Wait Wait.
43.
Ken Jennings appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, as a frequent expert for the lifeline "Ask the Expert".
44.
Ken Jennings appeared on Millionaire in 2014 as a contestant during Guinness World Records Edition themed week, where he won $100,000 after deciding to walk away on his $250,000 question.
45.
Ken Jennings was one of eight recurring "Trivia Experts" for Best Ever Trivia Show, which debuted in 2019; he was one of the six trivia experts on Best Ever successor, Master Minds, from 2020.
46.
In November 2020, it was announced that Ken Jennings would be one of the three chasers on the ABC revival of The Chase, hosted by Sara Haines with Rutter and Holzhauer as the other chasers, joined by Mark Labbett in season 2.
47.
Outside of game shows, Ken Jennings appeared on multiple episodes of Doug Loves Movies, hosted by Doug Benson.
48.
Ken Jennings narrated the audiobook version of Alex Trebek's autobiography, The Answer Is.
49.
Ken Jennings's rendition was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 63rd Grammy Awards.
50.
Ken Jennings was an active Twitter user, and some of his tweets have been subjects of controversy.
51.
Ken Jennings again faced controversy when on May 31,2017, he tweeted a joke involving Barron Trump, the youngest child of US President Donald Trump.
52.
In December 2020, Ken Jennings offered an apology on Twitter for some of his past comments, and subsequently deleted said comments.
53.
In January 2021, Ken Jennings faced controversy again when his friend and podcast co-host John Roderick posted a Twitter thread where he discussed preventing his nine-year-old daughter from eating until she learned to open a can of baked beans using a manual can opener, which he approximated took six hours.