Posted on 11/08/2020 4:05:50 PM PST by Kaslin
Because he made them feel at home, Americans welcomed Alex Trebek into their homes, night after night, for good-natured entertainment.
The audience takes its seats, members murmuring amongst themselves. Some comment on how the soundstage looks smaller in person than on the small screen, an optical illusion caused by wide-angle lenses. Others note the sets cool temperatures, intended to offset the stage lights heat. As the production staff provide information and instructions about what they are about to see, the guests just take it all in.
Preliminaries concludedaudience briefed, crew in positionthe theme music starts, the lights come up, and the cameras roll. The shows voice for nearly two score years intones the introduction, rising with the audiences applause to reach his crescendo:
And now, here is the host of Jeopardy!Alex Trebek!
* * *
In the last episode of his documentary Baseball, filmmaker Ken Burns highlights the inherently nostalgic nature of a national pastime that has as its prime objective going home. Home, of course, means many things to many people. In many cases, it represents a sense of placea feeling or place of beingmore than a physical place itself.
Johnny Gilbert recognizes that. At the start of a Jeopardy! taping, the announcer introduces himself as the person whos been yelling at you for years. (Hes only half-joking; the Hollywood legend in his own rightat a spry 96 years youngstill gets physically animated as he enunciates his script.) He adds that I feel like I know all of youyouve welcomed us into your homes every night.
Gilberts comments hit on the way Trebek feels like an extended member of the family to millions of Americans, someone who has come into their homes every evening, five days a week, for more than 36 years. It seems somehow fitting that Trebek represents merely the public face of a close-knit Jeopardy! crew, a television family with names and faces still in the same roles as when I appeared on the show more than a quarter-century ago.
To me, and some of my fellow contestants, Stage 10 at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Overland Avenue represents a home. But for nearly four decades, Jeopardy! and Trebek have served as a home for millionseven those who have never set foot on the Sony Pictures Studios lot.
* * *
What has made Trebek feel like a member of so many Americans families? Why the outpouring of support and compassion when news of his cancer diagnosis became public? Familiarity helps, of course. Hosting a television show for more than three decades makes one a constant presence in American culture.
But, as evidenced by his behavior at a taping last fall, Trebek has commanded respect precisely by shying away from the limelight. Yes, he hosts a popular quiz show, which has brought him no small amount of fame and fortune. But most regular viewers dont tune in to see Trebekthey tune in to compete against the material, and watch the contestants strut their intellectual stuff.
Unlike other game shows, where hosts can show off their outsize personalities, hosting Jeopardy! requires a light touchgently moving the game along, and deferring to contestants rather than using them as fodder for comedy bits. In fact, one of the few times Trebek seemed out-of-place on stagea Pennsylvania gubernatorial debate he moderated in 2018arose precisely because he inserted himself into the discussion far too often.
In general, Trebek deprecates, both on camera and off. Asked about his health by an audience member, he responds by saying, Im doing fine, and then elaborates only slightly: I have good days and bad days, and todays OK. As might be expected from someone battling a major illness, Trebek doesnt seek to make his condition a major topic of discussionhe has a job to do, and wants to get on with it for as long as he can.
Trebek also employs humor to self-deprecate, responding to audience questions with quick quips, often at his own expense. Asked for his hobbies and outside interests: I drink. If he couldnt host game shows, what would he have done with his life? Pope. Im fine with the celibacy, and I like wearing whiteaccentuated with a few faux pontifical blessings for comical emphasis. And when Gilbert jokes that a gift bag contains boxes of Depends, Trebek shouts out: Ill take em!
In 2007, Britains Labour Party tried to humanize their otherwise-dull prime minister, Gordon Brown, with a marketing campaign: Not Flash, Just Gordon. Trebek holds little of Browns dour Scottish demeanor but, due in large part to his working-class Canadian roots, he eschews flashiness, or a desire for cheap headlines. He has functioned in the background of American life, ever-present, but rarely foremost in prominence.
Now, however, that voice seems conspicuous by its absence.
