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When “Jeopardy!” Host Alex Trebek married Jean Currivan in 1990, his wedding vows ended with the phrase “The answer is … yes.”
Trebek, who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 80 on Sunday, hosted “Jeopardy!” for 36 years. He has become a beloved figure for his steady, reassuring and at times biting reactions to contestants seeking to show their wits on the country’s toughest game show.
The new book “Answers in the Form of Questions: A Definitive History and Insider’s Guide to” Jeopardy! ”(Twelve), by Ringer reporter Claire McNear, explains how the Canadian host became an American icon.
“Peril!” was designed by Julann Griffin, wife of Merv Griffin, who produced the trivia game, in response to a scandal in the late 1950s that made rigging a game show a federal crime. Since giving answers to candidates was illegal, she thought about subverting the genre by first giving them the answers and then asking them to solve the question.
The first version of “Jeopardy!” debuted in 1964. Hosted by Art Fleming and announced by Don Pardo, the later of “Saturday Night Live” voiceover fame, the show has been a daytime hit for 11 years.
Trebek had been a news anchor and television host in Canada and the United States for two decades before “Jeopardy!” returned. One of his first Canadian shows featured performances by fellow Canadian Alan Thicke, father of Robin Thicke and later star of “Growing Pains”. When Thicke signed on to produce an NBC game show in 1973 called “The Wizard of Odds,” he suggested Trebek as a host.
“His thick brown mustache and perhaps 1970s halo had apparently sealed the deal,” McNear writes. “He was,” he says, “the first mustache game show host since Groucho Marx.
Trebek moved to Los Angeles and hosted a number of game shows in the years to come, including “High Rollers”, “Battlestars” and “Double Dare” (not the Nickelodeon show).
When a syndicated nightly version of “Wheel of Fortune” hit big, Merv Griffin decided to relaunch “Jeopardy!” The same. Trebek had impressed Griffin by organizing several episodes of “Wheel of Fortune” and had been hired for “Jeopardy!”
His success in the series, however, was far from assured.
“The 1983 Trebek pilot was a flop,” McNear writes. “It didn’t air and, as Griffin recalled,” the search came back shoddy, indicating that viewers weren’t interested in “Jeopardy!” back to television. “
But the producer continued, and the new “Jeopardy!” premiered in September 1984. The show received a boost from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s hit “I Lost on Jeopardy” from June of that year, which helped rekindle interest.
Contrary to projections, “Jeopardy!” was an immediate hit, becoming one of the top 5 syndicated shows nationwide. But, while hard to imagine today, some critics thought the series was too mellow compared to its predecessor.
“Viewers complained that the new show was easier, its questions too simple; a Los Angeles Times critic said the new host was “ smooth ”, the show “ a shadow of this [viewers] once knew, ”McNear writes.
As for Trebek, he was seen by some as more of a beef cake than a brain.
“Trebek was 44 when the ‘Jeopardy!’ the alarm clock made its debut, and it was not do not meant like eye candy, ”McNear writes.
“He wasn’t meant to be eye candy.
The Los Angeles Times noted that with his characteristic mustache, Trebek could be “an exceptionally good-looking teacher.” People magazine headlined an article on the then-single host, “Sorry, girls, mom is keeping the house for ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek, ”a reference to his mother sharing his Hollywood Hills mansion.
The show took Trebek’s call and played out with him, even featuring him as a James Bond-like character in the commercials, “rescuing various scantily clad damsels in distress.”
“‘We risked everything for these matters,’ a newly released woman gasped as a tuxedoed Trebek rushed her past her captors’ gunshots,” McNear wrote. “That’s why we call it ‘Jeopardy !,” the host replied.
But Trebek was more aligned with the smart side of the show than critics realized. Combined with his often biting remarks towards contestants who bet too cautiously or ignore the answers, he made him an authoritative public figure.
