Ken Jennings Reveals One Thing He’s ‘Learned’ Since Hosting ‘Jeopardy!’
Being a Jeopardy! champion is a lot different than being the host of Jeopardy!. Ken Jennings shared the one thing he has learned since becoming the host in 2021, and what he does differently than Alex Trebek.
Talking with KUOW, Ken Jennings said that he learned it is hard to know how contestants will play the game when the lights and cameras are on them and an audience is watching.
“People who were great on a written test get overwhelmed in that [environment] because it is overwhelming,” the host shared, explaining, “Jeopardy! moves so fast.”
But he knows that the contestants are accomplishing a lifelong dream. A lot of feelings emerge during the game because there are many things that contestants cannot control. Because he understands the pressure they are going through, Jennings has changed up something the previous host used to do.
Trebek would meet the contestants for the first time at the beginning of the show, during the introductions. But Jennings prefers to give a little greeting before the game show begins. “I want to say, ‘I’m on your side here. We’re going to do great. It’s actually going to be fun when you look back on this, believe it or not,” he told the outlet.
Jennings was promoting his trivia book, The Complete Kennections, and his life basically revolves around trivia. “Jeopardy! in particular, is a place where, every night, for half an hour, facts matter,” Jennings said. Due to the rise of AI, and how he lost to a computer on the IBM Watson challenge 14 years ago, Jennings think fact-checking is so important, especially with trivia.
“Trivia should bring people together, because despite the name, it’s not usually trivial. It’s usually stuff that we collectively know as a culture,” he shared on the importance of trivia. “Before the age of specialization, this was the kind of thing that united us as a culture. I like to think it has the potential to do it again.”
Jennings wants to debunk the myth that trivia exists only to make someone else feel better about themselves because they know a specific fact.
Jeopardy!, Season 42, September 8, check local listings
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