As guest host Dr. Sanja Gupta continues through his first week at the helm of the trivia game show, Jeopardy!, a new category comes into play. With the help of the WBZ News team, contestants answer clues about Boston, Massachusetts. The city’s anchors each read a clue from the category, choosing from topics of pop culture, crime, movies and others that made headlines on the news show.
Quickly, contestants learned just how much of their everyday culture they owed to “The Hub of the Universe.”
Boston Breaking News Stories Make Great Clues On ‘Jeopardy!’
As the game of Jeopardy! began, current four-day winner, Courtney, chose the first Boston-central clue for $400. News anchor Kate Merrill delivered the clue to the competitors.
“In 1998, childhood friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won an Oscar for the screenplay of this film, set at MIT and around Harvard, where Damon originally began writing the script,” Merrill said.
The answer was, of course, Good Will Hunting.
“How do you like them apples?” Jeopardy! guest host Dr. Gupta responded, quoting a line from the film.
The next Boston clue was for $600 and came from anchor Liam Martin.
Martin read, “On January 17th, 1950, a group of armed, masked men pulled off the crime of the century, stealing more than $2.7 million from this company’s Armored Car depot in Boston. Only a small amount of money was ever recovered.”
True newsies may know this answer, but for the rest of us, it was a tough clue. However, like the clue’s subject, contestant Courtney steals the $600 from her competitors with the answer, “What is Brink’s?”
According to the History Channel, the 1950 Brink’s Armored Car depot lost its money to 11 armed men. Today, the money would have equated to $29 million today. Eventually, police apprehended all eleven of the men six years later.
Trivia Contestants ‘Cheers’ To Boston’s Versatile History
Jeopardy! contestant Courtney continued to run away with the game after answering the next clue in the Boston category. Courtney correctly guessed the disease behind the famed “Ice Bucket Challenge,” which was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
However, after Courtney’s impressive lead in the Boston category, Leanne took the $1000 Jeopardy! clue by identifying the leadership award that John McCain won at the JFK Presidential Library: Profiles in Courage. The award was also the title of Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
Lastly, Boston anchor David Wade concluded the category with his $200 clue.
“In 1982, Boston Magazine named the Bull and Finch pub in Beacon Hill the best neighborhood bar. It inspired this sitcom where everybody knew your name,” Wade read. “And in 1993, the cast gathered there to celebrate the final episode.”
Contestant Leanne confidently answered, “What is Cheers.”
Guest host Dr. Gupta thanked the Boston News Club for their help in providing a unique and versatile category to their trivia game.
