Ken Jennings understands the “big feelings” contestants experience behind the podium on Jeopardy! and Celebrity Jeopardy!
Prior to becoming host of both the original game show and its hit starry spinoff, Jennings became a Jeopardy! legend after winning 74 consecutive games in 2004. Citing his own experience as a contestant, Jennings explained that he “always” has “in the back of mind how those three people are feeling” competing on the Alex Trebek Stage.
“So I’m kind of like a… not a grief counselor, but kind of a nerd whisperer out there,” he teased during a recent visit to DECIDER’s studio. “My whole vibe should be, ‘It’s gonna be okay. You’re all going to have good memories from this. It’s going to be fun.’ And I hope that settles them down.”
This season, Celebrity Jeopardy! is welcoming back returning champs Ike Barinholtz, Lisa Ann Walter, and W. Kamau Bell, in addition to former contestants Margaret Cho, Macaulay Culkin, Rachel Dratch, Mark Duplass, Sean Gunn, Mina Kimes, Cynthia Nixon, Katie Nolan, Patton Oswalt, Andy Richter, Mo Rocca, Ray Romano, Timothy Simons, Mira Sorvino, Robin Thede, Jackie Tohn, Steven Weber and Roy Wood Jr. for an All-Stars iteration.
“When I got the scripts, I was thinking, ‘Oh, these don’t feel like Celebrity Jeopardy! This feels like Jeopardy! Jeopardy!‘” he recalled. “And that’s because we know all these people can play. They’re legit.”
For more on how Jennings channels the late Trebek into his hosting, the key to the perfect Jeopardy! contestant story, and he’s become “one degree of Kevin Bacon separation” from Bad Bunny via his Happy Gilmore 2 cameo, check out the rest of our chat below.
DECIDER: I’m so excited to talk about Celebrity Jeopardy!, especially because this season is an All-Stars season bringing back past contestants, as well as the last three champs. Is the material going to be amped up this season because all of the contestants have experience on the show?
KEN JENNINGS: When I got the scripts, I was thinking, “Oh, these don’t feel like Celebrity Jeopardy! This feels like Jeopardy! Jeopardy!“ And that’s because we know all these people can play. They’re legit.
Are there any other changes or surprises in store for this season, given that it’s a new, All-Stars season?
We haven’t changed anything format-wise, but you know, the surprises of Celebrity Jeopardy! are always like, “Oh, these people are also super smart!” That’s my favorite and my least favorite [thing]. On some level, I’m like, “Mira Sorvino has an Oscar and is glamorous. Does she also have to be good at Jeopardy? Couldn’t that be our thing? As an ordinary-looking nerd, couldn’t it be our thing?” I don’t get why the celebrities are also good at Jeopardy!, but they are.
Past contestants of both Jeopardy! and Celebrity Jeopardy! have deemed the buzzer to be one of the hardest parts to get down of the game. Are there any other hidden struggles or misconceptions that contestants often discover after their first time playing?
Well you know, in regular Jeopardy!, they’re just not ready for how intense it is to be on TV. They’ve never been on TV before and suddenly they have to play the hardest show on TV, and it’s like their favorite show, but they can’t believe it. That’s not really a problem with Celebrity Jeopardy! When the cameras turn on, these guys just go into another gear. They’re all fantastic. Often the problem is I have to settle them down a little bit because they’re having a good time. They’re joking around, and I like that too, but we also have a game of Jeopardy! to get through, Alex. I have to be the bad cop sometimes.
While we said this season is welcoming back past contestants, how does casting for Celebrity Jeopardy! typically work? How are you reaching out to stars? Do stars express interest?
It’s a little bit above my pay grade, but from what I’ve heard, it’s kind of a tough show to cast because you can’t just throw anybody on the Jeopardy! set. The Alex Trebek Stage is difficult, the clues are difficult, the game moves very fast, the buzzer scares people. So it really has to be people who already love the game. So usually what it comes down to is who has made the mistake of saying in an interview, who told E! News that they love Jeopardy! or that they always used to watch Jeopardy! with their dad? Those people will be getting a phone call.
