Jeopardy! champ Cris Pannullo gets visibly frustrated with Ken Jennings over 'missed opportunity' be

April 08, 2024

JEOPARDY! super-champ Cris Pannullo got visibly frustrated with Ken Jennings, cutting off the host as he was speaking, over a missed opportunity.

On Wednesday's episode, the rising star then soared to his 9th win.

The returning champ faced Fernando Villafuerte, a graduate student and tutor from California and Elizabeth Meisenzahl, a New York-based student.

Cris - a customer success operations manager from Ocean City, New Jersey who's revealed his professional poker past - has won game after game since coming to the table, some comparing him to James Holzhauer.

Early on, newcomer Elizabeth revealed in her Q&A share that she once went viral while watching Jeopardy! - her tweet from last year read: "Guy on jeopardy was just introduced as a 'stay at home uncle'” and scored 130k likes.

But even earlier at the very top of the show, Cris wasn't laughing.

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Ken then tried moving past the interruption and finished his thought: "On the negative side, you don't have a lot to wager - for $1000 then," he kindly concluded.

Cris sternly nodded and got the clue correct, despite it not helping him as much as if he'd found it later with more money to bet - as he was painfully aware.

PET PEEVED

It's not the first time Cris has gotten a little short with Ken on stage, though it's all in good fun.

Last week during the Q&A round the host prompted him to show his hand: "You strike me as a thinky poker type so I want to humanize you here. Tell us about your cute pet."

"Well about 10 years ago my girlfriend Heather spotted a rabbit hopping in our front yard," Cris began.

Ever since, he revealed: "We have lived at the mercy of a bunny named Lentils."

"Lentils is cute," Ken added: "Does Lentils eat lentils?"

Cris sharply snapped back: "No you cannot feed a rabbit lentils."

The crowd nervously laughed as Ken physically jumped back and put up his hands.

"Oh, please, do not feed rabbits lentils, Cris is warning you off!"

"Hay," Cris then went as far as corrected on what rabbits eat. "A lot of timothy hay."

A former competitor exclusively also did say that before Cris takes the stage, he is not looking to mingle.

"He was very nice, very polite but he did sit separately from everyone else. He was quiet and it was hard to get a read on him."

JEOPARDY! ACE

Fans, however, are loving Cris as his games see him win by huge amounts and with (otherwise) huge bets.

Going into Final Jeopardy, he made up for it with $29,600, Elizabeth had $8,600 and Fernando $5,000.

Under the category "20th Century Leaders" it read: "In a Sept. 3, 1939, speech, he said, 'Everything that I have worked for…has crashed into ruins'."

Everyone got the clue correct with "Who is Neville Chamberlain" - Cris added $8,221 to win with $37,821.

He has a staggering nine-day total of $313,323, and fans cannot believe his power playing.

With a 94% accuracy on clues and a stunning 20 correct out of 23 on the special Daily Doubles total, often going right for the bottom of the board - fans have called him a "machine."

It's the same way "Jeopardy! James" Holzhauer, a poker player himself, often widened his lead and won his 32 games in 2019, and millions of fans for his lightning-fast abilities.

One fan wrote tonight on YouTube: "I love greatness [and] this guy Cris is trying to put himself in elite company."

Another exclaimed: "Another dominant performance by Cris, and for a moment, it looked like he was completely eviscerating the competition."

A third on YouTube simply wrote: "Wow."

Cris is now the winningest contestant since last season's Mattea Roach and is in the top 12 winningest contestants ever - already.

SEASON 39

Jeopardy!'s brand new season premiered last month and alum Ken Jennings is hosting until January.

As Season 38 wrapped and before the now-airing Season 39, he and actress Mayim Bialik - now handling Celebrity Jeopardy! - were officially announced as the permanent replacements for the late, great Alex Trebek.

Ken and Mayim began regularly filling in for the legendary Alex in 2021 after his tragic 2020 passing at age 80 and a whirlwind of Season 37 celebrity guest hosts.

They included Savannah Guthrie, fan-favorite LeVar Burton, Dr. Oz, Aaron Rodgers, Anderson Cooper, and many more who each scored a week or so at it.

The search also landed on former executive producer Mike Richards who nabbed the host gig from the inside before the shocking decision was "reversed" a week later.

Next week regular gameplay will pause for two tournaments which will air instead of regular episodes for at least four weeks.