A fan compared the Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time tournament to the Godfather movies, and for some viewers it makes too much sense. The post has now gone viral as fans dissect the historic game show event results. Ken Jennings won Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time on Tuesday night, cementing his status as the show’s best player ever. Afterwards, Twitter user John Fleming argued that Jennings “is The Godfather: Brilliant and with occasional moments of humor to keep the audience engaged.”
Carrying on the analogy, he wrote: “James Holzhauer is Part II: Arguably less ‘enjoyable’ but brilliant for the way it shook up conventional structures.”
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“Brad Rutter is Part III: Also a Godfather movie,” he concluded.
The post picked up hundreds of retweets and over 3,000 likes, as fans marveled at how apt the metaphor seemed to be. It got an extra boost when Holzhauer retweeted it. Fleming added a follow up post, assuring fans that he was not trying to mock either The Godfather Part III or Rutter.
“I just want to plug that I like Godfather Part III and also I’ve watched every episode so far with a Brad fan,” he wrote.
Ken Jennings is The Godfather: Brilliant and with occasional moments of humor to keep the audience engaged.
James Holzhauer is Part II: Arguably less “enjoyable” but brilliant for the way it shook up conventional structures.
Brad Rutter is Part III: Also a Godfather movie
— John Fleming (@johnjf125) January 14, 2020
“I just want to take the time to clarify that my girlfriend would absolutely leave me for Brad Rutter,” he added later.
Fans built on comparison in appreciation, noting that Rutter has “won” more things than The Godfather Part III ever did, and that Holzhauer remains a fan-favorite in spite of Jennings’ win.
Others responded with their own Jeopardy! analogies. One person tweeted that Jennings is like Michael Jordan, Holzhauer is Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Rutter is LeBron James. Another extended Fleming’s metaphor past movies and into characters, writing that Jennings is like Michael Corleone, Holzhauer is like Sonny Corleone and Rutter is like Fredo Corleone.
Wow, this blew up! I just want to take the time to clarify that my girlfriend would absolutely leave me for Brad Rutter
— John Fleming (@johnjf125) January 15, 2020
This was just a sampling of the jokes about Jeopardy! on Twitter on Wednesday. Fans were revved up after the unusual tournament, which featured the same contestants competing in several games in a row with a cumulative points-based system instead of real monetary values. It ended on Wednesday when Jennings won two games in a row, making his third winning night.
Jennings was the only contestant to get the last Final Jeopardy clue — “He has 272 speeches, the most of any non-title character in a Shakespeare tragedy.” He answered “who is Iago?” and Holzhauer has yet to get over it. On Wednesday, he changed his profile picture to one of Iago from Disneys Aladdin, and his display name to “GOAT Fodder.”
The tournament may be over, bu the regular Jeopardy! season is still going. It airs on weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on ABC.
