'Celebrity Jeopardy' contestant breaks the buzzer and halts the show: 'Ken looked very stressed...'

Contestants on "Jeopardy!" can get a bit too aggressive when the competitive energy reaches its peak. Celebrities are not an exception, and this was evident in an episode of "Celebrity Jeopardy!" when D'arcy Carden ended up breaking the buzzer by hitting it too hard, forcing Ken Jennings to halt the game. The Sun reported that, ironically, during the same segment, a fan had asked Jennings "if anyone had ever broken the buzzer during a game." The host confidently declared that no such incident had ever occurred during his tenure.

Right after that, during the Daily Double round, Carden stunned the crew and the producers when she announced that her buzzer was broken. An eyewitness revealed that the crucial game item had physically fallen off her podium. “There was a huge amount of stress, as that’s never happened before. The producers had to turn off the power to all the screens and the lights. They shut everything down, and Ken looked very stressed. Producers ran up on stage and huddled around D’Arcy in a desperate attempt to fix the buzzer," the source shared. “Producers even shuffled the contestants away from the podium. They took the matter extremely seriously,” the source alleged, while disclosing the state of panic soon after.

After moments of utter chaos, the piece was fixed, and the game resumed from right where it had left off. However, the embarrassing situation was not aired. As the game progressed, Marvel star Gunn got the upper hand and advanced to the next round, doing justice for Women for Women International charity. While the 'Good Trouble' actress and the 'Good Place' actress stood defeated, with $30,000 for their respective charities. Gunn will now be competing for a $1 million prize. According to a Reddit Thread, the 'Jeopardy!' buzzers work on a bizarre system. If a player presses the buzzer before the game host stops speaking, he/she will be locked out for 250 milliseconds. 

"If you ring in before Ken stops speaking and the buzzers are activated, you are locked out for 250 milliseconds. The lockout ends right at 250ms, but you have to buzz back in," @ouij explained. "It's enabled manually by a staffer (called The Enabler). Their story is told in This is Jeopardy! podcast series that Buzzy hosted," @inturnaround agreed. These practical insights might explain how Carden broke her buzzer; the "Good Place" actress must have buzzed in too soon in excitement, and while being locked out, she must have pressed the game item too hard.

As pointed out by the Reddit users, the "This is Jeopardy!" podcast series reveals tips and tricks on using the buzzer. "If you hit the buzzer too early, you get locked out for a certain period of time, so there's an art to when you buzz in; spamming it will not get you results," @fronteir mentioned. Hence, as a Jeopardy! player, it is important to know the buzzer rules before clocking in the answer.