Ken Jennings apologized to contestant Heather Ryan on the Oct. 28, 2024, episode of Jeopardy! after a clue quoted a line about “girls who wear glasses”—and Ryan was wearing glasses. The clue was part of a rhyming-phrase category; returning champion Will Wallace supplied its ending.
What happened on the Oct. 28 episode?
Ryan selected a $400 clue in the category “Complete the Rhyming Phrase.” Jennings began Dorothy Parker’s line, “Men seldom make passes at,” and Wallace completed it: “girls who wear glasses.” Ryan did not answer the clue. Jennings responded, “Yeah, a little problematic,” then said, “Sorry, Heather.” Wallace agreed, saying, “Very.” NBC News reported the on-air exchange.
The awkwardness came from the coincidence that Ryan, the contestant who had chosen the clue, was wearing glasses. Jennings’s apology was a brief on-air response, not a separate formal statement.
How did Heather Ryan react afterward?
In a later interview reported by the Los Angeles Times, Ryan called the clue “an odd choice.” She said it made people in the audience and on stage, including Jennings, “a little uncomfortable,” describing the reaction as, “Oh, that was unexpected.”
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Ryan also pointed to the practical stakes of the joke’s subject: “Unfortunately, there are still girls who are [in] middle school and they don’t want to wear their glasses and they’re losing out on their education. So, I think it’s much better to be able to see than anything else.” That was Ryan’s perspective in the follow-up interview.
Why did the clue appear?
On the official Inside Jeopardy! podcast, producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss said the line came from Dorothy Parker and fit the writers’ rhyming-phrase category. Foss explained that Parker wrote it in a 1926 book and said the writers were filling the category. She also described Jennings as reacting in the moment while hosting. The podcast transcript records Foss’s explanation.
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That account explains the clue’s selection as a category fit; it does not establish what every viewer thought of it or settle whether the line was appropriate. Ryan’s reaction and the producer’s explanation are distinct perspectives on the same brief exchange.
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