Alex Trebek/Jeopardy Tribute Thread

I think that would be RingIP.

 

See, that was the thing. Richards wasn't bad. But he was kind of...vanilla, if you were to designate a flavor. Among all the hosts (I think I saw at least some of everybody's stints), I would have described him, more than the others, as a technical writer, for comparison's sake. Accurate, technically sound (as much as I could tell) and even-keeled. But not memorable, recognizable or anyone who would be labeled new and exciting, or new and unknown, but exciting.

Of course, I wasn't that crazy about Mayim Bialik, either, so maybe you can't go by me.

 

Hey, the word is "unhoused," apparently. Your disrespectful language will be noted on your permanent record.

I thought that section of the article, and some others, were cheapshots. Richards seems like an asshole, but I'm pretty sure that was the point from the time the writer opened up a doc to get started. Do we know Richards never donated to a charity? Never spent a day with Habitat for Humanity? We know Trebek never made any crass comments about, um, unhoused people?

No, we don't know any of that shit. We have one small data point that Richards said one thing, and we have one distant, vaguely related data point that Trebek donated a lot of money, and we let the writer imply a world of shit in the middle.

Richards was an uninspired choice from the start. I initially thought, "Producer with the show? Probably been there forever. Smart guy, the brains behind Trebek, I bet." Uh, no, he was there 18 months and was an ambitious twit, not a cerebral leader. He didn't earn the spot with years of work with the show. He weaseled his way in because of Trebek's death and the timely retirement of several people who could have stopped him. Good riddance.

But interviewing a bunch of former co-workers who said not-even-very-bad things about him doesn't do much for me. Oh my heavens, he didn't show up very often at the set of "Let's Make a Deal." The people there re-introduced themselves to him *snicker snicker.*

Big fucking deal.

 

I don’t doubt The Ringer come into this thinking, “this choice sucks, let’s see what we find”.

They found a lot.

All of the plotting Richards did to get the Jeopardy! job and he forgets to delete old podcasts. After 2017/MeToo, he doesn’t get rid of the podcasts. That is befuddling.

The higher up one wants to climb, the cleaner you, generally, have to be. All of the other “celebrity” hosts were vetted because, well, they’re celebrities.

No one really wanted this guy and he probably had some people looking for dirt. It’s his fault for not cleaning it all up.

 

The Ringer reporter has written a book on "Jeopardy!" I suspect she's had this loaded and ready to go for a while.

 

She was interviewed on the Ringer's Press Box podcast tonight, and it sounds like not so much. She said that when he was named the permanent host, she started looking more into his background, and noted that his first TV / on-air experience was for The Randumb Show. She couldn't find any of it because it was from the 1990s, but when searching for it, she came upon the podcast of the same name. She said there was weird, sexist stuff in like every episode. Upon asking Jeopardy and Sony's press people about the podcast, it was deleted within two hours.

By the way, also according to Claire McNear - Her report about the shitty podcasts came out on Wednesday. On Thursday, they recorded five shows with him as host. On Friday, he stepped down. So, they now have five shows that'll require some extensive editing, OR, they won't have five shows featuring one of the game's most dominant players ever.

 

A friend of mine who follows Jeopardy very closely says those shows will air.

 

I'm seeing a lot of push for LeVar Burton on Twitter again. I wasn't impressed with his shows, and I was kinda lobbying for him. He was a little too sing-song, too Reading Rainbow. He had a couple of shows where he ran out of time. Alex was apparently pushing for Laura Coates, legal analyst for CNN and has a show on Sirius... and they did not give her an audition show. I'd like to see her at least get a shot at it.

 

This is a great way for Ken Jennings to backdoor his way into the job.

He’ll be the guy following the (douchebag) guy who followed the guy; a guy with a long history with the show/brand; a guy who’s likable. If Sony feels like the brand has been significantly tarnished by this (not sure I’d agree), KJ is the safe choice.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing James Holzhauer get a shot at it, myself.

It'd be interesting to see what and how he'd do on the other side of the game. He's smart enough, interesting enough, and I think he'd be, maybe, a little snarky, fun and surprising, and yet would respect the smarts of all the other smart people involved. In his own way, he also had a certain reverence for Jeopardy and a personal poignancy at times that was surprising when he was a player.

He also has not been shy about the goings-on surrounding Richards and the guest-host runs on Twitter lately. I just think he'd be a really viable possibility. If he was interested, of course.