Here’s a Weekend Update for you: Colin Jost and Michael Che rang up Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings as their “Phone a Friend” lifeline in the latest episode of the ABC game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
The two Saturday Night Live stars called up Jennings after reaching an impasse on this $500,000 question: “As a good luck charm, Luciano Pavarotti liked to keep what small object in his pocket during performances? A) A pebble, B) A 20 lire coin, C) A lock of his mother’s hair, D) A nail.”
Che observed all the possible answers were weird things, and Jost joked it might be a nail so that Pavarotti could say he “nailed it” at the end of a performance.
So Che and Jost decided to call Jennings, who expressed shock that they’d gotten so far up the Millionaire ladder.
Unfortunately for them, Jennings was stumped, too. “I’ve never heard this fact, you guys,” he told Jost and Che. “I would just be purely guessing. Like, nail seems like a pretty good guess because it’s kind of unlikely, but I would risk any money on that.”
“I love you anyway!” Jost shouted out before the call got disconnected at the end of the 30-second limit.
Then, to Millionaire host Jimmy Kimmel, the Pop Culture Jeopardy! host quipped, “You heard what he said. He’s 100 percent sure.”
Later, Che reached into his own pocket and joked, “Let me see what my mother’s hair thinks.”
Ultimately, the gents decided to walk away with their $250,000 earnings for their selected charities, the Food Bank for NYC and Answer the Call, instead of risking dropping down to $32,000 with an incorrect response.
Once the pressure was off, Che revealed his gut instinct would have been to say “nail,” while Jost said he would have gone with “pebble.”
The answer, it turned out, was nail.
In the Jeopardy! Reddit community, viewers were thrilled to see Jennings — who teamed up with Matt Damon and won $1 million for charity last season — as Che and Jost’s lifeline. “Ken would always be my Phone-a-Friend,” one person said. “I spend every weekday evening with him.”
Another Reddit user was surprised Che and Jost didn’t “let it ride” and trust Jenning’s guess. “Ken knows trivia,” that user reasoned.
“Good for Ken for not cheating,” a third person wrote. “I’d pull Google up within milliseconds.”
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Wednesdays, 9/8c, ABC