“In his many cameos on other shows, he mostly played Disappointed Trebek, or Judgmental Trebek, or Insufferable Know-It-All Trebek,” McNear writes.
As a guest narrator on the “Hot in Cleveland” sitcom, he breaks the character to correct someone who botched the name of a Stephen King novel.
“Ooh, sorry, that’s wrong. The answer we wanted was “What is ‘misery’?” He said, before being “chased away at gunpoint”.
On “The Weird Al Show” in 1997, he advertised “Know-It-All Correspondence School” asking, “How would you like to make more money? Impress your friends? Be like me and know everything in the world? Of course you would!
Trebek’s cerebral character worked because it wasn’t an act. During his first two decades with the show, the University of Ottawa philosophy graduate took on the infamous “Jeopardy! test – the one every potential candidate has to take – once a year, and said if he failed he would quit the show.
He understood that this aura of intelligence was the main attraction of the show. While most game shows featured their host as “the star of the show,” Trebek insisted on being simply introduced as “the host.”
In any case, the hosting of “Jeopardy!” was a cushy concert. Trebek only worked 46 days a year – the show recorded five episodes every working day, two days a week, 23 weeks a year between July and April – and made around $ 10 million a year.
On recording days, he would arrive at the studio at 6 a.m., settling in with a crossword puzzle and a breakfast of Diet Coke and a candy bar (which became a granola bar in his later years).
He received all the clues for the day at 7:30 am and examined them for tricky pronunciations. Trebek was fluent in English and French, and said he could “have fun” in German, Italian, Spanish and Russian. Pronouncing foreign words correctly was important to him.
“Once, apparently determined to surprise him, the writers delivered a game to Trebek [with] a category called “When the Aztecs spoke Welsh,” McNear writes. “He got to grips with the clues – heavy on L’s and X’s, light on consonants – before someone finally pointed out that it was April Fool’s Day.
As the show became an institution, fueling plot lines or points in “Groundhog Day”, “Die Hard”, “Cheers”, “Golden Girls”, “Baywatch” and more, Trebek became an icon. of pop culture. This was best illustrated by the “Celebrity Jeopardy!” sketch on “SNL,” where Will Ferrell portrays him as a frustrated host in the face of celebrity fools.
The sketch was designed by actor Norm Macdonald based on two old “SCTV” sketches written by Eugene Levy, who appeared as “Alex Trebel”. Levy gave Macdonald his blessing for bringing the concept to the American drawing institution.
(Oddly enough, Levy’s portrayal was before “Jeopardy!”, Rather inspired by a high school trivia show Trebek hosted in Canada. Trebek later said that while he appreciated Ferrell’s take on him , even appearing on Ferrell’s last episode “SNL” as an actor in 2002, he preferred Levy.)
Despite two heart attacks and a car wreck and brain surgery over the years, Trebek only missed one episode – and it was intentional: he and “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak have Changed shows once as a listen.
Yet as Trebek turned 70, the question of who could replace him one day was often raised.
In 2014, an email made public during the Sony hack revealed that CNN’s Anderson Cooper was a top candidate and was interested in the job. NBC’s Matt Lauer (pre-scandal) was also mentioned. Other candidates included the former “Jeopardy!” champions like Ken Jennings.
Trebek updated the roster in 2018, mentioning LA Kings announcer Alex Faust and CNN legal analyst Laura Coates as candidates.
As the show is taped two months in advance, the final episode of Trebek will air on Christmas Day. There is no word yet on what will follow.
The only thing we know for sure is that whoever replaces Trebek will struggle to fill their shoes with the same intelligence and grace.
Even while battling cancer, Trebek kept his legendary balance.
“When her hair started to fall out [due to chemotherapy], he challenged viewers to know exactly when he started wearing a hairpiece, ”McNear writes.
“’The truth has said, I must do it,’ he joked, continuing in a video recorded to advertise his illness. “Because under the terms of my contract, I have to host ‘Jeopardy! For three more years. “
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