alex trebek

You should be reading Classic Television Showbiz, a really fun blog that often showcases video of old and/or obscure TV shows. This week he has a video of the short-lived game show Pitfall, which Alex Trebek hosted.

Not only did the company that produced the show run out of money, they ran out of money while the show was still on the air. So they couldn't pay some of the later contestants and Trebek didn't get paid either! He still has the check framed in his office. Video below (quality isn't great, but it's interesting).

Last month's triumphant return of the "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch to Saturday Night Live was a hilarious bit of celebrity snark genius. It is without a doubt the only sketch in the show's history that just gets better and better every time a new one is rolled out for the public to digest and enjoy.

The most recent incarnation of the sketch was no exception. In fact, it built on the solid foundation that lay before it by casting Tom Hanks as a clueless himself and bringing back Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds. MacDonald's appearance was funny not just because he does a scary good Reynolds, but I also like to think that every time he returns to the show, Don Ohlmeyer cries a little inside.

As much as there was to laugh at in the sketch, a tiny but hilarious joke seeped through the cracks and no one seemed to spot it -- until now. I have found the missing joke from last month's Jeopardy! sketch, thanks to my keen eyes, my intrepid nose and my ever-widening butt.

If you go by all of the various stories in the media, it would seem that TV viewers just aren't into award shows anymore. The ratings are often down year to year, and if people are tuning in it seems to be more for the fashions, the red carpet, and maybe to see a particular category/performance by someone on the show.

So it's interesting that there are so many new genre award shows popping up. TV Land has had their own awards (The TV Land Awards) for a number of years now (the latest airs next week with Neil Patrick Harris hosting), and Bravo has The A-List Awards, whatever they are (it aired earlier this week). Now GSN is getting into the game (no pun intended) with The Game Show Awards, a show dedicated to giving awards to game shows, game show hosts, even game show sponsors!

There are some forces in the universe that should never be messed with: the sun, black holes and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Take it from someone who knows.

The man has the unholy ability to make ANYONE look stupid on national television. He can make an Ivy League PhD appear as though he went to city college. He can turn a Midwestern elementary school teacher into someone no parent would entrust their child with for eight hours a day. His trademark "Oh, sorry" alone can make a world renowned neurosurgeon look like a jabbering mental patient who doesn't know the name of the bone that houses the human brain.

So it's no wonder that politicians are scared to be seen in the same camera shot with the man.

The hours of preparation have been grueling. The amount of studying has been tedious and boring. The sacrifice required to reach this moment has been great and punishing. I didn't shower for two days and the smell almost set off the fire alarm in some of the smaller rooms.

Now the only weapons I have at my disposal are my nimble fingers, my rapid comprehension and my ability to remember everything I've read in the span of four days. We're about to go head-to-head with the razor-toothed man eater that is the Jeopardy! contestant test.

We're gonna need a bigger brain.

Studying was never my strong-suit. I always got by in college on my looks; that would explain why I was a C-student. Come to think of it, planning isn't either. Neither is getting enough REM sleep, keeping a clean house or (as you can see by my picture) sticking to a regular skin care regime.

So when it came to preparing for my Jeopardy! test, the same substandard habits applied. I could have started cracking the books at least a month ago when I first heard the website was holding online contestant tests at the Jeopardy! website. It just seemed like a huge mountain of knowledge to tame in one sitting. Plus, I had about 15 Tales from the Darkside episodes that my TiVo had taped and were about to go to waste.

So when it came time to crack the books and cram in as much information as my brain could hold, I not only had to make up for lost time.

If you've ever wanted to be a contestant on the legendary Jeopardy!, then get in line. It starts behind me. I already called dibs and stamped it.

Jeopardy! will conduct national online contestant tests this week on their official website. The tests will take place by timezone: Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern for people on the East Coast, Wednesday at 8 p.m. Central and 7 p.m. Mountain for residents in those time zones and Thursday at 8 p.m. for Pacific Coast, Alaska and Hawaii viewers.

As part of this annual game show tradition, I, your humble (not-so-much) TVSquad blogger Danny Gallagher, will also be one of the many, many people trying out for the most hallowed game show in the history of American broadcasting. And as always, you get to come along for the ride. Please keep all hands and arms inside the vehicle until my ego comes to a complete stop.

At what point do these competitive reality television series become ridiculous? Alex Trebek has been tapped to host a new Canadian television series called Canada's Next Prime Minister. The premise of the show being that a panel of former Prime Ministers will pick the next one. The CBC has already sold the show's format to the BBC.

