How Is ‘Scrabble’ Host Craig Ferguson at the Game?
“My average word score is 24.6, which seems a little low,” Craig Ferguson admits to TV Insider, modestly proving that, while someone else might be a better contestant, the comedian, former late-night host and self-professed “Scrabble nerd” is still a perfect emcee for this show.
“I think I’m pretty good at it, or I thought I was pretty good at it, until you start meeting people who play competitively,” Ferguson says. “You’re like, wow, that’s crazy.”
It’s only one of the surprises the new host encounters in the second season of the show inspired by the popular board game, which kicked off last month. “I feel like I’m with my own people when I’m doing Scrabble,” he admits. “I mean, I love the contestants. I love playing with them. I love doing it. And so you’ll say to people, that’s an amazing word. What does it mean? And nine times out of 10, when somebody plays an amazing word and you ask them what it means, they don’t know.”
In the Thursday, February 19, episode, players work to construct the most complicated words for a prize of $10,000.
“When people get a bingo across two triple word squares, I mean, I can’t tell you how exciting I find that,” Ferguson says. “It’s very rare when you see someone score more than 100 points on one word. It’s a big deal. And because it’s in a game show environment, people get excited, the audience gets excited.”
And while he confirms he doesn’t know more than the contestants do, Ferguson says that’s what makes it fun. “I feel like I’m with my own people,” he tells us. “The star of the Scrabble show is Scrabble. We are just there to make it work.”
Scrabble, Thursdays, 8/7c, The CW
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