A clip of Jeopardy! is going viral after the host takes advantage of one of the contestant's names, making an unexpected joke about Nintendo character Waluigi. While the opportunity can be viewed as somewhat of a "low-hanging fruit," the video game joke is sure to make anyone familiar with Nintendo crack a smile.
First introduced in 2000's Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64, Waluigi is nearly always teamed up with Wario, acting as an equivalent foil to Luigi. There are many interesting facts about Waluigi, with the character gaining immense online popularity in recent years despite never being in any of the mainline Super Mario titles, only spin-off games.
Posted by the official Jeopardy! Twitter account, the short, 11-second video, dubbed with the caption of "Wha ha ha!" shows the three contestants of an episode: Emmett, Melissa, and Luigi. New host Ken Jennings, who is splitting the duties with The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, makes a comment on the contestants' current scores, with Emmett at $8,200, Melissa at $400, and previous episode winner Luigi at $3,200. Being a substantial amount down from Emmett, the Jeopardy! host asks the audience if Luigi has "met his nemesis, his Waluigi if you will?"
The video ends with Luigi giving the host a rather blank stare, perhaps in disbelief that someone would make such an arguably dad-level joke about his name and falling to second place. While Jeopardy! is often perceived as an "older" show, the long-running series is actually no stranger to modern video game references. In the past year or so, the trivia show has had clues regarding Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Ghost of Tsushima, and more recently a clue about Among Us, which got a fully-grown adult to say "sus" on national TV.
Waluigi is a rather offbeat character, with fans showing their appreciation for him in rather offbeat ways. Several weeks ago, one particularly gamer-inclined bride-to-be hosted a Waluigi-themed bachelorette party. Every attendee dressed up as a different variant of the purple-clad character, including Cowboy, Sexy Firefighter, Cult, Chef, Strongman, Pirate, and Elvis Waluigi. With Waluigi's popularity continuously being shown, maybe the character can get his own Jeopardy! clue one day.
Even though Waluigi has never starred in his own game, one fan has attempted to rectify this, making his own. A YouTube channel called Below Average Gaming has made a playable Waluigi N64 game, using the Waluigi's Taco Stand ROM, which has players collecting taco ingredients to pay off his debt. With such a prominent presence despite being the least prioritized Super Mario character, it's high time Nintendo took advantage of Waluigi's popularity.