Jeopardy! recap for Fri., Oct. 7

 Introducing today's contestants:

- Dan, a musician & crossword editor, has won many crossword puzzle competitions;

- Kate, a research project manager, has artwork by a vulture; and

- Cris, a customer success operations manager, intends to store his winnings under his mattress (in this economy). Cris is a five-day champ with winnings of $136,459.

Jeopardy! 

PLAZA, SWEET! // ANAGRAMMED BIBLE PEOPLE // BLACK BUSINESS // 2022 SPORTS NEWS // LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS // "O" MY

DD1 - $800 - LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS - The Leone d'oro, or the Golden Lion, is the top prize awarded at this Italian city's film festival, the world's oldest (Cris doubled up to $4,800.)

Scores going into DJ: Cris $8,400, Kate $2,000, Dan $7,000.

Double Jeopardy! 

THE ANCIENT WORLD // 2-LETTER SPELLING BEE // RECENT LITERARY BIOGRAPHY // ECOLOGY // EUROPEAN EATS // GIBSON GIRLS & BOYS 

DD2 - $800 - RECENT LITERARY BIOGRAPHY - 2022 brings the 150th b'day of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar & a bio calling him this creature that "sings" in his famous line (Dan dropped $5,000 from his total of $14,200 vs. $21,200 for Cris.)

DD3 - $2,000 -  ECOLOGY - savetheelephants.org says elephants are important as this type of "species" named for a crucial bit of architecture (With only lower-value clues remaining, Cris dropped just $200 from his score of $23,200 vs. $9,200 for Dan.)

Dan had a chance to move closer to Cris on DD2 but missed, then Cris found DD3 and wisely went with a tiny wager to protect his runaway, as he led into FJ at $25,400 vs. $10,400 for Dan and $3,600 for Kate.

Final Jeopardy!

COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD - It has the most water area of any country, nearly 350,000 square miles, about 9% of its total area

Cris and Dan were correct on FJ. Cris added $221 to win with $25,621 for a six-day total of $162,080.

Odds and Ends

Triple Stumper of the day: No one knew the French dish cuisses des grenouilles, which allegedly "taste like chicken", are frogs legs.

DD wagering strategy: Dan's wager of $5,000 on DD2 wasn't large enough to give him first place if correct, but was enough to drop him to less than half of Cris, where he remained until the end of DJ. Then on DD3, Cris looked at the remaining value of the clues on the board and made the correct assessment that he didn't need to take a real risk at that point, and that his runaway cushion was enough.

Pedantry corner: They accepted Dan's response of "Smokey the Bear", but Ken still corrected the name as "Smokey Bear".

Correct Qs: DD1 - What is Venice? DD2 - What is the caged bird?  DD3 - What is keystone? FJ - What is Canada?