‘Jeopardy!’ Winner Reveals Sweet Connection to ‘Wheel’ Star Vanna White

Jeopardy!/YouTube, Wheel of Fortune/YouTube

Marko Saric is making a name for himself on Jeopardy! — he’s officially in this year’s Champions Wildcard semifinals — but he’s also a big fan of another game show filmed across the way at Sony Pictures Studios. In the Jeopardy! episode airing on Friday, January 17, Saric shared he got a shout-out from Wheel of Fortune letter-turner Vanna White.

That reveal came during Friday’s contestant meet-and-greet, in which Saric reminded Jeopardy!viewers of the anecdote he shared in his first episode on the show — that he was a Wheel fan who would “mimic Vanna White’s motions as she would walk across the stage” when he was a kid.

Turns out, word of Saric’s fandom reached White, and White reached out to Saric. “I actually received a personalized video message from Vanna after that episode,” Saric told Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings. “So no matter what happens here, I can die happy.”

Jennings asked if White’s video message included any tips.

“No, ’cause I think she doesn’t want anyone coming for her job,” Saric quipped.

“Exactly,” Jennings replied. “She can tell you’re a threat.”

Saric, a math professor from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is certainly on a threat on Jeopardy! At the end of Friday’s game, he defeated Will Weiss, a technical program manager from Islip, New York, and Adam Hersh, a lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, in Friday’s episode.

Hersh was in the lead at the end of Friday’s Jeopardy round, but after finding both Daily Doubles in the Double Jeopardy round, Saric emerged in first place by the time Final Jeopardy came around.

None of the three contestants responded with the correct question to the Final Jeopardy answer. (It was Alexander Hamilton, it turns out, who “wrote of his intent ‘to reserve & throw away my first fire, & I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire.’”) Saric wagered nothing on that round and advanced to the semifinals; Hersh, meanwhile, bet and lost all of his $18,600 score, much to fans’ confusion, and did not advance.

Now Saric will face off against Mehal Shah, a software engineer from Seattle, Washington, and Paul Clauson, a tax analyst from Madison Heights, Michigan, in the episode airing on Wednesday, January 22. Perhaps Vanna White will be watching!