(Updated at 8:50 p.m.) None of the three contestants on Jeopardy last night knew that Arlington is, in fact, a county.
The bottom-row, $1,000 clue under “American Superlatives” contained the following answer: “At 26 square miles, Arlington is the smallest self-governing this in the United States.” The quiz show contestants remained silent until host Alex Trebek revealed the correct response: “it’s a county.”
The trio otherwise got most of the questions right during the round.
24 right in tonight's #Jeopardy round — but two bottom-row misses ("Pearle" instead of "LensCrafters", and "city" instead of Arlington "County").
— 🇺🇸 Matt Carberry 🇮🇱🇺🇦 (@mfc248) October 22, 2020
None of the #Jeopardy contestants tonight knew that Arlington (VA) is the smallest county in the US. That's what you get for having only Californians!
— Stuart Heiser (@heisers) October 22, 2020
While Arlington is a county, its compact geography and dense urban corridors confuse many outsiders into thinking it is a city. There are some, like former County Board member Jay Fisette, who say that Arlington should take the leap of changing its form of government and becoming a city under Virginia law.
This post previously included a short video clip from the show, but it was taken down by YouTube after a copyright claim by Jeopardy producer Sony Pictures Television.
