For the past two years, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has battled Stage IV pancreatic cancer, but throughout the grueling treatment he continued to host the show with the same delight and passion as always. On Sunday, we learned that Trebek had passed at the age of 80, with TMZ reporting he died at home surrounded by his family.

Trebek had been open about his cancer diagnosis and the timetable doctors had given him, but made it his stated purpose to continue living as he had and hosting the show he loved and had made into a phenomenon of pop culture. In that time, he brought three of the shows greatest contestants back for the Jeopardy! GOAT Tournament back in January, as Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and the newest Jeopardy! juggernaut James Holzhauer all faced off in a primetime special.

As the news of Trebek’s death emerged on Sunday, those three all paid tribute to the man they had become close with, remembering him as a one-of-one who gave them and the world something special.

Trebek had just taped a number of new episodes and while he continued on with business as usual, the past two years had seen contestants recognize the importance of making sure the legendary host was given his flowers while he was still with us. In the Tournament of Champions, a contestant used Final Jeopardy to say “We love you Alex,” and recently, a newly crowned champion Burt Thakur explained to Trebek that he had learned English by watching Alex host Jeopardy! with his grandfather, thanking him for all he’d done.

The influence of Trebek and Jeopardy! on American culture and millions of people who have competed on the show or became regular viewers is hard to overstate. He will be missed tremendously, but if there is any silver lining in all of this it is that the gratitude and love people have for him was able to be shared fully with him in the final years of his life.

Sunday morning brought about the incredibly sad news that Alex Trebek had died at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The legendary game show host, best known for his three decades on Jeopardy!, was beloved by millions whose lives he entered most every weekday evening for years and years.

As with anyone that’s in your life that regularly, whether you know them personally or not, there are going to be plenty of memories that come flooding back when you think about them, and on Sunday Jeopardy! fans broke out some of their favorite Trebek moments from years past on social media to laugh and cry and remember a tremendous host and, by all accounts, a tremendous man.

The Jeopardy! GOATs all paid tribute to Trebek on social media, and as Jennings said, for millions of people we felt like Alex Trebek was part of our family. The remembrances included some hilarious moments, like the time he matter-of-factly said to a contestant telling him about nerdcore hip-hop, “losers, in other words,” or his long history of making fun of contestants who failed miserably at sports categories.

Any time Trebek had to dive into pop culture, particularly music, it was always a hit, like when he’d rattle off rap lyrics to the delight of everyone watching.

My personal favorite might be this moment with Ken Jennings in which the legendary champ took Trebek aback with the question of “What is a hoe?” to an answer.

Trebek will be sorely missed, and the dry humor he would occasionally unleash on contestants is something that really only he could do and remain as endearing a figure as he was. Jeopardy! will not be the same without him, but at least we have thousands of episodes worth of memories to remember him with.

On Sunday word broke that Alex Trebek — longtime host of brainiac game show Jeopardy! and who had been battling pancreatic cancer over the last year and change — had died. He was 80 years old. Trebek had continued filming the show even as he fought the illness that would eventually claim his life. That means there’s a backlog of as-yet-to-air episodes. According to Variety (in a tidbit teased out by Vox), his final episode as host will air on Christmas Day.

Mind you, there’s still tons of episodes left, and Trebek’s last day of filming is reported to have been October 29, i.e., about a week and a half ago. Those will continue to air over the next month and a half, leaving the final one for the big holiday — a bittersweet way for everyone to say goodbye to game show-dom’s most unflappable host.

The Canadian-born television personality began hosting Jeopardy! back in 1984. It was far from his first rodeo. He hosted his first game show, The Wizard of Odds, back in 1973, and he also lorded over High Rollers, the short-lived Double Dare (not to be confused with the kids game show), The $128,000 Question, Battlestars, Pitfall, Classic Concentration, among others. But it was as the suave and crisp host of Jeopardy! for which he will be forever remembered.

(Via Variety and Vox)

The entertainment world was hit with shocking news on Sunday when it was announced that longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. As expected, Trebek’s biggest supporters took to social media to share their favorite memories. Among them was Run The Jewels’ El-P, who jumped on Twitter to share an idea involving Trebek that he and Killer Mike had hoped to make a reality on the rap duo’s recently released album Run The Jewels 4.

