Alex Trebek/Jeopardy Tribute Thread

I reiterate: Claire McNear has carved out the coolest beat I can imagine. Jeopardy! as NBA offseason-level content.

 

I may be the only person on this board who never watched Reading Rainbow nor had a fucking clue who LeVar Burton was before his guest host turn.

 

I loved Jason Sudeikis recently telling the story that the night of his SNL audition at a comedy club, Chris Rock decided to jump in and do a set right before him.

Rock: “Was this supposed to be your big break?”

Sudeikis: “Kinda.”

Rock: “Sorry.” (Darts on stage)

 

He's sorry!

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/19/jeo...-apologizes-for-comments-made-on-podcast.html

Carry on.

 

The coverage of Richards is so indicative of current culture norms being applied, good and bad, to years-ago events. Generally speaking, the liberal in me is fine by that, because we need to improve our society's respect for one and all and if going back in time to point out the painful flaws in how we treated one another will help prevent that treatment from occuring again, then good for us, our culture is advancing.

But when we do that, it's best that we not use a microscope when a telescope is called for. Most all of the "shocking revelations" coming out about Mike Richards are things that, had they been reported on at the time they occurred (a) would not have been shocking and (b) were things most everyone in his cohort were doing.

Mike Richards is not the only TV producer in history who wanted his female hosts to look attractive, and yet we're acting like he is.
Mike Richards is not the first ambitious white guy who wanted to reach the top of the industry, and yet we're acting like he is.
Mike Richards is not the first wannabe radio shock jock/podcast guru who crosses the line for laughs and titallation, and yet we're acting like Joe Rogan and Ryan Seacrest never existed.
Mike Richards is not the first young gun brought into an ancient production who then quickly made enemies by breathing new life into dusty old franchises*. And yet, we're acting like he is.
Mike Richards is not the only TV producer in history who wanted to host, and yet we're acting like he is.
Mike Richards is not the only TV producer in history who, in fact, had hosted and would host again, and yet we're acting like he is.
Mike Richards did not executive produce Jeopardy in secret over these past months, and yet we're acting like he did.

Every single "guest host" or "try-out" worked closely with Richards. Every single one knew from the very get-go Richards was in the mix to be the permanent host. In fact, everyone in the game show industry knew that when Mike Richards was lured away from a very comfortable gig at Fremantle, Sony Executives wanted him to follow a path that would put him in place to replace Alex should the time come.

And you know what? When Mike Richards was focused grouped and those Sony Execs were proven right. Does anyone think a billions-dollar franchise would be turned over to someone just because, well, he's a white dude with sharp teeth who gamed the system to get what he wants!?!

Go upthread here and you'll find polls that consistently showed Richards was in the top 2-3 choices from the public. The difference is the other 2-3 changed with each poll, and many of them either didn't want to be the host, couldn't be afforded if they did, or had major negatives against them as well.

Is Mike Richards an asshole like some people have said after reading the Ringer story? Maybe. Maybe he was just being assholish at times. Which to me, makes him human. He's also a TV producer. And entertainer. And ambitious. And highly, highly successful -- as also shown in all these "shocking" stories coming out recently.

*Case in point: Until Mike Richards took over, The Price Is Right producers PAID FULL VALUE FOR EVERY PRIZE THEY GAVE AWAY! Including cars!!! What kind of game show production does that?

 

“Your application is on file if Mr. Richards ever decides to go in a different direction with his representstion, Mr. @TigerVols “

 

We've lost the ability as a country to discern the layers and the fibers of a thing, or simply choose not to.

Context and perspective matter. Good overall post.

 

TV is right about this: We need to look at this stuff from 30,000 feet. We’re losing that nuance, and we’re losing nuance in general as a society.

Mike Richards is the guy who works the desk, rises to become the SE and then decides to hand himself the paper’s top beat. If I were the Ken Jennings or Buddy Cohen of the staff, I’d be pissed too.

 

I thought that the best people were the ones who wouldn’t take the job, like Cooper or Roberts. Everyone got better in the second week but the week of LeVar was rough.

 

This is a really good post, with plenty of pertinent points.

Everyone would even get over Richards getting the host job-- indeed, we all will, eventually, anyway -- if, as that 2015 Jeopardy champion pointed out, it didn't seem quite so much like the process was probably rigged and probably already decided right from the start, without many of the wanna-be hosts really realizing that. It might just be the way it looks...but that's the way it looks, and, particularly after such a high-profile and well-watched search, people -- probably viewers/fans and other guest hosts alike -- are feeling a bit robbed and jobbed.

Because Richards was not the best guest host. He wasn't. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't the best, the most recognizable, the smoothest, the most engaged, the most likeable, the most obviously experienced, or tops at anything, in comparison to many of the others.

 

Ehhhhh.... no.

I will agree that the whole "they didn't know they weren't competing on a level field" thing is silly. Certainly everyone with any TV experience knew the score going in. Maybe people like Aaron Rodgers or Ken Jennings wouldn't automatically get that but the others certainly would.

Beyond that, though...

You can't make the "it was a different culture then" argument when we're talking about stuff that happened in 2014. When he's referring to women as sluts and hos and whining about women wearing one-piece swimsuits and obsessing about whether a co-worker has pictures of her "boobies" on her phone.... I mean, that was kind of unacceptable back then too.

When your argument includes "he didn't do anything that Joe Rogan didn't do," your argument is in trouble.

The bottom line on this is, "Jeopardy!" is important to a lot of people and the audience feels very vested in the person who replaces Alex Trebek. No one would give a shit about any of this if Richards was the new host of "Card Sharks." By all appearances they have replaced Trebek with a guy who wasn't very good filling in and seems to be an asshole. They lost a guy who donated a half-million dollars to help shelter the homeless; they replaced him with a guy who mocks people who help the homeless.

I don't know Mike Richards. He comes across as a frat boy douchebag who kinda hates women unless they're in bikinis. Maybe you're right and he only wanted to come across that way, but that's not a great thing either.

I've worked in TV too long to take any focus group seriously. Focus groups give you the response you want. In the real world, have you heard from anyone outside of Sony who thought that Mike Richards was the best, or even close? The poll I saw today had 3% of respondents saying he was the best fill-in host. I saw 12 of the guest hosts and would rank Richards around 10th.

And about this...

Absolutely yes. This is how just about everything works. That's the TV business in a nutshell.

 

This is an excellent post, too. The Ringer's article had a lot of information, but what it really did, better than anything else I've read, is bring out the asshole-ishness of Richards with good, specific, hard-hitting examples, quotes and instances. Richards really does come off sounding terrible.