Alex Trebek used to host The Wizard of Odds, but he couldn't beat the odds on stage-four pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in March of 2019 and the general prognosis for the disease is one year. As you all know, he died early yesterday, just a bit over that year.
Now, of course, comes the betting and guessing as to who will succeed him as host of Jeopardy! The producers have some time to name someone--they have enough shows completed to last until Christmas and they can always go into reruns (as they did during the height of the pandemic) for a while. The one name on the top of everyone's list is Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, who joined the show's production staff at the beginning of this season. But Jennings has also been announced as part of the team for ABC's revival of The Chase. It's not impossible he could do both--most game shows only record about one week every month (and a weekly like The Chase could probably get its nine-week commitment done in that time frame).
Who else is a possibility? No names come to my mind; you need someone with some gravitas, but a light touch when required. I definitely do not want to see a stand-up comic take the podium--Jeopardy! is not Family Feud, after all. A newscaster type? Meredith Viera did a good job on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, so that direction is not impossible. Anderson Cooper? Steve Kornacki (who did a good job on the "game show" portion of his show when he hosted Up on MSNBC weekends)?
The real question, in the long run, is will Jeopardy! survive without Trebek? There were those who said The Price is Right was dead without Bob Barker...and they were wrong.
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