“True story: when we were originally crafting ‘a few words for the firing squad’ off RTJ4 we were going to make it a sequel to ‘jeopardy’ from RTJ2 and call it ‘final jeopardy,’” El-P wrote. “We reached out to alex trebeks people and tried to get him on the jam but couldn’t make it happen.” The rapper explained why the duo felt that the Jeopardy! host’s involvement would be a great fit on the album. “We thought of that because run the jewels was an answer on jeopardy which we sampled and had in between verses but it didn’t quite work so we tried to get Alex to re-do it a little differently,” El-P said. “When we couldn’t get him we scrapped the idea and created ‘a few words…’ instead.”

Run The Jewels’ “A Few Words For The Firing Squad (Radiation)” is a strong outro from Run The Jewels 4, and it was also crowned Uproxx’s mid-year song of 2020 so far back in June. El-P also shared what Trebek meant to him personally, saying he “represented a calm joy of knowledge and it’s pursuit.” He added, “He had a gentlemanly demeanor and seemingly kind soul and used intelligence playfully and encouragingly. sad to see him go and hope he rests peacefully.”

In a devastating year that’s taken so much from so many, 2020 barreled forward on Sunday by taking Alex Trebek from Jeopardy! fans, too. Trebek died after a long and very public battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer, and by the time a ball drop ends this wretched period, Trebek will be gone from our screens and the Jeopardy! soundstage for good.

Few fans can even remember a Jeopardy! without Trebek, and since his cancer diagnosis in 2019 the very real possibly of his retirement or worse was on the minds of fans, especially when the coronavirus pandemic shut down production this spring. The show’s safety-focused return to production this summer brought new episodes in the fall, which will now show us the last moments we have of Trebek until the backlog of taped episodes with him at the helm run out on Christmas Day.

Tributes will come from many, as will an announcement about his eventual replacement hosting a show with which he became synonymous. It will be difficult and sad, like most things have been this year, and eventually Trebek’s death will settle in with all the heartbreak and sorrow we’ve accumulated in the months after Ken Jennings won the Greatest Of All Time Tournament on primetime in January. Trebek and Jeopardy! meant so much to so many, and even days before his death touching tributes to the show’s host were going viral. Everyone seems to have a personal Jeopardy! story, and nearly every one of those involves Trebek in some way.

“There’s this continuity where it doesn’t feel like a TV property anymore. It’s just a part of America, almost like the national parks or something. It’s really an institution,” legendary Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings told me by phone earlier in the month, before Trebek’s death. “It’s just a fabric of all of our lives. It’s Biography now, we feel like it’s part of us.”

Untangling Trebek from that institution will be painful. The aura he projected as host was truly that of someone who knew all the answers, and it was one he worked hard to perfect behind the scenes, putting in the time to learn proper pronunciations and making notes on clues and categories. As our Brian Grubb put it earlier this year, Trebek is the true Jeopardy! GOAT, and this January’s tournament served as much a celebration of Jennings, James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter as it was the show’s legendary host and the personality he showed over the years.

Oftentimes the moments from Jeopardy! that proved most popular were about Trebek himself, not the contestants. People loved seeing him poke fun at contestants who had weird interests or used what may be their only ever appearance on syndicated television to share a startlingly mundane story about themselves. In the hours after his death became public, people flooded social media with memories of Trebek on the show, reciting Cardi B lyrics or saying the word “bitchin.” Another popular video was one of Trebek poking fun at a woman who admitted she liked nerdcore hip hop, only to get roasted by Trebek for defining the genre.

“It’s people who identify as nerdy, rapping about the things they love,” the contestant, Rebecca, said. “Video games, science fiction. Having a hard time meeting romantic partners. You know, it’s really catchy and fun.”

Trebek paused for a moment, then delivered some of the trademark dry humor fans have loved seeing over the years.

“Losers, in other words,” Trebek offered before moving on to the other two contestants and their biographical information.

The clip has gone viral online several times over, to the point that every few months people share it assuming it’s new and further replicating its enduring popularity. The video is a moment that in many ways fits our current cultural climate and the oftentimes outright hostility with which we treat strangers. But though I’ve never met or even interviewed Alex Trebek, I don’t think he was trying to roast this poor woman who likes nerdcore, nor do I think he would want that moment to be his lasting legacy in pop culture. Trebek had jokes, sure, but unlike those of us who watch the show very rarely did put others down for his own gain.

Part of the fun of watching Jeopardy! is, of course, playing along at home. It’s always nice to beat contestants to an answer, something you know that those who actually passed the test to make it on the show did not. For many that edge often comes in sports categories, as even the most learned intellectual simply doesn’t give a sh*t about football enough to know what offside is. One of those famous instances was one of the first Jeopardy! things I wrote about at Uproxx: Trebek somewhat chiding contestants for whiffing on an entire category of very basic football questions.

