Dear Jeopardy!

Dear Jeopardy!,

Thanks to DVR, I can enjoy your trivia show in 15 minutes whenever I want.

I just watched the April 22nd episode of your classic game show, and am interested in the Final Jeopardy answer. The Final Jeopardy category was Telecommunications Terminology. The answer was: “In 1992, New York got the first one: 917.”

Surprisingly, two of the contestants wrote “area code”, which is obviously ridiculous because there were clearly area codes before 1992. The third contestant guessed “fax code”, something that doesn’t really exist.  Alex tried not to roll his eyes at the contestants, but was visibly annoyed as he advised that 917 was the first “overlay area code.”

Unfortunately, home audience such as myself were left with our own frustrations. My thought was that an acceptable response to the clue is “cell phone area code,” since when it was established, all the cellular phones and pagers which previously had “212” and “718” area codes were switched into 917.

But Alex did not address this theory. He simply bid farewell, leaving me to wonder if “cell phone area code” would’ve been considered correct. Please satisfy my curiosity and let me know if my response would be acceptable.

Thank you kindly.

Sincerely,

Rachel L. Arbeit