On the Jeopardy! warpath

I like to think I'm not a geek or a nerd, but perhaps I am in a certain way. For a very long time I've been a huge fan, junkie even, of the TV quiz show Jeopardy! Very seldom do I miss it.

This started a long time ago when I was only a little boy. My late mom got me hooked on it. Back then the show was on at noon, rather than it's current 7:30 PM time slot, and was hosted by a guy named Art Fleming, not the Alex Trebek we have come to know in recent decades.

The fact I would sit by mom while we both hollered out questions at noon must have meant I was on summer vacation from school, though my memory is foggy on that. Yes, I had my chores to do (and running around the neighborhood with all the other kids) and mom had her Leave It To Beaver house to clean and her soaps to watch, but we'd always find time to hook up and watch Jeopardy! Fond memories of those times indeed.

That addiction has never gone away. So yes, call me a nerd if you will. I don't care.

Then tonight, 11/16/17, something happened to put me on the proverbial warpath. Outrage! Sacrilege! Blasphemy! Off with their heads!!

The geniuses at NBC pre-empted my beloved Jeopardy! So what had happened? Surely it must be a very newsworthy event. But no.

It should be noted that Jeopardy! was winding up another Tournament of Champions. Fifteen previous (at least 5-time) champions had squared off in a two week series of shows to determine the best of the best.

After a week and a half, the original 15 had been whittled down to the Final Three. They would compete in a two day cumulative competition. Whoever won the most money over Thursday and Friday would be given $250,000 and a trophy they could be proud of for life.

And yes, I get it. These shows were taped taped a while back, but the public wouldn't know who came out on top until they aired, which was supposed to start tonight.

So what did NBC have on in its place? A football program, sort of. No, not a game, but merely a pre-game show. You know, talking heads throwing out all sorts of statistics and their own feeble opinions on what would happen when the Tennessee Titans met the Pittsburgh Steelers later on tonight.

Had it been the actual NFL game, maybe I would have understood. Heavy on the maybe.

To make matters even worse (see salt in the wound insulting), the very same yap-a-thon was airing on the NFL cable channel. Near as I know, this is a freebie channel on cable packages.

So while it's always a dumb idea to air the same show on two different channels simultaneously, it became doubly offensive when one of them zapped my Jeopardy!

During the Finals of the Tournament of Champions?

Are they nuts?

Don't they realize there are millions of us geeks out there that are screaming at their flat screens in righteous indignation/fury?

Though I'll resist the temptation, I'm beginning to understand the mind set of some people that go off the deep end and commit acts of atrocity. You can only push even a nerd so far.

The utter NERVE of these people. Who the hell do they think they are depriving the hordes of trivia buffs their fix and feeding them sports tripe instead?

Tell ya what. It's a good thing my mom isn't still around. Mess with her Jeopardy! and look out mister. I don't know what she might have done, but it wouldn't have been pretty. Somebody would have paid dearly for such an affront, dammit.

Miss ya, mom, and the old days of sitting next to you watching our black and white TV trying to get a few questions/answers right.

Say hi to Mr. Fleming for me.