Did You Know Maine’s Stephen King Was a Contestant on ‘Jeopardy!’?

I still watch Jeopardy! occasionally, especially recently, when I stuck around after watching Pat Sajak's final week of hosting Wheel of Fortune.

These two game shows have been back-to-back in syndication since September 1984. Wheel debuted in syndication a year earlier, and the brilliant Merv Griffin decided to bring back another of his creations, Jeopardy!, to pair with Wheel. It's been a huge success.

One of the things that both of these game shows do from time to time is have celebrity editions of the respective shows, where famous people play as contestants to win money for their favorite charity.

In November 1995, Maine's Stephen King was a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy!, playing against the late actress Lynn Redgrave and X-Files star David Duchovny.

King was playing for the Bangor Public Library, which he said had "fallen on some hard times." King said he was playing to help raise money for his hometown library to "make sure it doesn't fall down."

Here's a cued-up clip of the episode of Stephen King during the player interview portion of the show.

Lynn Redgrave struggled with ringing in too early. Contestants signaling devices are locked out until the answer is given, and Redgrave was always buzzing in early.

Spoiler alert: Duchovny did very well going into Final Jeopardy!, and had the lead with $9,900. King had $5,700 and Redgrave was at $3,500. The category was Business and Literature. Literature when a celebrity contestant is an author?

The answer:

Redgrave incorrectly responded with "Brentanos", leaving her with nothing. King risked all his earnings before responding with "Tiffany's", doubling up to $11,400. Truman Capote wrote "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Duchovny responded with "Rizolli's", which was wrong and knocked him down to $900.

Stephen King won $11,400 for the Bangor Public Library, and Redgrave and Duchovny both got $10,000 for their charities.