{"id":343479,"date":"2026-06-02T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343479\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:02:09","slug":"this-oakland-team-is-on-new-season-of-pop-culture-jeopardy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343479\/","title":{"rendered":"This Oakland Team Is on New Season of \u2018Pop Culture Jeopardy\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two friends obsessed with pop culture have ascended to one of the highest levels of trivia competition.<\/p>\n<p>Jun 2, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Updated 2:33 pm PT<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PopCultureJeopardy.jpg\"  alt=\"Two twentysomethings sit in folding film-director style chairs against a violet and purple background\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Erica West (left) and Joshua Bote (right) are currently bringing their trivia skills, honed at Temescal Brewing in Oakland, to \u2018Pop Culture Jeopardy.\u2019\u00a0(Sony Pictures Studios)<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">Two bar trivia enthusiasts from Oakland, armed with the type of knowledge that spans Lady Gaga\u2019s performances and episodes of The Office, are competing as semifinalists in the new season of Pop Culture Jeopardy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">The show, hosted by Saturday Night Live\u2019s Colin Jost, is modeled like traditional Jeopardy but focuses on categories associated with film, television, music and internet culture. The Oakland team is made up of two friends: Joshua Bote, a journalist (and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/author\/jbote\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">former intern with KQED Arts<\/a>), and Erica West, a social worker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">In one episode, Jost asked them to explain their team name \u201cOakland Spirit Tunnel.\u201d It\u2019s a reference to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/05\/12\/nx-s1-5391109\/spirit-tunnel-jennifer-hudson-show\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">viral online segment<\/a> from Jennifer Hudson\u2019s talk show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">West, also a big fan of Jeopardy, echoed this sentiment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">\u201cThey pan to my mom in the audience who watches Jeopardy every single day. We would watch together all the time. To be on the Alex Trebek stage, even holding the buzzer, I felt emotional. It means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\" title=\"\">\u2018Pop Culture Jeopardy\u2019 is streaming on Netflix now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two friends obsessed with pop culture have ascended to one of the highest levels of trivia competition. Jun&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-343479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}