It’s another moment that often recirculates online, and did once again on Sunday. But that video is not the end of that story: in March of this year, days before the pandemic locked down an entire country, Jeopardy! ran another football category. This time it was written by Trebek himself, complete with crude drawings he made to illustrate the signals a football referee makes. He also acted them out at the podium, much to the amusement of the studio audience and social media. Contestants did much better this time, in part thanks to Trebek’s pantomime and coaching, and he seemed downright chuffed by the results.

Of all the Jeopardy! moments Trebek has given us over the years, I think this is what will stay with me most. More than anything, Trebek always seemed to be on each contestant’s side. There were no favorites, there was no malice or disdain. The judges were to blame for a scoring correction here and there. And while he couldn’t help but poke fun in certain moments, he always wanted players to answer correctly. He didn’t want clues left on the board, because the people behind the scenes worked hard on those clues and, hey, it’s not his money the show is giving away. Everyone gets a payday and a picture, no exceptions.

In a social landscape where too often kindness and compassion are confused for weakness, Trebek was rooting for everyone. The joy through which he worked will endure, both in those who work on the show and contestants who appear on its stage and think the same way he always seemed to think. His genuine sense of wonder and interest in those who adored the show and his work was on display to the very end. The latest viral moment from Trebek was not him dunking on a nerdcore enthusiast, but thrilled by a contestant beatboxing to the point where the Jeopardy! host nearly joined in. It was a moment of growth, maybe, of letting people just enjoy the things they enjoy and appreciating them for wanting to play a role in the world Trebek helped create.

Alex Trebek made Jeopardy! great because he wanted everyone to win, both at the podium with signaling devices and those playing with ballpoint pens in hand at home. When I will think about Jeopardy! in whatever form it takes after Trebek leaves our screens, I hope the same sense of hope and earnest positivity remains. None of us have all the answers, not even Alex Trebek. He will not have taken any particular secrets with him when he passed. What he showed in his 80 years, though, is that no matter what the category our instincts should lean toward compassion, and the answer should always be the desire to get a little bit better every time.

Jeopardy! paid tribute to the late Alex Trebek with a special message before Monday’s broadcast, a day after the legendary host died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. The show inserted a special cold open into the broadcast that shared memories about Trebek and a message from show executive producer Mike Richards.

While Jeopardy! often airs in markets in the 7 o’clock hour locally, there are several US markets that air the show earlier in the day. That’s how word of James Holzhauer’s historic run coming to an end hit social media in advance of most people seeing it air “live” in syndication.

And so video of the cold open hit Twitter well before many were able to see the tribute air before Monday’s episode.

“Over the weekend we lost our beloved host, Alex Trebek. This is an enormous loss for our staff and crew, for his family and for his millions of fans. He loved this show, and everything it stood for,” Richards said. “In fact, he taped his final episodes less than two weeks ago. He will forever be an inspiration for his constant desire to learn, his kindness, and for his love of his family.”

Getting emotional, Richards confirmed that those episodes will air as expected, though there was no official word about what will happen to the show next.

“We will air his final 35 episodes as they were shot. That’s what he wanted,” Richards said. “On behalf of everyone here at Jeopardy, thank you for everything Alex. This is Jeopardy!”

The official Jeopardy! account on Twitter posted a message about Trebek that linked to its website, also confirming that episodes with Trebek as host will run until December 25.

It’s an emotional message paying tribute to a man who meant so much to the people he worked with. Despite the fear many had about Trebek and his diagnosis, and the long battle had with pancreatic cancer, it’s still shocking that a central figure like Trebek is truly gone. Another fan-made video of great Trebek moments also circulated on Monday that got many people emotional.

Fans will get 35 more chances to see him at the helm of the show, but it will be an emotional next few weeks of watching to say the least.

The death of Alex Trebek caught the world by surprise on Sunday, as news of the beloved Jeopardy! host succumbing to his battle with pancreatic cancer arrived on the heels of Joe Biden winning the 2020 presidential election. It was an emotional time for fans of the classic TV quiz show and Trebek’s comforting presence that anchored each episode of Jeopardy! for over 30 years. As tributes poured in, fellow Canadian Ryan Reynolds issued a heartfelt note of thanks to the late host, who graciously took the time to appear in Free Guy even while undergoing cancer treatment. Via Twitter:

“Alex Trebek was kind enough to film a cameo for our film Free Guy last year despite his battle. He was gracious and funny. In addition to being curious, stalwart, generous, reassuring and of course, Canadian. We love you, Alex. And always will.”