The next one I’m hoping [is] I know Emma Stone said she was dying to be on Jeopardy!
She was saying she tried out just for civilian, regular Jeopardy! She’s aiming for the stars. Does she have a disguise? I don’t know what her plan is. Emma Stone’s just going to show up one night.
Hopefully she’s making some headway on that.
I know! I saw you speak at The New Yorker Festival last year, and you talked about some Jeopardy! contestants that you still keep in touch with. Are there any Celebrity Jeopardy! contestants that you’ve become friends with or kept in touch with since they competed?
I don’t want to get myself in trouble, but there are a few of them I am friends with IRL now. I know Steven Weber a little bit, I know Patton Oswalt a little bit. Andy Richter and I have been friends for a long time… he went viral before you could go viral. He was on Celebrity Jeopardy! and he just kind of cleaned up, including some news personalities, and it’s kind of a famous clip. He takes a lot of pride [in that]. And now he’s on Dancing with the Stars. This guy can do it all. But as a host, I have to be completely impartial, even though I know some of these folks. Because I love them all. For crying out loud, they’re really putting themselves on the line to play Celebrity Jeopardy!, and we really appreciate that.
I love it. And you also discussed at The New Yorker Festival being a clue in The New York Times mini crossword puzzle, and you compared it to the excitement that celebrities often feel when they’re mentioned in a Jeopardy! clue. Has any celebrity contestant been featured in a clue while competing on Celebrity Jeopardy!, or could this happen?
Sometimes it happens as a gag. We didn’t do it this year, but sometimes if we know which players are slated for which games, we can have a category that’s themed around their name or something. The closest I saw was a couple years ago, Kyra Sedgwick came on and there was a Kevin Bacon clue. And I was like, “Is this good news or bad news if she doesn’t get this right?” But she did beat the other two to the buzzer. She knew her Kevin Bacon trivia.
You have to be on the entire time in this role. How much of your on-air time is improvising versus planning out in advance?
Very little of Jeopardy! can be planned ahead. It’s not the kind of show that you can generate scripted, funny moments, and I kind of like that. That I don’t have to do a little spiel or a sketch before we play. Because the game is the thing on Jeopardy! But if something funny happens in the game, I have to be ready to call it out or is there a way to riff on it, and that can really be anything. It’s one of the more fun parts of my job, because who knows what’s going to happen tonight? It could literally be anything. Especially on Celebrity Jeopardy!, because those guys have fun.
I saw a video of you looking back on your past Jeopardy! interviews, and you mentioned the formula to the perfect Jeopardy! story for contestants to introduce themselves. Have you mined any stories of your own since then, and what would be your go-to Jeopardy! story now?
The thing I’ve learned about Jeopardy! stories is that they shouldn’t be great party anecdotes. There’s not enough time. It shouldn’t be a story where you’re the hero or you get some kind of award. It should really be something kind of goofy, but specific. Like if somebody comes on Jeopardy! and says something like, “I have a moped from Slovenia, and it doesn’t work.” That’s not a good first date story, but it’s a pretty good Jeopardy! anecdote, honestly! There’s something there. So that’s my advice to Jeopardy! contestants. Your story should kind of sound like a Mad Lib, more than a humble brag or something you’d put on your dating profile.
Speaking of advice, outside of the Jeopardy! story, what’s the number one tip you give to contestants, especially on Celebrity Jeopardy!, ahead of competing?
Really I think [for] Celebrity Jeopardy! it’s the same as civilian Jeopardy! You should just watch the show. Because so much of Jeopardy! is just not letting the speed and the intensity get away from you, and that means just being in the moment, understanding the rhythm of how the host reads. You have to be reading ahead. When the host gets done, you should be ready to buzz if you know it. You gotta time it perfectly, and then you’ve gotta be ready to call for the next thing. It’s this very fast kind of regiment we put these people through, and watching the show is a great way to prep for them.
