JAQR - July 20, 2025
SNL alums, Elly de la Cruz, William Inge, Puccini operas, Brazilian states, 1956 Summer Olympics, architects, and more...
Thank you for reading another issue of the Jeopardy Answer & Question Recap, or JAQR [“jacker”] for short. This recap includes at least one clue from each Jeopardy! episode between Monday 7/14 and Friday 7/18. The recap includes a Final Jeopardy clue, Triple Stumpers, and Daily Doubles. There’s also questions about material from last week’s recap and Bonus Clues about long ago covered topics. The first half of the recap includes just the clues so you can quiz yourself if you want. The second half gives you some (hopefully) interesting information about the clues and/or some related info.
FINAL JEOPARDY #1
AWARDS
In the 50-year history of "Saturday Night Live", he's the only cast member to have won an Oscar--& it wasn't for a comedy
TRIPLE STUMPER #1
CAN HE HIT FOR THE CYCLE?
As you might guess, this hit is the rarest one in the cycle; Elly de la Cruz completed the feat with one June 23, 2023
TRIPLE STUMPER #2
ONE WORD ON THE THEATER MARQUEE
On Labor Day, a young drifter arrives in a small Kansas town & disrupts the lives of the local ladies in this 1953 play
TRIPLE STUMPER #3
OPERA CHARACTERS
First name Floria, she's a singer whose boyfriend Mario is painting a portrait of Mary Magdalene in a Puccini opera
TRIPLE STUMPER #4
AROUND SOUTH AMERICA
Xingu Indigenous Park is a treasure of this vast region of inland Brazil whose name means "thick forest"
DAILY DOUBLE #1
IN THE WORLD'S FAIR HOST CITY
Always willing to host a g'day, this city at the head of Port Phillip Bay stepped up in 1880 & got sporty for the Olympics in 1956
DAILY DOUBLE #2
MOVIES SET IN THE 1920s
In this 1952 film Don Lockwood works as a stuntman elevated to leading man, just before the advent of talking pictures
DAILY DOUBLE #3
AMERICAN FAMILIES
This family name is on a school of medicine at the University of Chicago & on the most prestigious of architecture awards
LAST WEEK RECAP #1
“Naatu Naatu” is an Oscar-winning song from what 2022 Telugu-language movie?
LAST WEEK RECAP #2
The Lil Nas X song "Old Town Road" samples "34 Ghosts IV" by what industrial rock band?
BONUS CLUE #1
IT'S BORDERLINE
1,000 miles from top to bottom, this "directional" Aussie area has Queensland on its east
BONUS CLUE #2
3 CONSONANTS IN A ROW
The comical coinage aibohphobia describes the fear of this type of word
FINAL JEOPARDY #1
AWARDS
In the 50-year history of "Saturday Night Live", he's the only cast member to have won an Oscar--& it wasn't for a comedy
***ROBERT DOWNEY JR.***
Robert Downey Jr. was born in New York City in 1965. His father Robert Downey Sr. was a director known for underground movies such as Chafed Elbows (1966) and Putney Swope (1969). He made his film debut in his dad’s 1970 movie Pound, which centers on some dogs (played by humans) who are waiting to be euthanized. Downey Jr. has been nominated for an Oscar three times. The first time was for Best Actor for playing the title role in the 1992 movie Chaplin, which was directed by Richard Attenborough. The second time was for Best Supporting Actor for the 2008 movie Tropic Thunder, in which his character is an actor who wears blackface for a Vietnam War movie. His character is remembered for the line "I know who I am! I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude!" Downey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing Lewis Strauss [strawz], the nemesis of the title character in Christopher Nolan’s 2023 movie Oppenheimer.
Downey’s first big movie as an adult was Weird Science (1985), which was directed by John Hughes. He had a small part as a Shermer High School student who bullies the two main characters (played by Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith), whose ideal woman that they designed on a computer comes to life. Downey appeared on one season of Saturday Night Live (Season 11 from 1985-1986) before getting fired. He was ranked by Rolling Stone as the show’s worst cast member of all-time. Downey had another small role in the 1986 movie Back to School. It starred Rodney Dangerfield as a father who goes to college to show solidarity with his son (whose roommate is played by Downey). He co-starred in the 1987 movie Less than Zero, which was based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Andrew McCarthy plays a college student who tries to help his former girlfriend (played by Jami Gertz) and her new boyfriend (played by Downey), who are addicted to cocaine.
