A faction of Jeopardy! fans have playfully expressed their horror at a video shared on the beloved show’s official Instagram account on Thursday that showed a person attempting to cut into various objects to check whether they were actually cake.
The video, titled, “Is it Real or Is It Cake? Jeopardy! Edition,” features a person whose face and body were off camera brandishing a large knife as they went to different parts of the quiz show’s Los Angeles studio on the hunt for cake.
In recent years, social media videos have shown a wide variety of items that have been decorated to resemble cakes, prompting the oft-used question, “Is it real or is it cake?” On TikTok, people have also pranked their friends and family by “eating” rare objects one typically wouldn’t consume, only to reveal it’s a cake. In 2022, Netflix even released a cooking competition called, Is It Cake?
Joining the long-running trend, the Jeopardy! video saw the knife-wielding hand in question testing out the podium and the buzzer to see if they were real, or deftly designed cake. Those studio fixtures turned out to be real.
“Let’s try Ken Jennings,” the narrator suggested as the knife was trained on the show’s all-time champ in a faux menacing manner.
As the knife drew closer, Jennings, whose back was to the camera, turned around and leapt back in feigned terror. The camera then zoomed out to show that an image of Jennings cowering away from the knife was used to decorate a cake.
In the concluding seconds of the clip, a slice was then cut out of the cake as the narrator declared, “Wow, it’s cake. Yum!”
While the lighthearted moment amused many Jeopardy! fans, a large number expressed distaste at the fact that a triangular slice was cut out of a rectangular cake.
“Cutting a triangle piece is the most psycho part of this video. Monsters!” one Instagram user wrote, prompting the official Jeopardy! account to respond, “Thank you!”
Echoing that sentiment, another user stated: “Absolute monster cutting a triangle piece out of a rectangular cake…”
“They way y’all cut the cake is stressing me out,” read another comment, while another fan wrote: “Really brutal how you cut the cake in a pie shape.”
“One of the greatest intellectual shows in history and they proceed to cut a triangle out of a rectangular sheet cake,” another Instagram user weighed in.
“The scariest part of this video is the way the intern cut the cake,” said another.
The Pop Culture Jeopardy! Instagram account also joined in on the ribbing, quipping: “Good morning to everyone except whoever cut the cake like that.”
Meanwhile, other Instagram users directed their jokes at Jennings, with one writing: “I knew Ken Jennings wasn’t real. How did he [win] 74 games and become the GOAT? He’s been cake this whole time.”
“Low key hoped that it was a life-sized Ken cake!” another weighed in.
“Ken ‘the Cake’ Jennings. Ya know what? That’s actually quite fitting for a children’s book author,” suggested another.
