‘Jeopardy!’: Ken Jennings on Mistake That Haunts Him & Hardest Part of Show
Ken Jennings has opened up about the one mistake on Jeopardy! that still haunts him to this day, as well as what the hardest part of the show is. Talking about his new book The Complete Kennections with Mental Floss, the Jeopardy! host discussed many aspects of the game show and how his perspective has changed from contestant to host.
Ken Jennings admitted to the outlet that he still feels he will never be as good a host as Alex Trebek. “He was just so perfect for that job. Like he’d been engineered in an Ontario lab for it. We miss Alex every day,” he said. “But the one thing I can bring to the table is that I remember what it was like to be a contestant. So a lot of that is just remembering the panic. There’s a lot of big feelings when you’re a Jeopardy! player. And so every morning I come out and I try to chat with the players, I try to talk them down. I convey to them, if possible, that I’m on their side and everybody on the show is on their side, and we just want to see three people play well.”
Jennings also can’t help but reminisce about how his life changed after he walked onto that set in 2004. One moment that will live with him forever, though, is getting the Final Jeopardy on his last game wrong. “For me, that was H&R Block, the final question I got wrong, which means pretty much every time I drive past a strip mall, I get to remember my failing. So that’s nice,” he said.
The clue in “Business and Industry” was “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only 4 months a year.” The correct response was H&R Block, which Jennings’ opponent answered. He said FedEx, ultimately losing the game.
Although Jennings came up with 500 Kennection Questions, he does not have any part in writing the clues for Jeopardy! “The writers are great at it. They do not need my help,” he said. However, the Jeopardy! G.O.A.T. said that, like Trebek, he might bring a fact or two back from vacation that he learned and suggest it to the writer’s room. “Sometimes they humor me and I see them on the show,” Jennings shared.
He might be constantly thinking of puzzles, but do not ask Ken Jennings to come up with another anecdote. “That has got to be the hardest part of being on that show 75 times. Answering the clues is hard enough, but then they make you have a funny story every half an hour,” he said.
“Nobody has 75 funny stories. If you watch Jeopardy!, you know that some people don’t even have one funny story. I sure ran out very quickly. But I have been traveling a lot lately, and that’s a very safe area for Jeopardy! stories. So if I had to do this again, I could say that a llama spit on me in Peru or something.” Jennings shared that he could be lying about the llama because the game show does not fact-check stories like they do their clues.
Jeopardy!, Season 42 premiere, September 8, check local listings
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keep it up Ken!
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Ken is GREAT. . Alex would be the first to praise him. NOT watshername.
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Ken does a great job….still enjoy the show as moves forward in time.
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People should realize, his predecessor was the host for over thirty years - he wasn't born great. Ken is a fine host but I disagree about the writers. For at least the past year - not too good at all.
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Ken Jennings does a great job as host and his Jeopardy champion status gives him creds Alex didn’t have.
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Ken is the best game show host ever. And he’s still improving.
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No he is not. Ken does not have and never will have the versatility, candor, and legacy of Bob Barker and Bill Cullen (who host more different game shows than any other television personality, yet daily dealt with the remnants of polio in his left leg).
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Polio more or less ended in the 1950’s. He’s had What ? 75 yrs to deal with a bit of a limp? You’re joking, right?
Ken’s job is much harder and he’s not dealing with double-digit IQs . Loved Bob Barker though.
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True. He can’t compare to Alex, and I’m sure he feels the same way.
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So that's why Ken yaks it up all the time and grins when contestants get it wrong and he has to say the right answer -- to make them comfortable 🤣
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I think I saw Jeopardy champion Will Yancey at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix yesterday, is that possible?
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Will Justina Machado be the Jeopardy Host?
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Say what you will about my critiques of Scott Riccardi's anecdotes sometimes being hard to believe 🤥 (or enjoy), this article reinforces at least that suspicion, "because the game show does not fact-check stories like they do their clues." I rest my case. 👩⚖️
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AGREE!
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You must be fun at a party fact-checking each and every utterance. How do you prioritize all the invitations?
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I don't do parties. 🤣
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how could you when there are no invitations?🙂
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Ken converses with the contestants much better and more naturally than Alex did, making them more at ease.
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To be honest, I never really cared for Alex Trebek. He was eye candy but I thought he was a snob and he was just a TV host. Ken Jennings has it all and he’s legit. I think he’s a great host. I do agree the H&R Block question that’s a given. I can’t believe that he got it wrong but don’t beat yourself up. Look like he got out of his time on jeopardy: fortune, fame, a whole new life and he is back on Jeopardy where he belongs.
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That is a cheating game in my eyes. The fact that you got the answer right but pronounced it slightly wrong, or you misspelled a word on Final Jeopardy, even though the answer is correct, but you left out a letter, totally cheating. I have seen people lose because they left out 1 letter or have an accent and don't pronounce the word exact, or just pronounce it without an accent. Wrong, Wrong, cheating. Yea, no, we quit watching because the game is so rigged. And Ken Jennings is a terrible host.
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You’re the only one who thinks that.
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I can see her point. But she have this issue confused with Pat Sajak’s abysmal misfits of hearing challenges on Wheel of Fortune.
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Please don’t come back. Jeopardy and it’s great fans don’t need you.
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I was disappointed with that final Jeopardy answer Carlsbad Cavrans.
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I think the show has too many freak contestants. This will cause the show to fail. It’s all Mike Davies’ fault. Disgusting!
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grow up.
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