Ken Jennings Reveals The Hardest Part Of Hosting 'Jeopardy!'

"Jeopardy!" host Ken Jennings has received praise from fans for the way he has hosted the show after the late Alex Trebek.

After the beloved host passed away from pancreatic cancer, Ken was the first guest host to take over and is now co-host of the show along with "The Big Bang Theory" alum Mayim Bialik.

Although fans have embraced the “100 Places To See After You Die” author, Ken revealed what he finds the hardest thing about hosting the award-winning game show.

In an interview with the New Yorker, the beloved game show host opened up on the most difficult aspect of hosting the show, claiming that the speed and the repetitive nature of the game made hosting look more difficult than it does on TV.

“It’s the speed of it,” Ken explained. “It’s hard to overstate how fast it moves and the mechanics of what the host has to do sixty-one times a show: read the clue flawlessly, call on the right contestant, adjudicate their response correctly. And then it all repeats.”

“It’s a very hard job, and Alex made it look easy,” he continued. “So it’s kind of a no-win thing—the only other person we’ve seen do it looked incredibly confident and graceful for thirty-seven years, and we all loved him.”

When asked if Ken is the one who decides if contestants are right when giving their answer, Ken responded, “There’s a table of judges that I can appeal to. But, in practice, Alex made a lot of those calls on the fly, just because he knew the game and knew it had to keep moving. And you’re also in a tough position.”

“You’re the referee of the game, kind of managing the players, but you’re also managing the studio audience and the home audience,” he explained. “You’re the stadium announcer, and you’re the play-by-play guy in the booth. You’re trying to do it all.”

“And really the way to do it, it turns out, is just to play the game as if you were a contestant. I’m kind of playing along in my head, like, Oh, I know this one! Let’s see if they know it. Hey, they do, great! We did it! We get to go again! And I don’t know if that’s the right—it’s definitely not Alex’s energy, but nobody can do what he did,” he added.

That being said, Ken tries to be there to support the contestants because he has been in their shoes. “I’m always thinking, How can I make the contestants feel—I don’t know about comfortable, but at least not panicky? Because I’ve been there, and I know it’s tough,” he said. “I see the hand shaking when they’re trying to wager.”

“And they know it’s a weighty moment,” he admitted, recognizing that it’s one of the “hardest parts” of the game. “The good thing is, you can take an afternoon and do some online research and break down how to wager Final Jeopardy.”

“If you can know four or five cases, and if you can train your brain to do that flowchart, you can be ready,” he explained. “That said, it’s a crucible, and people do it wrong sometimes.”

Elsewhere during the interview, the previous "Chaser" on the game show "The Chase" was recognized for his personality, which is on full display on social media and while he hosts the show. “I was aware, from a young age, about being a know-it-all. You immediately realize that America doesn’t like that, that it’s not a hit with girls in your class to know Captain Kirk’s middle name,” Ken joked.

“So, to this day, I carry, in a healthy way, some of the shame of that, which I think has been chemically turned into self-awareness. It is kind of silly to know this weird stuff, but we can have a good time with it,” he continued. “It’s better than not knowing it, right?”