A brief preview of Trebek’s cameo can be seen in the second trailer for Free Guy, which racked up an impressive amount of views shortly after its release. In the short clip, Trebek is hosting an episode of Jeopardy!, which includes a question about Reynolds’ character, who is in the middle of dramatically altering the game world he lives in after falling in love with Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer.

You can watch the second Free Guy trailer below:

While Trebek’s death was a shock as he seemed to be doing well with his experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer, the host can still be seen on Jeopardy! for a little while longer per his final wishes. On Monday night, producer Mike Richards aired an emotional cold open where he honored Trebek and revealed that the late host had filmed episodes as recently as two weeks ago. “We will air his final 35 episodes as they were shot. That’s what he wanted,” Richards announced.

(Via Ryan Reynolds on Twitter)

Alex Trebek’s death on Sunday hit home for millions of people, as the longtime Jeopardy! host had become an institution of American television and someone that was a regular visitor into your home most every weeknight. As Ken Jennings said in his tribute on Twitter, Trebek felt like a family member to so many because of the familiarity and comfort you felt just watching him, even if you’d never met the man. Those lucky enough to have met him, meanwhile, have almost nothing but glowing things to say.

As tributes continue to pour out about Trebek, we thought we’d put together some of our favorite moments of his on Jeopardy! For me, the last two years after he announced his diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer produced some of the most memorable moments, as it seemed everyone that came on the show recognized that we weren’t going to have Trebek with us forever. That led to some touching moments as contestants made sure to give Trebek his flowers while he was still hosting the show, which if there’s a small silver lining to all of this, it is that he got a chance to hear from people how much he meant to them.

Two of the most shared clips in recent days have been of Dhruv Gaur’s touching “We Love You Alex” answer to Final Jeopardy during last year’s Tournament of Champions and recent champion Burt Thakur’s emotional testimony of how he learned to speak English by watching Trebek on Jeopardy! with his grandfather.

It has been pretty tremendous to see over the past couple years as contestants show their appreciation for the legendary host, and, as our Ryan Nagelhout wrote, part of what made Trebek so beloved was his genuine hope for everyone to do well on the show and the care he took in getting each contestant to open up, even ever-so-briefly, on the show. He also took delight in seeing contestants win, whether it was how astounded he was by the performances of Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer on their legendary runs, or this moment in which all three contestants tied (with the returning champ purposefully betting the amount to let the other two tie him) and, thus, all won $16,000 and got to come back to play the next day. (This rule eventually changed and there’s now a tiebreaker question.)

While Trebek was known for his kindness and warm-hearted nature, which was why so many took delight in seeing him make jokes or even curse, as everyone does, in outtakes like this oft-viral clip of him doing promos for the Jeopardy! phone game.

His dry humor was often on display, but almost never to the delight of the audience more than when they would slip a sports category in that would completely stump the contestants. His delivery of “If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die” is one of the funniest things ever on the show.

Trebek also listened to more “fun facts” about contestants than any human probably should have to, and sometimes their talents or stories would blow him away, such as the recent beatboxer who appeared on the show and made Trebek genuinely thrilled with his exploits.

Other times, people would relay some extremely obscure interests to the host and television audience, to whom Trebek would try to translate to the people at home, most famously with his “losers, in other words” quip after a lady explained nerdcore hip-hop.

And then there were those relationships we got to see him build on screen with two of the best contestants the show ever had, Jennings and Holzhauer, who are inextricably linked to Trebek forever. Holzhauer’s dominance was something that made Trebek almost guffaw at, with his incredible acumen, skill, and knowledge in just about every category. For Jennings, the on-screen dynamic was similar but the 74-time champ clearly loved to prod at Trebek and try to make him break his typical stoic character, never more successful than his answer of “hoe” that produced an all-time reaction from the host.

There are words that Jeopardy! fans will always hear in Trebek’s voice, none more than genre, but for me personally I will always laugh uncontrollably at the weirdest Jeopardy! video edit on the internet: Jeffpardy!

What’s amazing about Alex Trebek’s longevity as host of Jeopardy! is that nearly everyone you ask will have a different favorite memory of Trebek. Some will be incredibly personal, while others may simply be some very funny moment they’ll never forget, whatever the case, he has left an indelible mark on millions and it’s a pretty tremendous legacy to leave behind. As for Trebek himself, he became introspective after his cancer diagnosis and offered his thoughts on how he wanted his final episode to end.

