Curt Knows Biscuits, Puns: Schilling on Jeopardy!

Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling continued his publicity blitz with an appearance on last night's Celebrity Jeopardy! There's speculation that Schilling is already plotting his post-baseball strategy, at least when it comes to politics, and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek gave Schilling plenty of opportunity to discuss what Trebek called his "life beyond sports."

Schilling specifically mentioned starting Green Monster Games, his new video-gaming company. The plug was a good idea because trivia isn't Schilling's strong point--the man isn't paid the big bucks to think about Greek philosophy. To his credit, before the show, Schilling admitted that he was prepared for a beating and that he was going to stay focused on his charities, the ALS foundation and his wife Shonda's SHADE Foundation.

Sure enough, Doug Savant of Desperate Housewives and Jane Kaczmarek of Malcolm in the Middle and Ted Danson vehicle Help Me Help You trounced Schilling, and they're not exactly MacArthur Fellows. The Jeopardy! staff bent over backwards to write questions the celebrities could get, and they even named one category "Shiny Things." Schilling was at his best when the topics involved food, and he got questions about biscuits and Diet Coke, although he stumbled with the "San Francisco Treat" that is Rice-A-Roni.

Schilling should get kudos for handling the evening with aplomb, even though he was faced with some of the most atrocious puns in history. The writers created categories based on the celebrities' names, such as "Savants," "Shilling," and the cringe-worthy "Malcolm X in the Middle." (Guess it was hard for the writers to pun on Kaczmarek's last name.)

At least Schilling was able to take advantage of this punny question: "This old monetary unit of Britain was one-twentieth of a pound." Schilling buzzed in with - you guessed it - "What is a schilling?"

Image of Curt Schilling from CBS4's website.