Jeopardy! Fans Question Contestants Who Failed to Identify James Earl Jones

Fans of Jeopardy! have their eyebrows raised after three contestants on a recent episode all failed to identify James Earl Jones.

On the Monday, Sept. 15, episode of the long-running game show, Ryan Sharpe and Kelsi Tyler competed against previous winner Paolo Pasco, and faced a category filled with clues related to Sesame Street. 

A little more than halfway into that portion, host Ken Jennings introduced Oscar the Grouch.

“Throughout the years, lots of people have stopped by Sesame Street like Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings,” the green Muppet said from his famed trash can. “Why can’t they leave a grouch alone? But, the very first was this guy, who recited the alphabet for us.”

As he read his clue, a black and white photo of the late actor from his younger days appeared on the screen, showing when he guest-starred on the beloved children’s show. 

Seconds went by and the buzzer sounded, letting the contestants know their chance to respond was over. 

“That’s James Earl Jones,” Jennings said of the Emmy, Tony, and Grammy-winning American actor and voice performer who died on Sept. 9, 2024, at 93.

In a clip shared to the Jeopardy! Instagram account, fans sounded off on the contestants’ lack of knowledge when it came to the actor.

“So excuse me, you know Rocco The Rock but you don’t know James Earl Jones? I weep,” one person wrote. Another commented, “Literally how did not a single one of them not know THEE James Earl Jones!?”

“Nobody knew James Earl Jones, straight to jail,” another fan wrote, while another fan added, “The way I screamed JAMES EARL JONES to my phone multiple times.”

Throughout Jones’ decades-long career, he starred in The Sandlot, Coming to America and Field of Dreams. However, he was also known for voicing Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and Mufasa in the classic 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King.

Shortly before news of his death, Lupita Nyong’o spoke exclusively to PEOPLE at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 8, where she reflected on how she “watched The Lion King very many times” as a child, when asked if she had a go-to animated film. 

“The Lion King featured some Swahili in it and I’m from Kenya, so hearing Swahili in a Disney movie blew my mind away,” said Nyong’o, 42. “And yeah, it was set in Africa. I mean, that movie was like, this is mine. So I loved it.”

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Jones also made his mark on Broadway. 

“He led an example that we should all aspire to be as artists and humans,” Annaleigh Ashford told PEOPLE. “James Earl showed up to rehearsal off book, he was the first person in the theatre and the last to leave, always working to make tomorrow’s performance even greater than today’s, and he made the person in the play with the least lines feel just as important and loved as the person with the most lines.”

“We are so lucky that he graced the stage and screen to teach us through his art and his heart,” she added. “Oh how I will miss that smile, those eyes, and that voice. His soul lives on through the magic of the characters he blessed us with.”