Obviously, it won't be too long before we see America's Next President on some channel (my guess would be Fox) with a panel of judges consisting of Bill Clinton, (the late) Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George W.

Is it me, or does this seem to trivialize the office of leadership to a country? On the other hand, it seems that running for political office is a bit of a circus anyway. Perhaps electoral processes should be handled this way from now on.

I don't see how the winner of this competition would actually become Prime Minister as a result of the "victory". Of course, television creates fame so maybe the person will announce his/her candidacy shortly thereafter.

UPDATE - just for clarification, the show doesn't pick the ACTUAL next Prime Minister of Canada, but rather young people who would be good candidates for the position based on the judges' opinions.

It's always frustrating when a game show or variety show updates something on the show. Sure, there are many parts of a TV show that have to be updated, especially if that show has lasted 10, 20, or 40 years: the set, the logo, maybe even the theme music. But sometimes those changes go too far.

Case in point: the new "Final Jeopardy" music on Jeopardy! I'm not talking about the update they made to the music a while back, I'm talking about the new rockin' theme music that debuted a few weeks ago (or, at least, I only heard it for the first time a few weeks ago). It's the same melody, but they've changed it to an irritating faster rock version, and by rock I mean that lame, generic rock music you sometimes hear in the background of sitcoms and dramas. It's THIS close to Muzak, and it's really, really terrible.

Ah, another day, another list. This one is from PopCrunch, and it lists the 25 Best Game Shows of All-Time. And yes, it will provoke discussion and hair-pulling.

It's not a bad list actually, as these things go. It's a little predictable (and I certainly wouldn't have included Love Connection, Deal or No Deal, or Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?), but there are some good choices here. Press Your Luck was a great show (though it should be higher on the list), and it's hard to argue with how high shows like Jeopardy and The Price is Right are. I also like that they included The Mole (the first two Anderson Cooper-hosted seasons) and Remote Control.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek had what is being described as a "mild" heart attack late last night.

The 67 year-old Trebek is still at Cedar's-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He will stay there for a few days so doctors can observe him and do more tests. Of course, whenever they say someone had a "heart attack," it's hard to figure out exactly what they mean, since a heart attack is a specific thing and different than other things that can happen to your heart. And you can tell by my clever use of the word "things" that I have absolutely no medical training whatsoever.

Here's a question I got that should be easy for all you game show fans...

Jamie writes, "Can you help me figure out the name of a game show that I watched about 20 years ago? It was like a board with words on it and you had to win to get to pick the covers off the board and it would like reveal for instance a needle + N + (then a pile of hay) with the answer to the puzzle would be a needle in the haystack!!! PLEASE HELP ME!!!!"

Well, I am hardly a game show expert but that sounds like Concentration to me. Although if you watched it twenty years ago then you were probably watching the relaunched version called Classic Concentration hosted by Alex Trebek.

I'm not sure how many people out there think that Nancy Grace is really a nice person away from her TV show, where she is usually sneering, snarling, and yelling at both defendants and victims, but the video after the jump should put to rest any of those thoughts. It's Grace's appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy, along with Regis Philbin and Queer Eye's Carson Kressley.

I don't think you have to have a degree in psychology to see what she's really like. When she says an answer wrong, she tries to tell Alex Trebek and the judges that she actually said the right answer. She also gives a rather inane answer to "Final Jeopardy" that I still can't figure out.

When you think you know something so well, you don't realize that there might be some surprises waiting for you. Sure, surprises may be a bad thing, like when the love of your life tells you that they have been with someone else, but in terms of television surprises that is thankfully not the case, we have been privy to some great surprises this past weekend.

First off, you've heard. Jeopardy had its first three way tie in its decades long history. Alex Trebek's job must be as predictable as a bowl of cornflakes, so it's understandable and nice to hear him yelp in a cry of genuine surprise when the quick math was done and all the contestants would return to Jeopardy next week. In a mostly unexciting show, this was a very exciting moment for millions of Jeopardy fans everywhere.

In other surprising news...

If you watched Jeopardy yesterday, you saw the first three way tie in the show's history. Each player ended up with $16,000. The three players had a rematch, which will air this Monday.

But some were immediately asking: why did champ Scott Weiss, who was in the lead at the end of "Double Jeopardy," wager just enough for a tie? Well, Weiss gives the answer on his friend's blog. Seems that Weiss, well, is just a great guy, and thought it would be cool for all of them to end up with a bunch of money! I guess it's our cynical nature to immediately think that Weiss had made a mistake in betting the way he did. So good for him.

Now, I'm not sure if I would have done the same thing, but then again I don't see myself every being in that position, so...