Answer: He blew a Final “Jeopardy!” question so that Alex Trebek would be forced to utter a popular meme.
Question: Who is Erik Agard?
Agard, who creates the crossword puzzle for the Arizona Daily Star’s Caliente section, opted for humor instead of more money on the Monday, Oct. 22, ABC game show. Agard ended his three-game winning streak on Wednesday, Oct. 24. His total haul: $66,802.
Of course, he could afford to blow that Final “Jeopardy!” question on Monday: He was up to $15,800 for the day, thousands of dollars ahead of his opponents.
The answer: “In a hint of the future, in 1973 Marjorie Post gave it to the U.S. government as a warm-weather presidential retreat, but it was returned.”
What Trebek was looking for: “What is Mar-A-Lago?”
What Agard wrote down — betting $1,000 on it: “What is you doing baby?,” a meme that took off in 2017. And one that sounded very awkward when a stumbling Trebek read it.
Agard — who is mum about whether he really knew the answer — electrified the internet with his cheeky response. “Jeopardy!” fans hip on pop culture shared it far and wide.
His “what is you doing, baby” moment was written up in Time, Newsweek, the Huffington Post and Good Housekeeping. A Reddit fan page was started with the headline “Does anyone else have a crush on Erik?” Many chimed in and said they did.
Even the creators of the meme, Dan Rue and Nick Joseph, who go by the handle @NickNPattiWhack, took note, starting a tweet in all capital letters: “TROLL OF THE YEAR … he lost 1,000 just to say that on national TV.”
Agard was ahead when Final Jeopardy! came around Wednesday. The answer: “Also a judicial capital, this aptly named city is known for an annual rose festival that began in 1976.”
The correct response: “What is Bloemfontein, South Africa.” Agard, who hesitated before he wrote anything down, came up with “What is Cape Town?”
“It’s a cool game and I wish I got to play it more,” Agard says about the experience. And he suggests that “Jeopardy!” fans might want to try for a shot themselves: You can sign up to take the online test at jeopardy.com
It was a tasty run for the puzzle creator and winner of the 2018 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament run by New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz.
And while you can’t catch him on “Jeopardy!” anymore, you can turn to the back of Caliente every Thursday and solve his crossword puzzles.
