How Julann Griffin invented Jeopardy! on a flight out of Duluth

A trip to Duluth led to the development of the television game show Jeopardy! A recent episode of the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz recounts the music and sound effects of the show and includes the historic tidbit about the role Duluth played in its creation story.

The mention comes around the 2-minute mark of the episode titled “The Music of Jeopardy! From a Lullaby to $100,000,000,” which is embedded above.

The familiar part of the story is that Merv Griffin was in Duluth in 1962 to record “Christmas City,” the iconic theme song of the Christmas City of the North Parade. The lesser known detail is that, on the flight out of Duluth, his wife Julann came up with the concept for Jeopardy!

This detail is confirmed in an Associated Press interview with Merv Griffin from 1964. The whole article appears at the bottom of this post; the key paragraph appears above that.

Merv Griffin came back to Duluth in 1993 during the shooting of the film Iron Will, in which his son Tony had a feature role.