Oliver Stone directed the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers, in which Downey plays a tabloid journalist who profiles the title serial killers, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. He played the title character's boyfriend on the fourth season of the Fox show Ally McBeal and was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2001. He was fired from the show though due to ongoing substance abuse issues. He made his acting comeback in the 2003 movie The Singing Detective, in which he played a crime novelist with a skin condition who hallucinates characters from his novel. It was based on a 1986 BBC drama. Downey co-starred as a drug addict in the 2006 movie A Scanner Darkly, which was directed by Richard Linklater and based on a Philip K. Dick novel. That movie's unique look is due to interpolated rotoscoping. Nicole Kidman starred in the 2006 movie Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, in which Downey played an enigmatic man who inspires the photographer. Downey played the journalist Paul Avery in the 2007 movie Zodiac.
Downey is probably best known for playing the billionaire inventor Tony Stark, whose superhero alter ego is Iron Man, in ten MCU movies between 2008 and 2019. He played a journalist again in the 2009 movie The Soloist, whose title character is a schizophrenic homeless musician who attended Julliard and was played by Jamie Foxx. He played Sherlock Holmes in a 2009 movie and a 2011 sequel subtitled “A Game of Shadows,” both of which were directed by Guy Ritchie. He played a lawyer who is defending the title character, his estranged father (played by Robert Duvall), in the 2014 movie The Judge. He played the title character, who can talk to animals, in the 2020 movie Dolittle, which was based on a work by Hugh Lofting. For more about Lofting and his character Dr. Dolittle, check out Final Jeopardy #2 from this past recap: https://jaqr.substack.com/p/jaqr-april-20-2025
Downey’s second Emmy nom was for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. He played several roles in the 2024 HBO miniseries The Sympathizer, which was based on a Viet Thanh Nguyen novel. Hoa Xuande played the title character, a North Vietnamese spy. Downey made his Broadway debut in 2024 in the Ayad Akhtar play McNeal, which centers on the title author using AI to generate his latest novel. Downey will return to the MCU as Victor von Doom aka the supervillain Doctor Doom in the 2026 movie Avengers: Doomsday. Including just lead roles (and not cameos), he is the third-highest grossing actor of all-time ($14.3 billion), behind only Samuel L. Jackson (#2 with #14.8 billion) and Scarlett Johansson (#1 with $14.9 billion). If you include all roles (including cameos), #1 is Stan Lee with over $30 billion.
TRIPLE STUMPER #1
CAN HE HIT FOR THE CYCLE?
As you might guess, this hit is the rarest one in the cycle; Elly de la Cruz completed the feat with one June 23, 2023
***TRIPLE***
The MLB player with the most all-time triples (309) is Sam Crawford, who spent his career with the Cincinnati Reds (1899-1902) and Detroit Tigers (1903-1917). He was nicknamed "Wahoo Sam" because he was born in Wahoo, Nebraska. He spent most of his career as a teammate (but also rival) of Ty Cobb, who is second on the list of all-time triples (295). The record for most triples in one season (36) is held by the Pirates outfielder Chief Wilson and was set in 1912. Those men all played mostly during the dead-ball era. The record for most career triples by an active player (a mere 55) is currently shared by Mets outfielder Starling Marte and Angels outfielder Mike Trout.
The shortstop Elly De La Cruz was born in 2002 in the Dominican Republic. He made his MLB debut with the Reds on June 6, 2023 and hit for the cycle 17 days later. He led the majors in stolen bases (67) during the 2024 season, but was also the leader in strikeouts (218) and errors (29). He was an NL All-Star in 2024 and 2025. He is one of three players featured on the cover of the video game MLB The Show 25, along with Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes and Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson. Last month, he vomited on the field during the fourth inning while playing a game during extreme heat, but managed to hit a homer later on in the seventh inning.
For more about Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers, check out Triple Stumper #3 from this past recap: https://jaqr.substack.com/p/jaqr-april-20-2025
For more about the Cincinnati Reds, check out Daily Double #3 from this past recap: https://jaqr.substack.com/p/jaqr-april-14-2024
TRIPLE STUMPER #2
ONE WORD ON THE THEATER MARQUEE
On Labor Day, a young drifter arrives in a small Kansas town & disrupts the lives of the local ladies in this 1953 play
***PICNIC***
The playwright William Inge was born in Kansas in 1913. He is known for works that focus on solitary characters and the quality of life in small Midwest towns. His first play, Farther Off from Heaven, was later revised into the 1957 work The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, which is set in a small Oklahoma town and centers on members of the Flood family. It was adapted into a 1960 movie starring Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, and Angela Lansbury. He won an Oscar for his screenplay to the 1961 movie Splendor in the Grass, which centers on two high school sweethearts played by Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood, and has a title based on a phrase from Wordsworth's poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”
Inge’s best known plays are: