Think you have what it takes to win? You'll have to brush up on some of the hardest Jeopardy! categories—they even confounded the contestants!
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NFL
It’s too easy—and not necessarily true—to assume that Jeopardy! intellectuals aren’t big sports fans. But in one episode, none of the contestants knew that what team “Mean” Joe Green played for. Even if you’re not a football fan, you might remember the Coke commercial in which he tosses his jersey to a boy who gave him an ice-cold Coke. Correct response: the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In response to a different answer in this hard Jeopardy! category, one contestant guessed that famous running back Marcus Allen played for the Colorado Rockies—which is a baseball team. The correct answer (er, question): “Who are the Los Angeles Raiders?”
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Canadian cities
Then-host Alex Trebek, an Ontario native, must have been disappointed that no one guessed any of these correctly. Even this one: “Residents of this Saskatchewan city are called Moose Javians.” Correct response: What is Moose Jaw?
Contestant Randy Pike lost $8,000 in just a minute and a half, thanks to this hard Jeopardy! question about geography … though he would likely fare better with American cities as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army.
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National marine sanctuaries
The first two questions—about Florida shipwrecks and the elephant seals at Monterey Bay—stumped all three players. So they steered clear of the last three questions altogether. Talk about one of the hardest Jeopardy! categories to crack!
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Foo Fighters
This musical facts category and the ones that follow didn’t stump everybody every time, but they were tough. A contestant knew that frontman Dave Grohl used to be in Nirvana and that the name Foo Fighters refers to UFOs that bother sailors at night. But when asked about album titles and song lyrics, everyone was in over their heads.
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States that flow together
What the heck does that mean? Here’s how Trebek set the stage for this United States trivia category: “Each correct response will be two states. The last letter of one state will be the first letter of the adjoining state.” The $200 clue was “One has St. Louis; the other has east St. Louis.” The correct response was Missouri and Illinois.
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The Roosevelts
In the same game as those tricky states, contestants were stumped by a question about Eleanor Roosevelt. They also couldn’t come up with FDR’s signature achievement, the New Deal—not a topic you’d expect to land on a list of the hardest Jeopardy! clues!
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Classical music
This proved to be one of the hardest Jeopardy! categories for the contestants. Two separate contestants guessed incorrectly when responding to this clue: “Schoenberg and Webern were noted for pioneering use of this type of musical scale.” The correct response was “12-tone or 12-note chromatic scale.” The challenge escalated with the $1,000 question: “His ‘Symphony of a Thousand,’ scored for 1,000 musicians, has only two movements.” This stumped all three contestants; the answer was Gustav Mahler.
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Video games
Contestants got only one of the five questions correct in the video game Jeopardy! category. “We’re doing well on ‘Video Games,’ aren’t we?” Trebek joked after the third question met with either incorrect guesses, funny answers or no guesses at all. The contestants clearly weren’t fans of Skyrim, Fortnite or Joust.
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Movie title math
Pop culture references and math?! Jeopardy! contestants had to really work their brains on this category. “Movie Title Math” gave contestants two movie titles that included numbers, but with the numbers and an operation missing, and the contestants had to solve the “problem.”
For instance, “Both from 1960: Ocean’s ___ times The Magnificent ___.” The missing numbers are 11 and 7, making the answer 77—one of only two questions that were answered correctly without significant hesitation. No one even buzzed in on “Gone in __ Seconds plus Assault on Precinct ___.” (The correct answer was 73.)
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Journalism clichés
While contestants knew that “manicured” lawns and “silver bullets” were tired expressions used too often in news reports, no one could come up with “shrouded in mystery,” “game changer” or “poster child.” Think you could do better? You could always try out for the show.
FAQs
What are some Jeopardy! categories for pop culture?
Contestants need to be well-versed in movies, music, sports, social media, television, fashion, current events, Broadway and books, among others. Pop culture categories are so popular that they have led to a new spinoff show on Amazon Prime Video called Pop Culture Jeopardy!
What clue led to Ken Jennings’ loss?
The clue Ken Jennings lost to was, “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.” Jennings guessed “What is Fed-Ex?” but the correct response was “What is H&R Block?”
As per his website, Jennings was told by many people that his final Jeopardy! question was surprisingly easy and that he could’ve easily cracked it. “But quite honestly, I could have thought about this question all day and not come up with the right answer,” he admitted.
Is Jeopardy! being taken off the air in 2025?
No, Jeopardy! wasn’t taken off the air, but there was a change to the show’s availability. And it’s good news for fans. After Season 41 ended in July 2025, there was a six-week break before Season 42 of the popular American quiz show kick-started in September—on streaming platforms too.
Now, you don’t need cable to watch the show. You can view episodes the next day on Hulu, Peacock and Hulu on Disney+. The correct response: What is the best news of the fall?
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Sources:
- Jeopardy: “Awards”
- E! News: “What Is Jeopardy!? All the Behind-the-Scenes Secrets Revealed”
- YouTube: “Movie Title Math | Category | Jeopardy!”
- YouTube: “Video Games | Category | Jeopardy!”
- YouTube: “Coca-Cola classic ad: ‘Mean’ Joe Greene [Full Version] (1979)”
- Jeopardy: “How Does the Jeopardy! Buzzer Work?”
- Jeopardy: “The Jeopardy! Anytime Test is Now Available!”
- JStudyGuide: “Category is…: A Guide to the Most Common Jeopardy! Categories”
- Ken Jennings: “FAQs”
- YouTube: “10 More Hardest Final Jeopardy Rounds (How Many Can YOU Answer?) | World of Jeopardy”
- Jeopardy: “Be on J! Pop Culture Jeopardy!”
- The Sun: “Jeopardy!’s extended summer hiatus dates revealed as fans mourn ‘what will we do without Ken Jennings?’”
- The New York Times: “‘Wheel of Fortune’ and ‘Jeopardy!’ Find Streaming Homes”
