‘The Ballad Of Turd Ferguson’: ‘Jeopardy’ Contestant Tricks Alex Trebek [Video]
A Jeopardy contestant named Talia is an Internet hero. She sacrificed her entire pot in order to play a trick on Alex Trebek when she got him to say “Turd Ferguson.”
Who is Turd Ferguson, you might ask? In Saturday Night Live‘s hilarious “Celebrity Jeopardy” sketches starring Will Ferrell as a perpetually annoyed Alex Trebek, it’s the pseudonym chosen by Burt Reynolds during the game simply because it’s funny. Reynolds was played by Norm McDonald.
Well, Talia achieved the impossible Wednesday night. In the SNL sketch, Reynolds can’t manage to get the fictional Trebek to utter the silly moniker, and yet, this real contestant manipulated the rules of the game to ensure her practical joke would be a success, The New York Daily News reported.
Smart girl.
The Final Jeopardy question of the night asked contenders to name a “song from a 1999 animated film about censorship” that was partially censored when it was performed at the Oscars, The Wall Street Journal added.
Talia didn’t know the answer, but she decided to make the best of it.
She wagered $600 — everything she had to enter this answer.
“What is the Love Ballad of Turd Ferguson? P.S. Hi, Mom.”
Now, unlike the fictional Alex, the real one is bound by Jeopardy’s rules to read contestant’s entire answer. Bound by these guidelines, he recited “Turd Ferguson,” much to the delight of Talia, the studio audience, and everyone on the Internet. But Alex takes Jeopardy very seriously. And he breezed through “Turd Ferguson” as if it was a serious answer, not pausing to giggle even a little bit.
“Nope, sorry,” was his ruling on the answer. Talia didn’t mind, and she gave a cheery thumbs up.
(The answer was “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.)
The classic 1990s-era SNL “Celebrity Jeopardy” sketches are probably the most beloved in the show’s recent canon. Featuring dull-witted celebs stumbling over the most inane and dumbed-down questions possible, the sketches often featured Will’s Alex trading barbs with McDondald’s hilarious impression of Reynolds. Darrell Hammond was often featured as the equally funny Sean Connery, who tainted the show with dirty jokes, vulgar misinterpretations of categories, and below the belt insults.
In a 1999 sketch, Burt switches his name to “Turd Ferguson” just to tick off Trebek halfway through the game. Of course, it works.
[Photo Courtesy YouTube Screengrab]