“It’ll be a significant moment for me,” he said. “But I’ve kind of, in my mind, rehearsed it already, and what I would do on that day is tell the director, ‘Time the show down to leave me 30 seconds at the end. That’s all I want.’ And I will say my goodbyes and I will tell people, ‘Don’t ask me who’s going to replace me because I have no say whatsoever. But I’m sure that if you give them the same love and attention and respect that you have shown me…then they will be a success and the show will continue being a success. And until we meet again, God bless you and goodbye.”

Until we meet again, Alex.

Based on anecdotal evidence of me and my friends at lunch during high school, “Celebrity Jeopardy” is one of the most-quoted SNL sketches in the show’s history.

It aired 15 times between 1996, when Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond), Burt Reynolds (Norm Macdonald), and Jerry Lewis (Martin Short) were the special guests, and 2015, with Will Ferrell dusting off his Alex Trebek mustache for the 40th anniversary special. Following Trebek’s death from pancreatic cancer, SNL writer Steve Higgins shared the origin of the sketch and the time the Jeopardy! host reached out to Lorne Michaels.

“The idea for the sketch came from my wife. She said to me, ‘You should write a ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ sketch, because these celebrities don’t know that much.’ So I took it to Adam McKay,” he wrote for Variety. McKay was SNL‘s head writer before directing Anchorman, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Step Brothers and winning an Oscar for The Big Short. “The fun of writing the sketch to me was the formula,” Higgins continued. “You go through the categories, and the category that has the dirty word hidden in it is always going to be a joke for Sean Connery. And then you have to figure out what the Final Jeopardy! is, and what the reveal is that people won’t get in advance. It’s third-grade humor, which is the best kind of humor. But also Will Ferrell, one of the greatest comics in the world, playing the perfect straight man in Trebek. I’m just lucky that I got to be a part of it. That’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Trebek was a fan of Ferrell’s impression. In fact, he “told Lorne that he loved the sketch. I was always very happy about that,” Higgins revealed. “That would have been terrible, if he’d thought it was anything but love. You really can’t parody something if you don’t love it, or else it’s just mean.” Don’t let the oversized hat (“it’s bigger than a normal hat”) distract you, there’s nothing but love between Trebek and Turd Ferguson.

(Via Variety)

The late Alex Trebek is still hosting new episodes of Jeopardy!, and he will appear as the host of the show until Christmas Day. His death on Sunday, however, has sparked an outpouring of grief and tributes from fans and former contestants who loved the show’s host and the legacy game show he helped create.

Monday brought an on-air tribute to Trebek before the new episode that ran in syndication, the first since his death from pancreatic cancer was made public on Sunday. And later in the week his wife, Jean, also shared a thank you to fans for their tributes in the wake of Trebek’s passing. Jean Trebek posted a message to Instagram on Wednesday along with a wedding photo of her late husband, thanking fans for their support and the kind words that have been shared in the days since he died.

“My family and I sincerely thank you all for your compassionate messages and generosity,” Jean wrote. “Your expressions have truly touched our hearts. Thank you so very, very much.”

Thursday also brought another message from Trebek himself, filmed for a campaign to help children understand the concept of compassion.

“We all know that bullying is a problem in our society, and often is in our schools,” Trebek said. “And so is a lack of understanding of others’ situations.”

It’s yet another example of the impact Trebek tried to have both in the community and among the legions of fans who continue to mourn his loss in the trivia and game show community. Trebek will certainly be missed, and whoever takes over for him once his run of new shows is over will certainly have big, compassionate shoes to fill moving forward.

As delicate a subject as it may be, Jeopardy! needs a new host in the wake of Alex Trebek’s death. And at least one person oddsmakers believe has a chance to follow the late Trebek’s lead at least seems interested in the job.

Levar Burton, a TV legend in his own right after hosting Reading Rainbow and appearing on Star Trek, has become the subject of a fan petition to make him the new host of the show following Trebek’s death as a result of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. The 80-year-old host was likely nearing the end of his career before his Stage IV cancer diagnosis in 2019, so Jeopardy! would likely have had some replacements in mind. But a significant amount of fans want Burton hosting, and as we’ve seen with the Reading Rainbow revival, there’s a groundswell of folks online that really likes him.

A Change.org petition about his candidacy for replacing Trebek popped up online this week, and thousands of people quickly signed on.

