Actress Mayim Bialik may be the new face of “Celebrity Jeopardy!”
Earlier this week, Deadline reported that “Celebrity Jeopardy!” is coming to ABC after picking up the game show from Sony Pictures TV. Instead of regular contestants, the show will feature the standard “Jeopardy!” format but with celebrity contestants trying to win money for their favorite charity.
Mayim Bialik Expected To Host ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’
Deadline reported that Michael Davies, who took over as executive producer after Mike Richards was fired, will executive produce this new series as well. The series is expected to air on ABC Sunday at 8 PM.
The outlet noted that Mayim Bialik has not been confirmed to be hosting the new series. However, they wrote that “it seems likely” that she will be selected to host, given that she was originally hired by “Jeopardy!” to host any primetime specials that aired on ABC. She was also tapped to host the show’s Professor Tournament last year and the National College Championship with aired in February.
Mayim began hosting the current season of “Jeopardy!” in September after Mike Richards was fired and she has been sharing hosting duties with “Jeopardy!” Greatest Of All Time tournament winner Ken Jennings, who has been a frontrunner to host the game show.
No announcement has been made concerning who will become the host of “Jeopardy!”, although Ken did step down from season 3 of NBC’s game show “The Chase.” On the flip side, Mayim stars as Kat in the Fox sitcom “Call Me Kat,” which was just renewed for a third reason. The series is executively produced by “The Big Bang Theory” costar Jim Parsons.
Fans Weigh In On The New ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ Series On ABC
The announcement quickly found its way on the “Jeopardy!” Reddit page, where many users weighed in with their thoughts.
“If they’re moving toward keeping the original syndicated/primetime split hosting strategy but with Ken replacing Mike Richards, I’m perfectly okay with that,” wrote user TheCrookedKnight.
“I’m ok with this as long as A. They try to find celebs that have at least a few brain cells in their head and B. They tell them to at least try and take it seriously,” wrote user spmahn. “Celebrity Jeopardy just didn’t work in the past because the majority of the celebs were very obviously clueless on the basic facts of just about anything and everyone treated the whole thing more like it was Hollywood Squares than Jeopardy.”
User visioninblue quoted the text that said it was not definitive that Mayim would be hosting. “I guess they didn’t explicitly say it, but we’re supposed to assume it’s possible/likely?” they asked. “This should be interesting though. The world and the general public’s opinion of celebrity looks a lot different from the last time Celebrity Jeopardy! happened.”
“Well hopefully she’ll have her hands full with Celebrity Jeopardy and Ken can handle the syndicated version,” wrote user austinhannah.
User MahjongDaily commented, “It’ll be nice to have Celebrity Jeopardy back, but I must admit I’m not really a fan of the ‘Celebrity’ game shows ABC has released recently.”
“It seems like most people like Ken but they feel obligated to give her a spot for some reason,” user galad2003 pointed out. “So hopefully this is the tradeoff or give her her own show so we can get off this needless ‘who is hosting?’ drama.”
User rob_s_458 clarified, “The ‘for some reason’ is that last year with Mike as EP they offered her a contract and she accepted. I doubt they want to buy out her contract, which has been rumored to be similar to Alex’s despite far fewer episodes, just to be rid of her.
“I honestly don’t care who hosts the show permanently. I like both Ken and Mayim. Sure, they host it differently and have their own styles, and I don’t expect two completely different people to host the show the exact same way,” wrote user matt95110. “No one can replace Alex, he had his style and he made the show what it is.”
Ken already tweeted that Mayim will be hosting “Jeopardy!” for the next several months, but Ken will be back before season 38 wraps up. No matter who producers choose to be the next host of “Jeopardy!”, there’s no replacing the late Alex Trebek.
