Jeopardy chats are dumb because halfway through a stressful game show that requires you to recall all the knowledge you’ve ever learned—from Renaissance sculpture to the names of the fucking Dixie Chicks—you’re forced to feign an authentic conversation with a celebrity, and you’ve come prepared with a shitty story about your asthmatic cat. You’re also talking to a man who clearly wouldn’t even care if you were to tell him incontrovertible proof that aliens are real. It’s not a recipe for success!
So kudos, I guess, to last night’s contestant Tom Cavanaugh for at least making things very interesting for about 10 seconds. For Cavanaugh did not come with a cheesy story about his asthmatic cat? Oh no. He told Trebek that he was a proponent of slave labor. OK!
ALEX: Tom Cavanaugh… million dollars at stake in this tournament. And if you win it you’re going to spend a lot of it to work on a documentary. What’s the documentary going to be about?
TOM: It’s on sweatshop labor.
ALEX: In our country.
TOM: In our country and around the world. So I went to Bangladesh about 10 years ago and toured a garment factory, and I thought… what if I saw a shirt I was wearing being made by these people? So it’s to try to put a face on who makes our clothes. Maybe you can find out the names of the 8 year olds who made your fancy suit there, Alex.
“Was that a low blow?” Tom asked. I think you answered that yourself, Tom.
[H/T: Uproxx]