Between hosting 21 seasons of the educational Reading Rainbow, playing the brainiac engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: the Next Generation, and filling the roll of Kunta Kinte in the ever important mini-series Roots, LeVar Burton has inspired and shaped the minds of several generations of trivia-loving nerds. This petition is to show Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and producers Mike Richards and Harry Friedman just how much love the public has for Burton, and how much we’d all love to see him as the next host of Jeopardy!

Burton himself also shared the petition, saying he’s “flattered” people think he should fill Trebek’s place on the legendary Jeopardy! stage.

“Even if nothing comes from it, I can’t tell how much how I appreciate all y’alls love and support,” Burton wrote on Twitter. We know Jeopardy! has new episodes with Trebek hosting scheduled to air until Christmas Day, and the show’s future past that remains uncertain with Trebek now gone and an ever-intensifying pandemic threatening to shut production down even if it has a host. But we know a lot of people are hoping Burton gets the call, and he certainly doesn’t sound like he’d say no if if that call came.

Last week brought word that beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek had died after a battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. Immediately, people began offering their remembrances of the legendary game show host, from those that knew him best from the show to fans who simply wanted to relive some of their favorite Trebek moments.

Trebek’s final episodes will air as scheduled through December, with Jeopardy!‘s executive producer offering a heartfelt message on the first show that aired following his death. There’s plenty of speculation regarding who may step into the host role on Jeopardy! in Trebek’s place, with Ken Jennings as the presumptive choice while others have expressed hope for someone like Levar Burton, but whoever it is will have massive shoes to fill — and will need to try and carve out their own tone for the show because no one can do it exactly as Trebek did.

On Monday night, prior to the Vikings game against the Bears, Adam Thielen decided to wear some custom cleats made by Mache to offer his own tribute to Trebek, with the host’s visage on one cleat and a Jeopardy board saying “We Miss You Alex” on the other.

It shows how impactful Trebek was on so many for all different walks of life that Thielen would want to pay his respects in this way. From the sports world to academia to everyday folks at home on their couch, he managed to make everyone feel at home watching the show.

Thursday is World Pancreatic Cancer Day, and for Jeopardy! fans, it’s a day that serves as an opportunity for remembrance. Earlier this month, longtime host Alex Trebek passed away following a battle with the disease at age 80. He was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in early 2019 and battled for more than a year, and through Christmas Day, Jeopardy! will broadcast episodes that were aired with Trebek as host from before his passing.

It’s unclear exactly when Thursday evening’s episode was shot, but before things kicked off, Trebek spoke to those watching at home about World Pancreatic Cancer Day. While donning a purple tie, shirt, and ribbon on his jacket — purple is the color used to honor those who have battled pancreatic cancer, and the show’s official Twitter account encouraged people to wear it on Thursday — Trebek urged people to take this seriously.

“Before we get into today’s match, a word about today,” Trebek said. “Today is World Pancreatic Cancer Day, and if you or anyone you know has developed some of the symptoms that I have talked about in the past, then by all means, get to a doctor, get yourself tested, I want you to be safe. This is a terrible, terrible disease.”

For more information on pancreatic cancer and the symptoms associated with it, here’s a link with more information via the Mayo Clinic. And for more on World Pancreatic Cancer Day, click here.

Ken Jennings will officially take over as host of Jeopardy! following the death of legendary host Alex Trebek. For now, that is.

The syndicated trivia titan of a game show announced Monday that it would resume taping episodes following Trebek’s death from pancreatic cancer, with Jennings as the first of what’s apparently a series of guest hosts continuing the season while the show searches for a permanent replacement.

The news came as part of a larger announcement about what the show will do to honor Trebek in the wake of his death. New episodes with him as host will air in syndication until December 25, and on Monday news came that there would be a greatest hits of sorts also airing in tribute to Trebek.

“Alex believed in the importance of Jeopardy! and always said that he wanted the show to go on after him,” Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards said in a statement. “We will honor Alex’s legacy by continuing to produce the game he loved with smart contestants and challenging clues. By bringing in familiar guest hosts for the foreseeable future, our goal is to create a sense of community and continuity for our viewers.”

Jennings will take over as Jeopardy! host on November 30, when the show begins to tape again. And the news makes it sound more like a trial run for Jennings as host than an official announcement that he’s taking over full-time, as many have speculated. Whether that becomes official seems unclear right now, but Jennings is a logical solution both in the long and short-term. He already works on the show behind the scenes, and he certainly is recognizable among fans as the official Greatest Of All Time after his win in the Jeopardy! GOAT Tournament, which aired in January.

