The Final Jeopardy question (3/23/2012) in the category “Toys & Games” was:

In 1953 the maker of this board game was flooded with letters with idea for timing devices, turntables & bags to hold game pieces.

Two day champ Cathy Guiles returned today to take on these two players: Eileen O’Toole from Boulder, CO, and Dennis Wright from Council Grove, KS., and hopefully emerge triumphant a third time.

Dennis found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double near the end of the round in “Hyphenated Terms.” He had $6,800, a $2,800 lead over Cathy.  He bet $3,200 and he was RIGHT.

Willard Libby developed a method of this. Used to determine the age of fossils & the like. show

WHAT IS A CARBON-DATING?

Dennis finished in the lead with $10,400. Cathy was in second place with $2,600 and Eileen was in the hole for $200.

Dennis found the first Double Jeopardy! on the second clue in “In Union.” He had just scooped up an additional $400 and had $10,800. He bet $3,200 again. and he was RIGHT.

Formed by 7 janitor organizations, the SEIU is this type of “Employees International Union.” show

WHAT IS A SERVICE EMPLOYEE?

Cathy found the second Daily Double in the category “Authors with Mass. Appeal.” She was already nailing this category but she only had $6,400, $14,600 less than Dennis. She bet $4,000 and she was RIGHT.

Before the rags-to-riches stories (& more than 100 books), his story began on Jan. 13, 1832 in Revere.
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WHO IS HORATIO ALGER’?

Dennis finished in the lead with $25,200. Cathy had half of that at $12,600. Eileen had $3,000.

TWO of the players got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS SCRABBLE?

The Scrabble game has a very interesting history and was actually called “Lexico” by its inventor, Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938. He sold the rights to manufacture the game to James Brunet in 1948, as long as he got a royalty on each unit sold. Brunet made some changes to the game, including renaming it “Scrabble” The story goes that Macy’s president Jack Strauss liked the game so much, he bought a huge amount to sell in his store in 1952 and within a year, Brunet could not meet the demand for the game and sold the rights to Long-Island based toy manufacturer, Selchow & Righters, who also manufactured Parcheesi. Hasbro came into the picture much later on and nowadays, some versions, like Scrabble Deluxe even has curved letter racks. More info: on wikipedia.

We thought the turntable part was a dead giveaway but apparently not.

Eileen had it right and doubled her score to $6,000.

Cathy wrote down “Monopoly” and lost her $6,000 bet, to finish with $6,600.

Dennis also got it but apparently wanted to tie with Cathy in case she bet it all and was right. So he won the game with the same amount that he finished Double Jeopardy! with.