By Tamara Jones
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 1, 2004; Page A01

And on the 4,575th question, in the 975th category of the 75th day, the master of the trivia universe was laid to rest.

Grinning ruefully as the studio audience let out a collective gasp, Ken Jennings ended the longest and richest winning streak in TV game show history last night, meeting his doom on "Jeopardy!" courtesy of a California real estate agent who never went to college and threw her hands to her face in disbelief when she unseated the $2.5 million winner extraordinaire.

"There goes the ballgame," the 30-year-old software engineer remembered saying to himself during the September taping of the show when he heard opponent Nancy Zerg busily scribbling an answer to the final question while he stared blankly into space.

Asked to name the company whose 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work just four months a year, the 48-year-old Zerg correctly answered "H&R Block." Jennings guessed "FedEx." Zerg ended up $5,602 ahead of her famous opponent, who immediately shook her hand and reached over to give her a congratulatory hug.

Forced to keep mum for two months until the taped denouement aired, Jennings expressed both wistfulness and relief yesterday about the end of a streak that made him a pop-culture celebrity.

"It's sort of like losing a job I had all summer," he said in a telephone interview, but "now I can get back to my real life, which has kind of been on hold." He began taping "Jeopardy!" episodes in February -- five games at a time, two days a week, making his on-air debut June 2.

"People appear on game shows all the time and it's not what you think of as a fast-track to notoriety," Jennings said. "I thought my grandmother and her friends maybe would watch it over cookies."

Instead, his brain-to-brain smackdowns ended up luring an average of 2 million extra daily viewers to the show, with ratings dipping significantly when he was off the air for summer hiatus or while special tournaments aired. Even his rivals were impressed.

A handful of vanquished opponents gathered at an Arlington bar last night to watch the show during a high-spirited wonk wake they dubbed the DC Roadkill Reunion.

"My mother hates him," said Merritt Allen, a 34-year-old public relations specialist who organized the event at Faccia Luna.

Rob Kimbro drove down from Princeton, N.J., eager to share his pain as the last challenger defeated by Jennings, on Monday's show. Kimbro was in the studio audience when Jennings went down in flames.

"It was pretty incredible," said the 31-year-old stay-at-home dad. "I've never been part of an entire-room collective gasp." He proudly brandished his official Roadkill T-shirt, with his name and player number.

As the fateful game played on the TV set over the bar, the self-christened KJLs (Ken Jennings Losers) shouted out answers to the clues.

"Cashmere!"

"Qatar?"

Grudgingly, they echoed Allen's admission that Jennings was, in fact, "a nice guy" who bulldozed them with a certain graciousness. Even in the cutthroat television industry, there was open admiration.

"Look, he's a very personable guy, very charming. . . . Ken Jennings, he's just brilliant, and that's the appeal of him," said Michael Davies, executive producer of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," in a phone interview yesterday.

It was the high stakes on "Millionaire," mused "Jeopardy!" creator Merv Griffin, that ultimately opened the door on the staid quiz show for a juggernaut like Jennings. Griffin speculated that "Jeopardy!" producers "thought, 'Geesh, in this climate now maybe we are a little cheap. Let's see what happens.' "

Jennings's record was made possible by a change in rules last year that allowed champions to continue indefinitely instead of retiring after five games.

Now on leave from his computer job, Jennings plans to make the talk-show circuit before settling in to write a book "about trivia, and why it's popular and who excels at it."

Last night he was on CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" and ABC's "Nightline," and he'll appear today on "Good Morning America" and "Live With Regis and Kelly." Barbara Walters is interviewing him as one of her "10 Most Fascinating People of 2004," and A&E is doing a "Biography" episode on him.

Jennings's skill left 148 challengers in the dust, some so awestruck they asked for autographs, others so annoyed that they bonded over the Internet. In the green room before playing, challengers tried to psych him out with voodoo dolls and dark references to Tonya Harding. His victories became so routine, so assured, that his wife, Mindy, did crossword puzzles while in the studio audience.

The former Mormon missionary from Salt Lake City showed no mercy: Down went the challenger who had survived the London blitz; down went the preacher with twin babies.

He showed no fear: Down went the toxicologist specializing in fatal bites from severed rattlesnake heads; down went the former gravedigger.

"They could not find anybody to really challenge him," said Griffin. "That scared me a little."

Jennings plowed through questions with voracity and occasional delight, his wrong answers often more entertaining than the right ones, like the time the clue board asked for a word that can describe either a garden tool or a person of immoral character.

"What is a ho?" Jennings responded.

"A rake," host Alex Trebek sputtered through laughter.

Jennings was cocky enough to trash-talk Thomas Jefferson ("I wanna see how you'd do on 'Jeopardy!,' Declaration Boy") yet humble enough, when asked who he thought was the smartest person in the world, to salute his father. Over the long course of his marathon, he went from glib about the fortune he was making ("I'm going to roll around naked in it") to solemn.

"It's a little scary, actually," Jennings confided when Trebek asked him on a recent episode what it felt like to be a multimillionaire. "Most people never have to consider 'What do I want to most do with my life?' Most people have excuses and daily responsibilities." he said. "Now if I don't do what I most want to do, it's sort of my fault."

Zerg did not respond to phone messages yesterday, but was quoted in a "Jeopardy!" news release as saying about her toppling of the champion, "It hasn't sunk in. Ken is just so good!

"I think we both played well, but I got lucky with categories that I knew and he just happened to hit a couple of Daily Double clues that he didn't know. It took a good 15 minutes before I even realized that those points on the board were actually money!"

By Jennings's standards, his last game was sluggish. "My timing was off," he said. He entered the final round with a low total of $14,400 to Zerg's $10,000. The third contestant was in the red and didn't qualify for the final. Zerg wagered $4,401 and was a dollar ahead of Jennings when he revealed his losing answer and the $5,600 wager that knocked him into second place and trivia history. With the $2,000 prize for second place last night, his winnings total $2,522,700.

There was another prize as well, from H&R Block headquarters in Kansas City, Mo.:

Free financial advice for life.

Back at Faccia Luna, the bar erupted in cheers, jeers and wild applause as the KJLs watched their nemesis destroyed at long last.

"Boo! Boo!" someone shouted.

"That was by far his worst game," another crowed.

"Ken, you will be missed!"

"The king is dead! Long live the king!"

Merritt Allen gazed at the screen and flashed a smile at the parting shot of that oh-so-familiar boyish face.

"Bye, Ken!" she called out. "Thanks for playing!"

Staff writer Lisa de Moraes contributed to this report.