The Final Jeopardy question (10/27/2011), in the category Movies was:

“The villain’s visage in this movie series was partly chosen due to its likeness to an 1893 work by a Norwegian artist”

Two-day champ Dr. Gabor Vari, of California, returned today to try for a 3-day win against two competitors described as “unique.” Alex Johnson from Massachusetts and Sunny Stalter from Alabama. Alex Trebek decided to reveal that he and Sunny had something in common — that was his nickname when he was growing up. Guess it must have really been Sunny. If it was Sonny, as in Sonny Corleone, he would have said so, don’t you think?

What made Alex Johnson unique? He was a singing elf at a character breakfast when he was 12. “The best money I ever made as an actor, actually,” he said. Sunny’s husband proposed to her by GPS.

In the Jeopardy round, Sunny was in the lead by the time she found the Daily Double in Popular Baby Names by Year. The clue was “1998, girls: one of the Bronte Sisters.” She bet $1,600. She picked the correct sister out of Emily, Charlotte and Anne.

Gabor was batting zero in this category, but he did get the last clue on the Spanish name for girls that means pretty. Alex was really batting below zero for much of this round but he got an answer that Sunny missed so he finished with $800. Gabor was trailing Sunny with $5,000 and Sunny had the lead with $8,000.

The first Daily Double (Tony Awards) in Double Jeopardy went to Alex right away and he decided to bet the max. The clue was “2005: This drama of nuns, priests & uncertainty” Luckily, he knew the answer.

Gabor got the second Daily Double in My ‘K’ountry and wagered $5,600. We always bite our nails when these geography clues are set in Africa, but Gabor knew the answer to this clue: “This Eastern African country is on the Indian Ocean.” That gave him a $5,000 lead over Sunny, who still had $8,000.

He lost his lead with a wrong answer in the Address Me category that Sunny then got right and she also got the $2,000 clue right. One category to go and it was Ceramics. Gabor did get the $400 clue right, Sunny got the next one, then they both got the $1,200 clue wrong and that was it.

Sunny had the lead going into Final Jeopardy with $15,200. Gabor wasn’t too far behind with $14,600 and Alex didn’t have much of a prayer with $4,800, but since he is an actor and did pretty well in the Tony Awards category, we figured he wouldn’t have a problem with going for broke.

He didn’t and he got it right. So did Gabor and Sunny.

WHAT IS SCREAM?

“The iconic Ghostface mask worn by the primary antagonists of the (coincidentally named) Scream series of horror movies is based on the [Scream] painting, and was created and designed by Fun World employee Brigitte Sleiertin as a Halloween costume prior to being discovered by Marianne Maddalena and Wes Craven for the film.” wikipedia

Edvard Munch is the Norwegian artist referred to.

Alex bet it all and that gave him $9,600.

Gabor bet a measly $4,999 bringing him to $19,599. What was he thinking? Oh, well, he’s a psychiatrist– he can check his own head out.

Sunny made an “I want to win or at least tie” bet — $14,000. In other words, if Gabor had bet it all, like Alex, there would have been a tie. But Gabor did not so Sunny, who played really well, won the day with $29,200 and will return tomorrow.