Before we go into the unusual circumstances of the 2004 game, this is the 22nd anniversary of when Brad Rutter won his first Jeopardy! tournament, the 2001 Tournament of Champions. This historic victory also took place one year after Brad won his 4th game in 2000 with $15,200, his biggest win from his original run. It was a really close battle to the finish line between Brad Rutter, Tad Carithers, and Rick Knutsen on both days, with Rick holding the lead before day 2 with $3,000 compared to $2,500 for Brad and $1,300 for Tad. On the second day, the three players had $2,500 separating first place from third place before Final Jeopardy!, with Brad having a very slight advantage over his opponents.
With $9,300 before Final Jeopardy!, Brad had an effective two-day total of $11,800, compared to $11,300 for Rick ($3,000 + $8,300), and $8,100 for Tad ($1,300 + $6,800). The Final Jeopardy! category was U.S. Presidents, with the clue as follows: “Washington was the one who added these 4 words to the presidential oath; they're not in the Constitution.” The answer was “What is ‘so help me God?’”
Tad and Brad were both correct but Tad didn’t wager anything, whereas Rick’s incorrect response of “preserve, protect, and defend” dropped his score down to $4,699 for a two-day total of $7,699, $401 less than Tad’s $8,100. Brad made the minimum cover bet of $7,801 in order to outscore a possible double-up from Rick Knutsen, thus winning the finals with a two-day total of $19,601 and granting him the $100,000 grand prize. It was also the final TOC to have a grand prize of $100,000, as well as pre-doubled values, before being bumped up to $250,000 for the 2003 Tournament of Champions, which was won by Mark Dawson.
The 2001 Tournament of Champions was the first tournament that Brad Rutter reigned victorious in before winning the Million Dollar Masters tournament held in 2002, Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005, Battle of the Decades in 2014, and the All-Star Games in 2019 alongside teammates David Madden and Larissa Kelly. Altogether, charity winnings withheld, Brad Rutter is currently #1 in all-time money earnings on Jeopardy!, with $4,953,436 to his name. He has not appeared on the show since losing to James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings in the 2020 Greatest of All Time tournament.
Three years following one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the tragedy of 9/11, the 2004 election was held 19 years ago today between Republican incumbent president George W. Bush from Texas and the Democratic nominee from Massachusetts, John Kerry, who was also a U.S. Senator at the time. With the September 11th attacks still fresh on everyone’s mind, the most contentious topics surrounding the election, particularly for Republicans, included terrorism and national security. Domestic issues surrounding the economy, education, and jobs were more important to Democrats at the time, though both parties were particularly concerned with the situation in Iraq, with a prime example being John Kerry’s hesitant and controversial decision to vote in favor of the war in Iraq back in 2002.
Despite public opinion rapidly shifting overtime, the public was mostly united on invading Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, though opinion started to shift a lot more in March of 2004, one year after the war began, following former terrorism advisor Richard Clarke’s testimony during the 9/11 Commission. He criticized George W. Bush’s decision “…because by invading Iraq - something [he] was not asked about by the commission, something [he] chose to write a lot about in [his] book - by invading Iraq, the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."
Needless to say, the 2004 presidential election was quite heated and took up a great deal of television programming on Election Day. However, Jeopardy! made an unprecedented decision even by future Election Day standards: bumping the November 2nd airing to the next day and then airing the last episode of the weekly bloc on a Saturday.
Over three years prior to the November 3rd, 2004 episode, game show history was made when Kevin Olmstead won the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? $2,180,000 jackpot on April 10th, 2001, breaking the previous all-time record for money won in a game show held by David Legler, who won $1,795,000 on Twenty One a year prior. Curtis Warren from Greed was the previous recordholder four days prior. As the millennium continued, million dollar winners on American game shows were becoming more common. Five days after Kevin Olmstead’s win, Bernie Cullen became the eighth million dollar winner on WWTBAM and then Ed Toutant (RIP) won the $1.86 million dollar jackpot, four days before 9/11, to become the final winner of the primetime version.
In 2002, Jeopardy! also got in on the million dollar action, with Brad Rutter famously winning the Million Dollar Masters tournament in May of that year. In that moment, he became the biggest winner in Jeopardy! history and that record remained for two years until current day host Ken Jennings surpassed him following his 30th win on July 13th, 2004. Ken would also go on to break the one-day record ten days later, with $75,000 compared to Jerome Vered’s technical record of $68,000 for pre-doubled amounts (which was $34,000 at the time).
Following the deciding U.S. election of 2004, Ken Jennings won his 65th game against Denise Tanyol from Norristown, Pennsylvania and Rob Perry from Brooklyn, New York with $45,099. This, along with his previous winnings of $2,151,901, gave him a 65-day total of $2,197,000, $17,000 ahead of Kevin Olmstead’s record for most money ever won on a game show. If the show had aired as normal, most people in the country would have missed this historical game, so it was a beneficial compromise.
Fun fact about this, however: despite this record inarguably being broken, Kevin Olmstead was still the biggest all-time money winner in game show history. Years before his Millionaire appearance, Kevin Olmstead also appeared on Jeopardy! as a two-time champion in 1994. In his three-day stint, he won $25,901 before losing his third game, putting his all-time total at $2,205,901. A similar position now applies to Ken Jennings nowadays, as he is currently the biggest all-time game show winnings earner, but not the biggest on Jeopardy! anymore. That title currently belongs to Brad Rutter.
2022 - Tyler Rhode defeats Margaret Shelton and Brian Chang in the 2022 Tournament of Champions quarterfinals, one year after his last regular game win.
2021 - 2022 Tournament of Champions semifinalist Tyler Rhode wins his fifth game for a 5-day total of $105,901.
2012 - Keith Whitener loses his eighth game to Paul Nelson, who went on to win five games overall, thus resulting in both qualifying for the 2013 Tournament of Champions.
2011 - Tom Nissley wins the first quarterfinal game of the 2011 Tournament of Champions, with Jay Rhee earning a wildcard spot.
2007 - Paul Glaser loses his sixth game and becomes the last person to qualify for the 2007 Tournament of Champions.
2005 - 2006 Tournament of Champions semifinalist Maria Wenglinsky wins her third game with $29,100.
1999 - Eventual Teen Tournament winner Chacko George wins his quarterfinal game.
As I’ve missed a ton of Throwback Thursday milestones in the past few months, I’ll be revisiting some of those days in the following Thursday articles as we go along. I’m not doing it for this one because this article is long enough. Be sure to share this as much as you can if you enjoyed the content! Also consider donating and sharing my GoFundMe to help me stay afloat while I deliver more content to y’all. Thank you so much for reading and being a loyal subscriber. :)
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