South Jersey ‘Jeopardy!’ champ won’t cross picket line for the Tournament of Champions

What is solidarity?

Jeopardy! champ Cris Pannullo, a customer-success operations manager from New Jersey who took home $749,268 before taxes during a 21-game winning streak in December, announced in a post on Reddit he won’t show up to film this season’s Tournament of Champions if the show’s writers are still on strike.

Pannullo, who lives in Ocean City, wrote he will “not participate in any games comprised of recycled clues while the WGA strike is in effect.”

Pannullo was commenting on a post written by fellow Jeopardy! champ Ray Lalonde in the r/Jeopardy subreddit. Lalonde cited “credible reports” that the show’s producers are planning on taping the next season of the show with recycled clues if the Writers Guild of America strike remains unresolved.

“I believe that the show’s writers are a vital part of the show and they are justified in taking their job action to secure a fair contract for themselves and their fellow WGA members,” Lalonde, who was a set designer for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, wrote. “As a supporter of the trade-union movement, a union member’s son and a proud union member myself I have informed the show’s producers that if the strike remains unresolved I will not cross a picket line to play in the Tournament of Champions.”

Former contestants on the show are verified by the moderators of r/Jeopardy. Neither Pannullo nor representatives at Sony Pictures television could be reached for comment.

Pannullo and Lalonde weren’t the only Jeopardy! champs who said they’d decline to participate if the show turned to used clues. Hannah Wilson, who won $229,801 during her eight-game winning streak back in May, wrote a Tournament of Champions “with all recycled clues doesn’t sound like much fun to play in, anyway.”

Ben Chan, whose nine-game winning strike ended with a controversial misspelling, wrote if Lalonde was out, “I am out.”

All told, Jeopardy!’s top four champs this season, as well as six-game winner Troy Meyer, all pledged to side with the show’s writers.

The Mindy Project actor Ike Barinholtz, the winner of this year’s Celebrity Jeopardy, accepted an invitation to compete in Tournament of Champions but took to the picket line earlier this week as part of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“We all are in this together,” Barinholtz told The Wrap. “We need solidarity.”

Writers in Hollywood began striking in May after they were unable to agree on a new contract with the top film and television studios. Actors joined them on the picket line earlier this month after also failing to come to terms on a new deal.

Jeopardy! host and actress Mayim Bialik left the show during the final week of filming back in May due to the strike, according to Deadline. Fellow Jeopardy! host and former contestant Ken Jennings stepped in to complete the episodes, which used clues written before the strike began.

Michele Loud, the show’s co-head writer who has joined her colleagues on the picket line, told Variety that Jeopardy! would be “just an empty blue screen” without their contributions.

“Our words are on the screen every night,” Loud said. “There is no Jeopardy! without writers.”

It’s the first time both writers and actors have been on strike together since January 1960, when protests were led by then-actor Ronald Reagan, who was head of the Screen Actors Guild. Those strikes lasted six weeks for actors and 21 weeks for writers, and most Hollywood experts expect these strikes to linger on for months.

The last week of new shows from Jeopardy!’s 39th season will air through Friday. After that, it’s on to a summer rerun schedule through the beginning of September, which includes previously aired episodes of Tournament of Champions and October’s Second Chance competition.

The next season of Jeopardy! is scheduled to begin on Sept. 11, though it’s unclear if the show will have new episodes to air.