Potent Reportables for 800, ....

Ken? Katie? Doc? Geordie?

I haven't watched Jeopardy! since Alex's final episode. As most know, a beauty-or-is-it-brains contest has been underway since he stepped away from the podium a few weeks before his passing. Entering the studio have been a mix of people connected to the show's past and present, along with various celebrities and journalists. Some have been just fill-ins, such as Packers QB Aaron Rodgers- although given his troubles on the day job of late, maybe he will apply for the permanent gig.  Others are definitely auditioning to be the third permanent host in the show's long history.

Yes, third.

There's a strange reluctance on the part of both the game's own managers and those writing about it to see Jeopardy! as a continuous series that began on NBC in 1964. Even before Trebek's illness and passing, anniversary observances have all been tied to the September night 20 years later when his syndicated nighttime version hit the airwaves.

This is what they said on that 2014 double-observance:

In an interview with The Wire, Jeopardy! Executive Producer Harry Friedman confirmed that the show indeed sees pre- and post-1984 as two entirely separate entities, and that the 1984 premiere is the true start of today's Jeopardy!. "Really, that’s what most people who are viewers now know," Friedman said, referring to the 1984 reboot. He cited the gap in the late '70s and early '80s when Jeopardy! was off the air as a sort of memory reset: "The lack of continuity makes it feel weird to say 50th anniversary." According to him, there was never any thought given to celebrating the 1964 birthday this season, only the 1984 mark.

Which is, to anyone who grew up watching the original show as I did (more faithfully than I ever did in at least this century), a Poupourri of Poppycock:

There's no denying that the 1984 was a reboot, but a willful separation of the show pre-and post-1984 is silly. It's one thing to emphasize the 1984 premiere, but to ignore the 1960s show altogether does a disservice to the show's history. There may be production issues (Friedman said that the contestant files from the Fleming era "simply don't exist" anymore) but it's the same show, it just grew up. Jeopardy! even had its awkward teen phase in the late '70s, and aside from the color scheme, it looked even more like the current incarnation. Yet the current show is set on repressing those memories. 

Plenty of articles coming out this month echo sentiments about the show's consistency and immutability since its premiere in 1964. But nothing from the show itself. You'd think with a milestone like a 50th anniversary coming up, Jeopardy! would jump at the chance to celebrate – instead it focuses on 30, like it's worried about wrinkles.

It wouldn't surprise me if rights issues are somehow involved. When the 1984 revival first aired, it was still under the banner of Merv Griffin Enterprises, the production company of the show's creator. He sold the rights to the show to the Columbia-Coca Cola conglomerate in 1986, eventually merged into the Sony Pictures that produces the show even today.  But the original show aired on NBC, and they may have held intellectual property rights to anything from the original theme music (never aired in the Alex era) to its staff announcer Don Pardo.  When David Letterman left that network a decade later, NBC got plenty snitty with him over such deep intellectual property concepts as "Viewer Mail" and "Larry Bud Melman," so I would be totally unsurprised if similar issues have kept Jeopardy II: What Is Electric Boogaloo? from homaging all of its past history.

Even so, there's nothing stopping the rest of us.

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Now, almost seven years after that article and with the eyes of the nation on the nomination, there's much talk about who will fill those large Canadian shoes.  Over the weekend, I read this piece, originating in the New York Times, which gave a very good summary of the current state of the horse race (Daily Doubles not likely):

Trebek’s permanent successor has not been announced; instead, more than a dozen guest hosts will have stepped behind the podium by season’s end. They have already included the mild-mannered super-contestant Jennings and the eternal TV sweetheart Katie Couric; still to come are the gregarious former champ Buzzy Cohen and the nerd-culture prince LeVar Burton. Some are just passing through, while others are vying for a permanent position, but all are implicated in a process that feels bigger than the game: The selection of the next host has turned into a culture-wide referendum on our relationship to information itself.

The writer, Times critic Amanda Hess, went on to review the field to date: champions, celebrity doctors (well, just one: Oz, who she beautifully dismissed as "a real doctor who plays a fake doctor on TV"), news anchors she thought were overdone in the mix, and jocks of both brands- the traditional (see Aaron Rodgers) and the trivial (brilliant genius Mayim Bialik). She came to no more reported conclusions about the future of the host than the show itself has, but my attention turned to the past she didn't mention at all.

So I tracked down her email, finding it on a bloggish site but fitting what I would have guessed anyway; flast at website dot com is always a good bet.  And said this, under the header of "You Lost One Thing on Jeopardy!" without the following wooooo, woo-woo-wooooo that would have overtly referenced the Weird Al parody  (sadly never got updated to the Trebek era):

I enjoyed your piece on the Tournament of Champion Herders now underway to replace the immortal Alex Trebek. The only disappointment was your not giving a single mention to the two who came before him and made his brilliance possible: Merv Griffin and Art Fleming.
 
Mervin's simple spin on a general knowledge quiz show- turning the questions into the answers- made it stand out from the hundreds of others that came of age in the 1960s. Meanwhile, the duo of Fleming and Pardo brought it to life, gave it continuity and just enough pizazz, and kept it true enough to its original format for the 1984 version to be a true sequel rather than a reboot. Fleming was offered the gig and turned it down, and while there have been some technical and financial changes (the dollar values are up, the famed cases of Rice-a-Roni are gone), a 1967 champion could slide in next to Ken Jennings or whoever wins tonight and know exactly what they were doing. Try that with a Price Is Right contestant from that era- or a Meet the Press interview subject from Frank McGee, for that matter.
 
One of the strangest connections between the two eras of the show is that both hosts died of pancreatic cancer- a particularly brutal way to go, and not particularly common one. I'd hate to think it was something in the Potent Potables.
 
Thanks again for the summary,
Ray

I have a long history of writing letters to editors and occasionally writers, going back to before email.  I've found journalists in recent years to be more responsive, not a surprise what with the decline in readership, but most of my more recent comments and idea sharings have gone to the local sources. I did not expect a response from a young brilliant woman at the Old Gray Lady, much less one within hours, but when I got up at around 3 for the overnight treating-and-treat routine for Zoey, I had my reply:)

Ray, thank you so much for your email! It's wonderful. You're right, these hosts should be given their due. And the pancreatic cancer note hits close to home for me — my father-in-law (and ... Jeopardy! champion!) is a survivor and we join the races every year in NY and DC to raise money for a cure. They were suspended this past year, but I can't wait to get back into it.

Best,
Amanda

So we will follow along and see how it goes. Just as interesting is who will take Sean Connery's place as the foil on SNL Celebrity Jeopardy!  That's the only consolation (other than Rice-a-Roni) that would come if they do give it to the fake doctor: getting to hear Alex Baldwin as Donald Trump exhorting,

SUCK IT, OZ!
 

(PS, Housekeeping for 200: DW comments do not appear to be showing up in email at the moment. What is, glitch?)