One of last week’s bigger shocks was the news that Alex Trebek, longtime host of quiz show Jeopardy!, has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Trebek revealed the news in a typically professional, terse, yet quietly droll video message, in which he assured his many brainy fans that he intends to fight the disease and continue as host of the show that made him a television and trivia legend.
Now Jeopardy’s second-most-famous star has weighed in: Ken Jennings, who holds the record for the show’s longest winning streak — 74 games, a feat he achieved in 2004 shortly after the program loosened rules about how long contestants can remain on the show. Jennings already tweeted about Trebek, calling him “the last [Walter] Cronkite: authoritative, reassuring TV voice you hear every night, almost to the point of ritual.” He also spoke to Vulture. Now Jennings has penned a moving essay for The New York Times about the host of the show that made him famous.
“Let me be clear: This is not an elegy,” Jennings wrote, before saying he hopes he’ll keep the job for a long time coming. “It’s impossible to even imagine the show with anyone else. But he’s been doing one job so long, and so well, that I think we sometimes take him for granted. Let’s make sure that we appreciate the man as long as we have him.”
Jennings admitted he doesn’t know Trebek all that much more than those who haven’t spent a good chunk of a year correctly showing off his arcane trivia prowess. “He remains, I like to say, a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a Perry Ellis suit,” Jennings wrote.
Alex Trebek fascinates America, but we don’t quite get him. He’s a game show host, but he’s not hearty or ingratiating. He’s a comedy signifier, most famously lampooned by Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live” for many years, but he also seems to be in on the joke. My picture of him has been built up in little glimpses over the years, to the point where I finally feel confident handling the endless stream of “What’s Alex like?”
Jennings reveals that Trebek is “all business” when the game is on; understandably, as he “has 61 clues to get to.” He does loosen up when the cameras are off, though, taking “studio audience questions at every break, sometimes slipping into funny accents or even bits of soft-shoe.”
He also reiterates his comparison to Cronkite, adding one to Johnny Carson, saying they may be gone, “but Alex Trebek remains, the last of the old-school broadcasters who once visited us every night as a matter of ritual.” And just to remind you: This isn’t an elegy, as Jennings said, Trebek’s not going anywhere.
(Via The AV Club)
