Hey guys, we made it! We’re already through this great tournament. This has been a ton of fun and honestly one of the most fun brackets we’ve ever done. I’ve had a couple people ask me recently if we were doing this, so it seems my hunch that the Facebook algorithm was not showing my posts to people was correct. I hate it so much. Sorry y’all! I blame Zuckerberg. We’ve had so many match-ups this go-round come down to the wire! Even in the first round, which is usually a ton of runaways, we had 6 of our 7 ties of the Tournament.

Just like every year, I like to make picks like I’m in an office pool before March Madness. For the first time in three years, y’all threw me a curveball and the Final 4 was not exactly what I picked. I think the newer sketches in the Norm MacDonald Region were the most chaotic as far as picks went. After this great run, let’s see how the winners of each region fared in the Final Four and who will face off in the title game!

The Championship Round voting begins now and will end Wednesday April 9 at 5pm Central. Championship winner will be announced on Thursday. I can’t believe we are already almost through this year!

But first — Let’s get on to the results! Remember all “scores” are percentages from voting.

---

Final 4

Semi-Final #1

(1) Word Association – 1975 vs (1) More Cowbell – 2000

The John Belushi Region (1975-1989) was one of the two regions that ended up facing each other where the top seeds made it to the semi-finals. Our 1 seed, 1975’s ‘Word Association’ got off to a hot start in the Round of 64 with one of our three 100-0 wins total against 16 seed ‘The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave’. They got a little more of a challenge in the Round of 32 against 9 seed ‘Church Lady’, but pulled out the win 73-27. I thought they would be pushed by 5 seed ‘Two Wild and Crazy Guys’ in the Sweet 16, but ultimately it was no contest as ‘Word Association’ moved on to the Regional Final by a score of 63-37. The Elite 8 was another match I thought would be much closer than it ended up being as the 1 seed took the win over 3 seed ‘Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood’ and won the John Belushi Region by a final of 67-33.

The Chris Farley Region (2000-2009) had 2000’s ‘More Cowbell’ as the overall 1 seed and they got shot out of a canon in the Round of 64 and captured one of the other 100-0 wins as they sent 16 seed ‘The Shooting AKA Dear Sister’ home early. The Round of 32 played out exactly as it did in the John Belushi Region as the 1 seed took out 8 seed ‘Lazy Sunday’ by a final of 73-27. The Sweet 16 saw ‘More Cowbell’ get their biggest test so far, but move on easily against 5 seed ‘D*** In a Box’ by a score of 75-25. The Elite 8 gave our 1 seed a match-up against Cinderella 7 seed ‘What Up With That?’ and they barely broke a sweat as the 1 seed also got the victory 82-18 and took the Chris Farley Region by force.

This match-up was one of the more difficult for me to choose of the entire Tournament. This one was back and forth throughout the voting period and I truly had no idea how it would end up. At the close of voting on Sunday, our Chris Farley Region representative ‘More Cowbell’ got a late bucket and pulls out a 1-vote victory (!) over John Belushi Region champ ‘Word Association’ by a final of 54-46. What a game!

Semi-Final #2

(2) Celebrity Jeopardy!: French Stewart, Burt Reynolds, & Sean Connery – 1999 vs (7) Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks – 2016

Where the left side of our bracket was represented by 1 seeds, we had a couple of upsets on the right side. The Phil Hartman Region (1990-1999) 2 seed started off with our third 100-0 victory as ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ destroyed 15 seed ‘Opera Man’. A third straight Round of 32 73-27 outcome saw our 2 seed move on over 7 seed ‘Spartans Cheerleaders’. The Sweet 16 was a shock to me as ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ took out a massive contender in 3 seed ‘Wayne’s World’ by a final of 87-13. Not even close! The Regional Final gave us a classic 1v2 matchup as the 2 seed got a 1-vote victory over what I thought was a sketch that could win the whole thing in 1 seed ‘Matt Foley: Van Down By the River’ – the final here was 54-46.

The Norm MacDonald Region (2010-2025) on the other hand, was not nearly as top heavy as the Phil Hartman Region was as there were a ton of upsets and Cinderella stories in this region. Our 7 seed ‘Black Jeopardy!’ got off to a start in the Round of 68 with a 70-30 win over personal favorite ‘(Do It On My) Twin Bed’. They came up a few votes short of all the other region’s Round of 32 winners, but still got their first upset as they moved passed a strong 2 seed in ‘Meet Your 2nd Wife’ by a final of 62-38. The upset of the tourney happened in the Sweet 16 as they took out a dark horse to win the whole thing in 3 seed ‘Star Wars Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base’ decidedly by a final of 63-37. And then, our plucky 7 seed completed the 1/2/3 run by taking our Norm MacDonald Region 1 seed ‘Close Encounter’ by 1 votes for a final of 54-46.

Whereas the first Semi-final came down to a single vote, this one was out of reach early and despite a valiant effort at a late comeback, our Phil Hartman Region champ gets the victory and moves on to the Championship! In a battle of the ‘Jeopardy!’ parodies, ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ outlasted ‘Black Jeopardy!’ by a final of 67-33.

---

After a really fun run up to the final game of the year we have October 1999’s Celebrity Jeopardy!’ and April 2000’s ‘More Cowbell’ going head to head. Two sketches that barely qualified for their respective decade defined regions and premiered only 169 days apart from one another. Even though these two sketches fell into two different decades, and thus, two different regions – they both come from Season 25. Clearly our favorite!

I think most people could have at least seen this as a possible final match-up of the Tournament. These are two unbelievably strong contenders. I cannot wait to see how this one turns out because I have no idea how I am going to vote on this one yet again.

After the Final Four, our bracket now looks like this:

---

Championship

(1) More Cowbell – 2000 vs (2) Celebrity Jeopardy!: French Stewart, Burt Reynolds, & Sean Connery – 1999

---

Polls are open. Let’s get to voting and see who wins our Championship! Voting will close Wednesday April 9 at 5pm. Our champion will be announced on Thursday. Thank you all for reading and voting on these again this year. It’s something that brings me a ton of joy every year.