In 2023, few Jeopardy! players made as much of a comedic impact on America's Favorite Quiz Show than the winner of 2021's Professor's Tournament, Sam Buttrey. An Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Sam charmed Jeopardy! audiences with his wit and humor during his runs in the Season 39 Tournament of Champions and later on during Jeopardy! Masters.
One of the funnier things we learned about Sam was that he was a prodigeous musician who published much of his work on Soundcloud, and his quirky sense of humor carried over into his music. Look no further than "Don't Stick Your Cat Butt in my Face," a bluegrass tune about a cat and, well, its butt. Knowing Sam, the fact that this hidden gem of a song exists, and that the Social & Digital team wanted to promote our summer re-run of the S39 Tournament of Champions in its entirety, we mocked up the "Don't Stick Your Cat Butt in my Face" album on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — replete with the "Parental Advisory" sticker (in case parents want to keep their kids' ears free of any cat butts).
The strategy was simple: Mock up the record, slap Sam's face — and a cat butt — on it in that early-90's portrait style, and send it out into the world to drum up some tune-in interest for Sam and the summer reruns of the Tournament of Champions. Along with some tune-in messaging, the team posted the night of the TOC finals rerun, and promoted it with the hashtag #JeopardyRewatch, the campaign name for our summertime rerun series.
