Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So, Jennings will be the first of a new series of interim hosts in place of Trebek when the show resumes production next Monday.

By bringing in familiar guest hosts for the foreseeable future, our goal is to create a sense of community and continuity for our viewers," the show's executive producer, Mike Richards, said.”
 
The last episode of Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek as the host will air on Christmas Day. Then the interim hosts will get their chance.
 
Matt Amodio just finished a streak of 38 wins (and last night's loss) on Jeopardy, earning $1,519,601. That's the 2nd-longest Jeopardy! streak, beating James Holzhauer's 32-game winning streak.

He's a 5th-year computer-science PhD candidate at Yale, who works in a computer science lab with neural networks and genetics. His hobby is reading Wikipedia pages, and that's how he gained so much knowledge.

One way he saved mental energy during games was by saying WHAT'S for any question, even when it should be WHO'S or WHEN'S or WHERE'S. He also skipped first names, which avoids careless mistakes. For example, if the answer was "She's the current host of Jeopardy!" he would ask "What's Bialik?" instead of "Who is Mayim Bialik?"

There's a great interview with him at Yale, from mid-streak.

I’m glad that they show the category titles on the camera - otherwise you would see the huge smile on my face whenever American history comes up - that's my wheelhouse. Then, when I see things like celebrity marriages, I cringe a little bit.
 
“His hobby is reading Wikipedia pages, and that's how he gained so much knowledge….”

That’s interesting, Wikipedia is actually filled with so much misinformation, because it actually can be edited by anyone at any time, without validation. It’s a source, but it’s not accredited source for information. If I recall, didn’t Holzhauer say that he actually gained most of his note from reading encyclopedias in a podcast? I believe he did.
 
Last edited:
That’s interesting, Wikipedia is actually filled with so much misinformation, because it actually can be edited by anyone at any time, without validation.

I wouldn't trust Wikipedia articles to be entirely correct when the topic is anything controversial, like the reasons two countries are at war or what we know about vaccines, but when it comes to sports, geography, math, and many other data-driven or scientific subjects, the information tends to be pretty accurate. You can't be sure, as you point out, but when it's a question of which river divides which countries, odds are that you're going to get that Jeopardy! question right.
 
I had a chance to talk to Ken Jennings the other day. Since I'm a programmer, I asked him about his pre-Jeopardy! career as a software engineer for a healthcare company. He told me that he was a Java programmer, using both the Emacs and vi text editors. That's a lower-level way to do coding, compared with the integrated development environments (IDEs) that most programmers use these days.

He worked at that programming job right after college, so it around the years 2000, 2001, etc. Now he's the sole host of the Jeopardy! show. He tapes a week's worth of shows in a single day, and I bet we'd all like to work only one day a week!
 
I had a chance to talk to Ken Jennings the other day. Since I'm a programmer, I asked him about his pre-Jeopardy! career as a software engineer for a healthcare company. He told me that he was a Java programmer, using both the Emacs and vi text editors. That's a lower-level way to do coding, compared with the integrated development environments (IDEs) that most programmers use these days.

He worked at that programming job right after college, so it around the years 2000, 2001, etc. Now he's the sole host of the Jeopardy! show. He tapes a week's worth of shows in a single day, and I bet we'd all like to work only one day a week!
Did you get a pic?
 
I talked to Ken during a break between Jeopardy! tapings.

They don't allow photos of the stage, but they allow photos elsewhere in the studio. I spotted a TV camera in a side hallway with a monitor that was still aimed at the stage, so I snapped a photo of the screen. When I had talked to Ken, he was standing in the position of the guy with his hands in his pockets (top left).

The curved desk in the foreground is where the social media staff works, which puzzled me. Since shows are taped many weeks before they are broadcast, what exactly are the social media staff doing during a live taping?

jeopardy-stage.jpg
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.