Definitely. You succeeded the late Alex Trebek in this role of hosting Jeopardy! What’s the biggest lesson of his that you’ve channeled into your hosting, and where do you feel you stray the most from his hosting style?
Alex’s dictum—it’s just kind of charmingly him—he always felt the host should not be the focus of Jeopardy! That’s why he’s announced as “the host of Jeopardy!,” whereas in the ’60s, Art Fleming was called “the star of Jeopardy!” Because Alex explicitly said, “I’m not the star. The game is the star, the clues are the star, the players are the star. I should be taking a backseat to the game.” And that’s just such a not Hollywood way of thinking about your job, that I should recede a little bit. But he was absolutely right. If you notice what the host of Jeopardy! is doing, something has gone wrong. So the thing I learned from Alex is a very light touch, and pick your spots. I think the only thing I would do different is that unlike Alex, I was a contestant on the show, so I always have in the back of mind how those three people are feeling. And often they are big feelings. So I’m kind of like a… not a grief counselor, but kind of a nerd whisperer out there. My whole vibe should be, “It’s gonna be okay. You’re all going to have good memories from this. It’s going to be fun.” And I hope that settles them down.
Switching gears a little bit, you made a cameo in Happy Gilmore 2 this past summer. I’m a huge fan of Adam Sandler’s. How did this come to be, and what was the experience like?
Happy Gilmore was a very big part of my college era life, and so when they came to us—if you’ve seen the movie, you know it’s not an exclusive Jeopardy! cameo. There’s also 500 other cameos. You know, me and Bad Bunny are now one degree of Kevin Bacon separation, which is cool. They had this whole gag set up on the Jeopardy! stage. And this is a real thing that happens to people who are mentioned in clues. Something could go wrong, like there could be a clue about you, but then what if the players don’t know you? I have a writer friend where that happened to her. Her book came up, but then nobody could name it, and she was like “Oh, oh that hurts.” That’s kind of the gimmick in Happy Gilmore [2]. But they came to our set, and we got to hang out. The director was kind of throwing in jokes in real time. It was a lot of fun.
That’s awesome. Another recent collab of yours was a promo for Project Hail Mary, where Ryan Gosling competes in a round of Final Jeopardy! How were you approached for this as well, and what was the experience like?
I only found out, like, the night before, and it wasn’t a done deal until the day of. As I understand it, Sony—we’re a Sony show—Sony had international distribution rights to [Project] Hail Mary, so when Amazon had this idea… I’m just going to speculate that it’s Timothée Chalamet‘s fault for all that Marty Supreme viral publicity he did? That’s my guess as to what happened. And when they said, “Hey, Ryan’s kind of a fan, and has this idea that we can do a Final Jeopardy! with a Hail Mary theme,” like, we were very excited. I’ve never seen our executive producer that excited. He was like coming off the ground. We have Celebrity Jeopardy!, but this is A-list Celebrity Jeopardy! And Ryan was lovely.
My final question is about Pop Culture Jeopardy!, which recently came to be. The first season aired on Prime Video, it’s heading to Netflix next. Have you gotten to watch? Have you talked with Colin Jost at all before he started on that show?
Colin and I have a little Jeopardy! host group chat now. It’s a very small group chat [laughs]. It’s a little bit exclusive. Because among other things, we share the same dressing room. So whenever they tape Pop Culture [Jeopardy!] I’m like, “Colin, leave my stuff alone!” And I think he does. It seems like he has been going through my stuff a little bit. I got some, like, very detailed accounting of things in my dressing room that maybe I wasn’t sure that Colin Jost was going to be going through. But you know, we trade tips, and he’s a natural-born host. He does a great job.
Celebrity Jeopardy! All-Stars premieres Friday at 8/7c on ABC. Next-day streaming is available on Hulu.