On Monday, word broke that legendary contestant Ken Jennings will be one of the guest hosts on upcoming episodes of Jeopardy! following the passing of iconic host Alex Trebek. Trebek, who passed away recently from pancreatic cancer, will still be on the air with never-seen episodes, however, and Jeopardy! announced further details on when his last shows will air.

First, the show will air ten of Trebek’s best episodes during the weeks of Dec. 21 and Dec. 28, referring to “anticipated preemptions around Christmas and New Year’s.” From there, however, Trebek’s last week of episodes will hit the air during the week of Jan. 4, 2021, before the guest-hosted shows begin on Jan. 11.

“Alex believed in the importance of Jeopardy! and always said that he wanted the show to go on after him,” said Jeopardy! Executive Producer Mike Richards. “We will honor Alex’s legacy by continuing to produce the game he loved with smart contestants and challenging clues. By bringing in familiar guest hosts for the foreseeable future, our goal is to create a sense of community and continuity for our viewers.”

It is important to note that the show indicates a long-term replacement “will not be named at this time,” and the announcement refers to a “series of interim guests hosts” that will begin with Jennings. While the choice of Jennings to be the first will undoubtedly spark speculation, fans can now plan around the airings of Trebek’s last episodes, which will be must-see television for fans of the beloved trivia program.

Two weeks ago, the world lost an icon as longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek passed away after a lengthy battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Trebek had just wrapped up filming a number of episodes of the show he hosted for decades, which will run through early January before the show begins airing new episodes with a series of guest hosts, starting with Ken Jennings.

On Thanksgiving, one of Trebek’s new episodes will air and in it he offers a powerful message about what to be thankful for even amid a year like 2020 in which so many things have gone wrong.

“Happy Thanksgiving, ladies and gentleman,” Trebek says. “In spite of what America and the rest of the world is experiencing right now, there are many reasons to be thankful. There are more and more people extending helping hands to do a kindness to their neighbors, and that’s a good thing. Keep the faith, we’re going to get through all of this, and we are going to be a better society because of it.”

It is a perspective that I think many need to hear as we all seek some kind of optimism in such a dreadful year, and for Trebek to provide it, even as he was in the throes of his battle with cancer is just further evidence of his incredible ability to be a calming and welcome voice to people, one that is sorely missed.

Jeopardy! fans are sadly counting down the last days of Alex Trebek’s run as the long-running game show’s host after he died of pancreatic cancer in November at age 80. The show’s taping has resumed without Trebek, as Jeopardy! GOAT Ken Jennings is taking the duties for now.

But some eagle-eyed Internet users, or perhaps someone searching for more information about the late Trebek, noticed a nice tribute to the late Jeopardy! answer-keeper. If you search “Alex Trebek” via Google, you get search results for the now-former Jeopardy! host. But the top of the results page suggests you do something that Trebek himself would require if you were on the soundstage.

“Did you mean: who is Alex Trebek” the search engine asks, a nod to the fact that Jeopardy! contestants have to answer in the form of a question. The results quirk was noticed on Monday and shared on social media. And, indeed, a try at searching for Trebek did come up like this on Monday evening in a Chrome browser tab.

It’s a very simple way to pay tribute to Trebek, and it’s oddly touching that some folks working behind a billion-dollar monolith of a mega corporation would take the time to make some trivia nerds very happy.

Jeopardy! is a game of structure and rules, so learning that one of them is entirely arbitrary may rattle some longtime fans of the most popular syndicated trivia show in America. And yet, here we are, slowly seeing many of the institutions we’ve come to rely upon erode before our very eyes.

The latest, perhaps less consequential example of this comes from journalist Clare McNear, who wrote a book about Jeopardy! called “Answers in the Form of Questions” this year. She also wrote a post for The Ringer about who the next permanent host of the show may be, as Ken Jennings has taken over the duties temporarily following the death of Alex Trebek.

The most fascinating part of that story, however, was pointed out by McNear herself on Twitter: The show’s host is actually in charge of determining when to ring the tone that signals when contestants ran out of time to answer a question. Yes, though you likely may have assumed there’s a set time players have, it’s really up to the host to physically press a button that plays the chime. This was revealed by other hosts of spinoff Jeopardy! shows, including Bob Bergen, the former host of Jep!

Both Bergen and Patrick remember the surreal experience of finding themselves suddenly in control of that iconic blue set. “I will tell you, it is one of most difficult jobs in the world to host a game show,” says Bergen. He still recalls his shock when he realized that the boop-boop-boop tone that sounds when contestants don’t ring in wasn’t automated—the host, be it him or Trebek, had a button in front of him to manually trigger it. “The very first day, Harry”—Harry Friedman also oversaw the trio of spinoffs—“is showing me the podium with the button. I said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s no set time? Do you edit it down so people don’t go, ‘How come he had ten seconds and he had four?’ He said, ‘Nope, and nobody in the history of the show has ever questioned it.’”

