For some time we'd heard about someone named John Munson, though we'd never met him. Then on Friday we turned on Jeopardy and saw an ascot-wearing contestant with a phallic signature introduced as a "gadabout". It was John Munson.

You see, Munson shares a few Manhattan-based friends with us, friends who for the past few months have been insisting, "OMG you have to meet Munson!" We'd heard stories about him sleeping with this or that socialite, getting married on a whim in Vegas, getting a DUI in the drive-thru of a Taco Bell in Florida, the relationship he destroyed with a tasteless Natalee Holloway joke, but for one reason or another, mainly out of social malaise, our meeting John Munson has yet to take place, but we, as well as the rest of America, were introduced to him in a big way this past Friday night.

It was the finale of Jeopardy's 25th season and Munson, who really was introduced by the show's announcer as a "self-proclaimed gadabout," was one of the contestants. As soon as we heard this and saw the ascot, the suit, the pinky ring, the loop in his signature to form something resembling a cock on his podium display screen, and finally the winking at the camera, we knew that this had to be the John Munson we'd heard so much about. A quick text message confirmed that our suspicions were correct.

Though the entire Jeopardy episode is available for viewing on YouTube, we had our video team put together a montage of memorable Munson moments from the show, including the rather sweet and sad story of his motivation for appearing on the show as well as his wrong answer to the Final Jeopardy question asking which 69 year-old singer toured in 2009 and had a number one hit in 1984, the year Jeopardy first went on the air.





After the show we were forwarded the text of an invitation Munson sent out to friends prior to his appearance on the show seeking audience support. It reads in part:

It's official. I'm going to be a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy! As a lot of you know, this has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. While some people fantasized about going to space, or hitting a home run in the world series, or having a threesome, for me it was Jeopardy. And threesomes. Since I got the call a few weeks ago, I've been doing everything I can to prepare - studying my presidents, attempting (and failing) to grow a mustache, buying a bunch of fake bling on eBay, figuring out how to write my name so it looks like a penis, - and now, as a final touch, I'm trying to assemble a posse.

While it doesn't appear as though Munson succeeded in his efforts to "assemble a posse," he definitely succeeded in bringing attention to himself, as the word "gadabout" topped the Google trends list for a few hours after his appearance on the show aired nationally.





And, of course, the Twittering classes went nuts over John Munson.





Could it be that we have a new Gawker fameball in the making here? We're sure that between his blog and his Twitter page and whatever stories get sent into us, John Munson has the potential to become a familiar character in the Gawker lexicon. Don't let us down John.





And again, Munson's entire Jeopardy appearance is on YouTube here, here, here and here.