What Is...? A Jeopardy! Podcast
Aug 7, 2026 · 1 hr 20 min · 10 segments
Who else could it be? A 31-game winning streak, a great sense of humour, and a hell of a lot of orange, Jamie Ding joins us to discuss his amazing run on the Alex Trebek Stage. We ask about his prep…
Emily HellerHostWelcome to What Is, a Jeopardy! podcast where we make fun of the smartest show on television, even though I once broke four cellos.

I can't believe that Jamie and I are stupid in the same way and that he is stupider than me at it.
The third one, I think it was actually, I think my mom was carrying it and she slipped on ice, but I had entrusted it to her.
And then the fourth one was by the time we got to middle school, like there were cellos, you know, at the school that, you know, we didn't have to lug cellos back and forth.
And I guess the, I guess I didn't hook the string that is supposed to keep the cello in the locker.

I think at a certain point, my parents would have been like, you're not playing cello anymore.
Because the first one sounds pretty potentially catastrophic that you basically fell face-first onto it.
But do cellos break fairly easily? I guess I'm not necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of the construction of a cello.
They're like plenty sturdy, but if you drop them or anything, like they will, they will break.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the first one, maybe it was in like the back of a car and it got jostled or something.
So it's, so can you just replace the neck then and keep the body or are we talking full cello replacement each time?

It was going to be about how many cellos have you bought with your Jeopardy! winnings.
And yes, our player of the year, a very fine honor, possibly the greatest honor that you will and have ever received.
But as soon as you go to a music store to get one, it looks like the cheapest one at Canada's preeminent music store, Long & McQuaid, is $2,000 Canadian.

Um, my cello teacher had a dog and the dog was running at me and I like panicked and I picked up the cello and then I dropped it.

Breaking a cello, I feel like I was in the same amount of trouble as when I would lose my retainer at school.

Anyway, let's talk to Jamie about his incredible... jeopardy run let's do it uh if you uh for some reason are living or living under a rock or listening to this podcast but don't know this jamie won 31 games of jeopardy this year amassed a crazy amount of winnings um going into your run how did you think you were gonna do
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Welcome to What Is, a Jeopardy! podcast where we make fun of the smartest show on television, even though I once broke four cellos.

I can't believe that Jamie and I are stupid in the same way and that he is stupider than me at it.
The third one, I think it was actually, I think my mom was carrying it and she slipped on ice, but I had entrusted it to her.
And then the fourth one was by the time we got to middle school, like there were cellos, you know, at the school that, you know, we didn't have to lug cellos back and forth.
And I guess the, I guess I didn't hook the string that is supposed to keep the cello in the locker.

I think at a certain point, my parents would have been like, you're not playing cello anymore.
Because the first one sounds pretty potentially catastrophic that you basically fell face-first onto it.
But do cellos break fairly easily? I guess I'm not necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of the construction of a cello.
They're like plenty sturdy, but if you drop them or anything, like they will, they will break.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the first one, maybe it was in like the back of a car and it got jostled or something.
So it's, so can you just replace the neck then and keep the body or are we talking full cello replacement each time?

It was going to be about how many cellos have you bought with your Jeopardy! winnings.
And yes, our player of the year, a very fine honor, possibly the greatest honor that you will and have ever received.
But as soon as you go to a music store to get one, it looks like the cheapest one at Canada's preeminent music store, Long & McQuaid, is $2,000 Canadian.

Um, my cello teacher had a dog and the dog was running at me and I like panicked and I picked up the cello and then I dropped it.

Breaking a cello, I feel like I was in the same amount of trouble as when I would lose my retainer at school.

Anyway, let's talk to Jamie about his incredible... jeopardy run let's do it uh if you uh for some reason are living or living under a rock or listening to this podcast but don't know this jamie won 31 games of jeopardy this year amassed a crazy amount of winnings um going into your run how did you think you were gonna do