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‘Jeopardy!’: Here’s Where Matt Amodio is At His Weakest in Competition

The seemingly invincible “Jeopardy!” contender has been running the board for weeks with no signs of letting up. Last night, however, a few cracks in Matt Amodio’s game began to show. It comes as no surprise that the Ph.D. student is formidable in the academic categories. But the weakest part of his game, and the area he’s needed to study for the most, is popular culture.

Hey, don’t sweat it, Matt. It’s far more impressive having a “Jeopardy!” level command of nearly every academic-based category. But last night’s Final Jeopardy demonstrated that Amodio’s historic win streak could come to an end at the hands of an unassuming question about a movie.

Fortunately, Amodio’s competition was equally lost when attempting to answer the Final Jeopardy question. The category was 1980s movies. And had Tracy known the answer was “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” she would have been the talk of the town. That said, the focus of Amodio’s study has been contemporary pop culture. Not much help when it comes to movies from 40 years ago.

Still, in a recent interview with The Ringer, growing “Jeopardy!” legend Matt Amodio talked about how he was trying to overcome the weakest part of his game.

“Where I know I’m weakest is pop culture, and that meant that I was able to be productive this summer by sitting down and watching a lot of recent Netflix stuff and listening to top Billboard songs that I would not normally be giving the time of day. I was consuming pop culture like a teenager who was in the middle of an angsty period,” said Amodio.

The first step to solving any problem is recognizing there is one. And Matt Amodio is not too proud to admit that his pop culture knowledge has been lacking.

‘Jeopardy!’ Star Matt Amodio Has Had A Unique Experience on the Long-Running Game Show

Matt Amodio now holds the third-longest consecutive win streak in “Jeopardy!” history with 24 straight. He is fast approaching a million dollars in earnings. There is something very different about his run compared to the legendary ones of the past, however.

The “Jeopardy!” star has faced a handful of different hosts amid a major hosting controversy. Whether that’s an advantage or a disadvantage is still unclear. But what we do know is that iconic figures like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer had only Alex Trebek.

Regardless, Amodio has captured the attention of both those legends. Jennings even gave Matt a shoutout on Twitter.

“I got a tweet, which I will count, from Ken Jennings. I have not heard from him personally, but he acknowledged my existence on Twitter. And I melted to the ground as soon as I saw that. There’s nobody I respect in the ‘Jeopardy!’ community, but probably the world, as Ken Jennings and so that was just a treat,” Amodio said while answering questions for the game show’s social accounts.