AND on the 76th day, Ken Jennings lost.
Jennings, the seemingly unstoppable “Jeopardy!” whiz, was finally dethroned last night – ending his run of 75 consecutive victories totalling $2.52 million, both game show records.
Nancy Zerg, a real estate agent from Ventura, Calif., now goes down in game-show history as the person who beat Jennings – whose remarkable “Jeopardy!” run began last June.
Last night, Jennings had $14,400 to Zerg’s $10,000 going into the “Final Jeopardy!” round, where the category was “Business and Industry”:
“Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.”
Zerg, who bet $4,100, correctly answered “What is H&R Block?” – while Jennings, wagering $5,601, incorrectly guessed Federal Express.
Final tally: Zerg, $14,401 and Jennings, $8,799.
The “Jeopardy!” audience audibly gasped when host Alex Trebek revealed that Jennings had lost – then gave him and Zerg a standing ovation.
“At first there was some flash ing of disorien tation, like, ‘This is where they usually say I won, what happened?’ ” Jennings told The Post yester day in a sitdown interview with his wife, Mindy, by his side (the couple’s 2-year-old son, Dylan, didn’t make the trip).
“And then there’s a little disappointment, like, oh my gosh, this is it, I don’t get to play ‘Jeopardy!’ anymore,” Jennings said. “It’s been such a big part of my life for six months and now it’s just, ‘You’re fired.’
“But for me the immediate relief was that I knew what the end of the story would be,” he said. “It’s nice to know things can start to get back to normal.”
There’s no doubt Jennings’ game-show celebrity has affected his life. As a Mormon, the 31-year-old software developer from Salt Lake City will donate 10 percent of his $2.5 million to his church.
He’s taken a leave of absence from his job, signed on for the lecture circuit and just inked a book deal with Random House to write about his “Jeopardy!” experience.
“The book deal was finalized about a week ago, and I said goodbye to work about a week ago,” he said. “There have been some TV offers, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with that.
“I’m content to let these things develop and see what’s fun and what’s not,” he said.
“I’ve avoided buying ‘toys.’ The money can buy time with my fam ily . . . and I’d rather buy time than toys.”