The tough-to-describe sound is impossible to not hear if you’re a fan of the show, which is why an audio example of time differences may help here. A handy video of four different clues all being read by Trebek surfaced online after the Ringer article was published. And what may have been dismissed as editing for time now seems to make a lot more sense: It was actually Trebek deciding when players didn’t have the answers and it was best to move on.

If anything, it’s a simple reminder of just how much of an impact Trebek had on Jeopardy! and how daunting the task of replacing him will be. Not only was Trebek the voice of the show, he quite literally controlled how the game flowed. Contestants have trained their answering skills on the signaling device on the cadence of his voice and the way he ended questions to get their timing down. But, as it turns out, it was also his own skills on a different button that was key to the show’s pace over the decades as well.

[via The Ringer]

Alex Trebek’s final games hosting Jeopardy! set up an emotional holiday season for game show fans, as the show’s final episodes taped before his death will air right up until Christmas Day. To celebrate the late Trebek’s legacy, Jeopardy! has put together a number of tributes.

Jeopardy! announced the tribute on Thursday, with two full weeks of Trebek’s favorite episodes where he traveled around the globe to deliver clues from iconic locations. The collection begins on December 21 and runs until New Year’s Day and features episodes from the last two decades where Trebek covers a wide range of topics.

Here’s the full list of episodes and their air date:

Week 1: Dec. 21-25

Monday, Dec. 21 Hockey (Original Airdate: 10/14/04)
Tuesday, Dec. 22 Sesame Street (Original Airdate: 04/04/06)
Wednesday, Dec. 23 The U.S. Air Force: USO Tour to Japan (Original Airdate: 09/27/07)
Thursday, Dec. 24 Machu Picchu (Original Airdate: 11/06/07)
Friday, Dec. 25 Niagara Falls (Original Airdate: 01/15/09)

Week 2: Dec. 28 – Jan. 1
Monday, Dec. 28 Journey Through Israel (Original Airdate: 11/23/09)
Tuesday, Dec. 29 Galápagos Wildlife (Original Airdate: 12/09/09)
Wednesday, Dec. 30 Operatic Costumes: The Met (Original Airdate: 11/09/11)
Thursday, Dec. 31 Petra (Original Airdate: 11/14/11)
Friday, Jan. 1 National Museum of African American History and Culture (Original Airdate: 2/06/17)

As a Niagara Falls native, I’ll be particularly interested in that Christmas Day episode, but there are lots of really interesting locations the show has explored with these segments, including some much harder to get to than the American Falls, such as, say, Machu Picchu.

Anyway, to get you ready for the “Around the World” tribute, here’s a supercut of Alex Trebek speaking French, if you need it.

C’est un danger, indeed.

“And now, here is the host of Jeopardy! Alex Trebek.”

Johnny Gilbert has introduced Alex Trebek as the host of Jeopardy! over 8,000 times, but he’ll say it for the final time on January 8. That’s the airdate of the last episode that Trebek taped before he died from pancreatic cancer at 80 years old. In a special issue of People, Gilbert, 96, remembers Trebek as a special talent and all-around good guy.

“Alex has always been the same person. He was very introspective, he read a tremendous amount, and traveled a lot. He was always doing crossword puzzles to keep his mind active,” Gilbert said. He called Trebek “very intelligent” and revealed that he was “always telling the youngsters in the audience, ‘You’ve got to read, you have to learn. That’s the way you’re going to succeed.'” Gilbert also told an amusing story about a question an audience member once asked Trebek. It involves thongs, obviously:

“He would answer any question anyone wanted to ask. He would get so involved that we would have to hold up coming back out of commercial for him to finish with the audience, but he insisted,” Gilbert said. Some of those questions [were] silly. “One gal asked him, ‘Boxers or briefs?’ Alex took a beat and said, ‘Thongs!’ I told him a long time ago, ‘If this show goes away, you could be a stand-up comedian.’ He always loved to do jokes.”

Gilbert doesn’t know who will replace Trebek as the next host, but he has some advice for them. “Jeopardy! is a very special game. All that information that he gave out, aside from what was actually on the show, was in his mind,” he told People. “Somebody has to be able to handle that. If the person lets the show be the show, it will be fine.”

(Via People)