Source: Fortune.com
On the set of Jeopardy! a contestant had to give up $3,200 because he used the term “gangster” instead of “gangsta.” On Monday’s episode, Nick Spicher chose a $1,600 clue in Music and Literature, and he had to connect two titles which shared a common word.
A song by Coolio was listed as well as the John Milton book from 1667, and the man said, “What is Gangster’s Paradise Lost?” The song in question – “Gangsta’s Paradise” – was released in 1995 on Coolio’s album, “Dangerous Minds,” and the book is Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
The man linked the two songs together. However, after initially awarding him the money, Alex quickly changed his mind due to the decisions of producers who chose to take it away for not being 100% correct.
Let Nick’s mistake be a lesson to us all. In 2018, you gotta keep it gangsta at all times. Never Gangster #Jeopardy pic.twitter.com/NMO7QsAfyI
— Roy Wood Jr- Ex Jedi (@roywoodjr) January 2, 2018
Initially, Trebek decided to give him the money but shortly after, he retracted his remarks. A judge on the show said the answer wasn’t correct.
In response to the mainstream attention, producers from Jeopardy! looked up the two words and concluded that the two terms have different definitions. One is related to hip-hop culture while the other typically refers to the Italian Mafia.
Furthermore, the person who wrote the article on the website said that every answer is reviewed on the show to make sure it’s correct.
The incident quickly went viral, with many people on Twitter creating meme’s joking that a person always has to “stay gangsta” rather than “gangster.”
A tweet of the clip from the show has been viewed around 2.2 million times. Either way, it’s good publicity for Jeopardy which has been on the air for more than fifty years. Its first episode was in 1964.
