What Do Jeopardy Contestants Do During Commercial Breaks Anyway? Drew Goins Has Finally Explained

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(Image credit: Jeopardy)

No matter how much someone thinks they know all about a TV show, there are no doubt still unknown details that exist. As a longtime Jeopardy! fanatic, I’ve been vaguely aware that the show’s tapings incorporate the commercial breaks that viewers see during airs, partly as a way to give the contestants’s brains a break. But while I’ve blindly believed players were meant to essentially stay glued to their spots behind the podiums, fan-favorite champ Drew Goins shared an A+ anecdote that upended such beliefs.

Having been brought back to arguably the best game show of all time for its Second Chance tournament, Goins cemented himself a spot in the Champions Wild Card tourney that’ll be taking up the next few weeks of the 2025 TV schedule. The ever-smiling contestant opened up to TV Insider about his time on the show thus far, and shined some light on what goes on when TV audiences are having to sit through ads for prescription medication and local businesses. In his words:

I was surprised how little TV magic there is. There’s nothing about Jeopardy! that feels misleading. The show breaks where the commercial breaks in taping. They go up there and they’re not talking about Eggland’s Best eggs, but you do have five minutes, and Ken takes some questions from the audience.

I do love the idea of Ken Jennings constantly prepping 1-2 minutes of a stand-up act for each week of taping episodes, since I’m sure he has to answer a lot of the same questions during those moments. And he’s also not above noting his own lack of knowledge about a certain category or clue, which would presumably come up during that time.

But it’s Drew Goins’ follow-up response that genuinely surprised me, as he explained:

You get a chance to stretch. I kind of became notorious for using the breaks to do calisthenics right there on the stage. I do air squats and toe touches and just shake my arms all around. By the end of it, people on the crew were copying me and mocking me.

I’m not sure why I thought the contestants had to stick to the area immediately behind the podiums without moving around much, but it seems like a no-brainer that players would need a few minutes to get the blood flowing again after standing mostly still each round.

Granted, I can easily see why doing exercise wouldn’t be the go-to move for a lot of contestants, since it’s not always easy to get physical while wearing slacks and suit jackets. I would probably frighten viewers wondering who let the big sweaty sack of mess into the studio ahead of the Double Jeopardy round.

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Hopefully the crew members that he mentioned were laughing with Drew and not at him. Although I guess that would depend on just how wildly he’s flailing his arms around between air squats.