![]() ![]() “I also found out, of course forgetting I was miked up, that everyone can hear everything-so when you’re talking to the makeup person, Mike and Rocky and everyone are listening,” Cohen says, laughing. Once he got into the studio-and set up camp in Trebek’s former dressing room, as all of this season’s guest hosts have-Cohen found new challenges, like mastering Jeopardy!’s official lexicon (clues, not questions responses, not answers lectern, not podium) and adjusting to life with a hot mic. It’s not a marathon-it’s 61 sprints, and you have to bring intensity to each clue.” “Each clue is a little story that you tease out. “Watching back, Alex went into each clue totally differently, and that’s what’s really hard,” Cohen says. Switch up your replies to the contestants’ fun facts. Don’t always emphasize “this.” Mix up the rhythm. Two or three times a week, they met for rehearsals on Zoom, where Cohen made his first attempts at hosting and Whitcomb Foss-who’s had nearly two decades of experience reading on-location clues-stood in as a contestant and then critiqued his reads. “I ran through my house and started screaming at my wife,” he says of getting the call.Īfter Cohen signed on to guest host, Whitcomb Foss took it upon herself to help him prepare (a tall order, considering he literally wrote a book on training). They’d gotten to know each other during the All-Star Games, when she was assigned to be the show’s liaison with Cohen’s team during the group’s pre-taping training. It was Sarah Whitcomb Foss of the Clue Crew who first asked Cohen whether he would be interested in guest hosting. Tragically, this is the third consecutive Tournament of Champions in which a contestant who qualified died before they could return to the Jeopardy! stage, after Cindy Stowell and Larry Martin. ![]() Today's champ has earned quite the nickname! /YDdu9BX2Ud- Jeopardy! December 17, 2020 His five wins were the last long streak of Trebek’s tenure and visibly delighted the host in what would be some of his final tapings before his own death in November. Smith, who was just 24, was an electrifying player. Absent from the lineup is Brayden Smith, who died in February following complications from a surgery. ![]() These 15 contestants are the last great champions of the Trebek era more recent players who competed with a guest host will come back for the next tournament. The champ will go home with $250,000, a permanent place in the great geekdom pantheon, and a good chance of being invited back for additional future tournaments. The winner of each semifinal will advance to a two-day final that begins on Thursday, May 27. The winner of each of those games, plus the four highest-scoring non-winners, move on to the second week’s three semifinal games. And everything after that has been gravy.”Ī brief refresher on the tournament’s structure: The first week of the two-week contest is devoted to five quarterfinal matches between the 15 contenders. “The first time I buzzed in and Alex said ‘Buzzy’ and I gave a correct answer-that was it. It’s like: It’s over.”īut Cohen, a lifelong Jeopardy! fan, says he already found what he was looking for when he taped his first game five years ago. It’s my moment like Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams, when he walks across the rocks and turns into the doctor. “I was joking with Ken right when I got the call. “I had some pangs about not being able to hold the buzzer again,” he concedes. Yes, this makes him ineligible for future competition. In return, he says he got “a Cheshire cat smile.”īeginning Monday, Cohen will get his chance as the latest of Jeopardy!’s guest hosts, taking the show’s reins for the program’s Tournament of Champions. “I said, ‘Well, since we’re not going to win the tournament, it makes it that much easier for Harry to hire me as the next host,’” Cohen says. Trebek was hard-pressed to endorse anyone not named Betty White.) When Cohen happened to be in the green room with Harry Friedman, the longtime executive producer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune who left the shows last year, he appealed directly. The first time we met, I was in the audience at the All-Star Games so too was his family, who used a commercial break to ask Alex Trebek whether Cohen could have his job once he decided to hang up his hat. You might not have been wondering at all, given that Cohen-a nine-time champ, the winner of the 2017 Tournament of Champions, a captain in the 2019 All-Star Games, and a favorite of nanas everywhere-has been openly campaigning for the gig for years. The show doesn’t reimburse its contestants for their hotel stays, nor for their flights or food expenses.In case you were wondering, Buzzy Cohen would like to be the host of Jeopardy! for good. Surely those game shows pay for their contestants to stay near the studio, right? With the beloved quiz show Jeopardy!, that’s not the case. Ah, the game show industry, full of glitz, glamor, and huge cash prizes. ![]()
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