* * *
At that November taping, one of the contestants in particular struggled mightily. Early in the episode, she couldnt master the signaling button to ring in. But once she learned how to use the buzzer, she rang inand froze. She rang in for the wrong clues, and forgot responses under the glare of the stage lights. On this particular day, everything that could go wrong for her did.
Having over-compensated when behind in a match myself, I couldnt help but feel compassion for the contestant, who seemed shell-shocked by the experience. With a negative score heading into Final Jeopardy!, the producers escorted her off the stage, while the two remaining contestants played out the last clue.
At the end of the match, the producers brought the contestant back on stage while the shows closing credits rolled. While the two other contestants chatted with Alex, this third contestant stood there awkwardly, likely wishing she was standing anywhere else in the world than on that soundstage.
Trebek noticed her discomfort, and pulled her aside for a quiet conversation as the cameras switched off. I know not what words he spoke to her, or whether his words helped to put the episode in proper perspective. But I couldnt help but recognize the fact that a man fighting for his life took time to comfort this distraught contestant. That heartfelt gesture had an impact on me, an observer watching from a distance; I can only imagine it had a similar impact it had on her.
* * *
Towards the end of the day, I had a surprising feeling. I had flown out to Los Angeles solely to attend a Jeopardy! taping. Given Trebeks ill health, and the impact Jeopardy! had on my lifeI met my sister through the showI wanted to go back to Stage 10 while I still could. I got on a plane, went straight from the airport to the studio, and after several patient hours of waiting, got escorted onto the set.
Yet despite all the effort and all the drama, an hour or so into the taping, that emotion had all subsided. The show felt like just another Jeopardy! taping, one of the many I have seen in Washington and Los Angeles. I even thought to myself that I could come back for another taping in the coming months.
I soon stopped myself, realizing that day would never arrive. Trebeks illness had numbered his days, and the coronavirusnot on anyones radar that day last Novemberclosed the Jeopardy! set to audience members.
But as usual, Trebezs pitch-perfect professionalism and quick wit had calmed my emotions, and made me feel at home, just as he has made millions of people feel at home for decades. And because he made them feel at home, Americans welcomed him, and his show, into their homes, night after night, for good-natured entertainment in the form of answers and questions.
Alex Trebek has himself gone home now, having left us with many fond memories and a powerful legacy. Requiescat in pace.
What is “goodbye” for $1000?
RIP
I don’t know. I got tired of the stiff, semi-intellectually-arrogant “Jeopardy”.
I ended up liking “Cash Cab” better. Still challenging but a lot more fun.
It started out very challenging but then it gradually mirrored the dumbing down of America.
The show got worse when hard subjects were sidelined; instead we now have mostly popular culture and bizarre category titles.
This is sad news. An icon, and a good and decent man.
I always liked Jeopardy, but I’m a little smarter than most of the Neanderthals on Free Republic.
Will there be a replacement host, or will the show just cease?
Ugh! Me hit you with club for that!
I’m sure they’ll replace Alex with an HIV positive, left-handed, black, trans, vampire, with an eating disorder.
Will there be a replacement host, or will the show just cease?
...
I think, James, or whoever the most charismatic winner is will be the host...the guy who was the grand champion.
Unfortunately, theyve been using that old liberal idiot Ken Jennings as cohost this season. Im sure he slides over to host. Im done.
Or Steve Harvey
LOL. Me go bam bam too. I live alone and turn on Jeopardy at dinner time so I don’t have to eat alone.
Ken Jennings and that wonderful LV gambler with buck teeth were hardly idiots.
James Holzhauer? I like him too. Great fun to watch.
An older former female coworker said she was a
contestant on HIGH ROLLERS when he hosted that 70s
show and that he was an arrogant flirty SOB then.
I couldnt believe this given his beloved status, but I guess he matured
From CBC, 63 MUSIC HOP with Gordon Lightfoot:
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-gordon-lightfoot-met-alex-trebek-on-cbc-tv-1.4668018
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_R2boTSg2E
Jeopardy gave a nod to pop culture... but, they never “dumbed it down”. To the last show I saw... this week.. it was STILL challenging.
Too many artsy categories and contestants. Many of whom are effeminate types
Does anyone remember Art Fleming? His death was another “end of an era.” Those pesky eras just keep ending.
RIP!
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