"He just made it look graceful and effortless. The campaigning, and the steady stream of new guest hosts, added interest to the show, but Jennings felt it risked distracting from Trebek's legacy. LeVar Burton on lobbying to guest-host 'Jeopardy!' and why he thought he'd blown rehearsal The guest-hosting derby burnished memories of Alex Trebek I would love it, but I honestly feel like, deep down, 'Jeopardy!' is going to be OK either way." In a seeming rebuke to others, such as LeVar Burton and Aaron Rodgers, who lobbied publicly for the job, he says, "You're not going to see me in the papers talking about how important it is that I ended up hosting. And I feel like the show is in good hands, at this point, no matter what happens." So it's just enormously flattering to be in the mix. It's just a big part of who I am and the person I became, even before I was on the show. I, even as a little kid, I would run home from school every day to watch. "If my country called upon me to host 'Jeopardy!' I would happily do my patriotic duty. As the drama over the hosting search and Richards' eventual ouster showed, "it means a lot to people in a way that almost no other TV show does." What is a debacle? How the 'Jeopardy!' host search went wrong with Mike Richards, and what's nextĪt first, Jennings sidesteps the question of becoming permanent host: "I am really enjoying hosting, just because 'Jeopardy!' means so much to me, but right now, all I'm thinking about is how the show is doing as a workplace, as a TV institution," he says. This time, we're kind of a year removed or more from all that, so I've had every possible emotion now related to 'Jeopardy!' " "I knew that it was going to be a very difficult task … much less the idea that you're trying to step into the shoes of Alex Trebek, which is impossible. I mean, Alex had just barely passed, and really no one else had hosted the show since 1974 like, literally, in my lifetime," says Jennings, 47. Last year, "I was just terrified, and I think rightfully so. Returning to tape new episodes in September, Jennings "felt rusty I hope I don't look rusty, but honestly it was just such a delight to be back on that stage." But I can tell you firsthand, it's not easy." There's a lot going on at once, and Alex made it all look so easy. The mechanics of hosting 'Jeopardy!' are daunting. "You would like to say just like getting back on a bike," Jennings says in an interview. So I was not told until after that it was the Nov. 8 show."Īlex Trebek: One year after his death, some of the 'Jeopardy!' host's best quotes Jennings' return to 'Jeopardy!' was 'like getting back on a bike' "They didn't want to put that in my head. "Apparently, everyone was aware that we were going to air (my first episode) on the anniversary and nobody told me," Jennings says. Jennings says producers deliberately shielded him from the intel that his first new episode would air as viewers mourned Trebek's death one year ago, on Nov. 8, 2020. But the drama would continue for months, as 15 celebrities and former players took turns in what many considered tryouts for the show, only to see executive producer Mike Richards get the job and quickly exit, as both host and producer, following resurfaced derogatory comments he'd made on a 2014 podcast. He was the stopgap host after Trebek died at 80 of pancreatic cancer. But he didn't know his episode would air on the commemorative date. The former-champion-turned-guest-host returned to "Jeopardy!" Monday, the first anniversary of Alex Trebek's death, for a three-week run that marks his first appearance as host since February. Ken Jennings has had "every possible emotion now" when it comes to "Jeopardy!" Watch Video: 'Jeopardy!' champ Matt Amodio exits with over $1.5 million in winnings
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