Jeopardy! fans were taken aback when Mayim Bialik, the Blossom star and co-host of the iconic game show, announced on Instagram that she would be stepping down from hosting the syndicated version of the show earlier this month. In her post, Bialik mentioned that Jeopardy! producers Sony Pictures Television had “informed” her of the decision, leading some fans to speculate that her departure was not entirely voluntary.
A few weeks after this surprising announcement, Jeopardy! co-host Ken Jennings, who has shared hosting duties with Bialik for the past year, finally addressed her exit in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “It took me off guard because I loved working with Mayim and I’m gonna miss her,” Jennings, who was previously the most successful contestant in Jeopardy! history, told THR. “I can’t speak to her decision-making process or her opinions about it. But on my end, I’m just a fan of Jeopardy! and I’m always delighted to host when they call upon me. I just feel extremely lucky to have even been considered for this job as a non-broadcaster.”
Bialik and Jennings took on their dual hosting roles during a tumultuous period in Jeopardy! history. Following the death of longtime host Alex Trebek in 2021, executive producer Mike Richards was briefly installed as the show’s showrunner and host. However, Richards was let go shortly into his tenure after reports surfaced of various discrimination lawsuits against him while he was working as the executive producer of The Price Is Right. In the summer of 2022, Jennings and Bialik were formally announced as Jeopardy! co-hosts, sharing hosting duties for the show’s syndicated episodes as well as its primetime specials.
Bialik’s tenure at the show was not without controversy. As an author and proponent of attachment parenting theory, an ideology that promotes what some critics say is extreme closeness between mothers and children, Bialik was accused by some of espousing anti-feminist and toxic advice in her books. She also faced backlash for previous comments she made that were interpreted as criticizing vaccines, though she has staunchly denied being opposed to childhood vaccinations.
Though it’s unclear why Bialik left Jeopardy!, in a statement to The Wrap, Sony confirmed that Jennings would assume sole hosting duties for the syndicated episodes and that Bialik would continue to work on the show’s primetime specials. “We made the decision to have one host for the syndicated show next season to maintain continuity for our viewers, and Ken Jennings will be the sole host for syndicated Jeopardy!,” the spokesperson said. “We are truly grateful for all of Mayim’s contributions to Jeopardy!”
On Aug. 11, Sony Pictures Television proudly announced that Mike Richards, executive producer of Jeopardy!, would take over as host of the iconic quiz show. Actress Mayim Bialik was named host of Jeopardy! prime-time specials and spinoffs, but Richards would be the daily replacement for the legendary, late Alex Trebek after a seven-month in-depth search. One week later, everything imploded.
The beginning of the end arrived when Ringer reporter Claire McNear, who last year wrote a book about the history of Jeopardy!, published an explosive report about Richards’s former podcast, The Randumb Show, in which he made offensive remarks about women, Jewish people, and Haiti. When McNear asked for comment, the podcast was deleted, and Richards released an apology: “It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago,” he said.
But the public backlash was too much. The Anti-Defamation League also spoke out on Twitter, saying that “stereotyping is an entry point to hate and his apology lacks acknowledgment of its harm,” adding that the “reported pattern” of Richards’s comments warranted further investigation. One day after Jeopardy! started taping its 38th season at its Culver City, Calif., studios, Richards wrote in a note to staff that he was stepping down. “It pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy! as we look to start a new chapter. I was deeply honored to be asked to host the syndicated show and was thrilled by the opportunity to expand my role,” Richards wrote. “However, over the last several days it has become clear that moving forward as host would be too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show. As such, I will be stepping down as host effective immediately.”
Richards added that Friday’s production would be canceled. Sony will continue its search for a permanent host and, in the meantime, will be bringing back guest hosts to fill in starting next week. “I want to apologize to each of you for the unwanted negative attention that has come to Jeopardy! over the last few weeks and for the confusion and delays this is now causing,” he concluded. “I know I have a lot of work to do to regain your trust and confidence.”
Richards taped five episodes on Thursday that will air as scheduled when the new season begins Sept. 13. At least one episode will feature Yale PhD student Matt Amodio, who finished the 37th season on an 18-game winning streak and is currently the third-highest-earning winner in show history. In a separate statement, a Sony representative confirmed that Richards will stay on as executive producer. “We support Mike’s decision to step down as host. We were surprised this week to learn of Mike’s 2013/2014 podcast and the offensive language he used in the past. We have spoken with him about our concerns and our expectations moving forward,” the statement read. “Mike has been with us for the last two years and has led the Jeopardy! team through the most challenging time the show has ever experienced. It is our hope that as EP he will continue to do so with professionalism and respect.”
Richards’s week-long stint as host got off to a rocky start even before the news was official. In early August, Variety reported that Richards — who joined the show in 2020 to replace longtime executive producer Harry Friedman — was the front-runner amid a string of guest hosts since January that included Ken Jennings, Aaron Rodgers, Robin Roberts, and Anderson Cooper. Hosts such as former Jeopardy! champion Buzzy Cohen and Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton earned praise from viewers on social media, so quite a few fans made their displeasure known after rumors began circulating that Richards would be the replacement for Trebek, who was beloved as host for 36 years.
Shortly after the news broke, fans resurfaced articles on social media about Richards’s decade-long tenure as executive producer at The Price is Right, where he was named by the show’s models in two lawsuits. Lanisha Cole sued for sexual harassment and said she was wrongfully terminated; Richards was dropped as a defendant before the case was settled in 2011. Brandi Cochran, who filed a lawsuit claiming pregnancy discrimination, was awarded $7.7 million in 2012. In a statement, Richards said the characterization of the complaints “does not reflect the reality of who I am.”
Plus, Richards’s selection as host at the same time he was an executive producer prompted quite a few eye-rolls and “Who is Mike Richards?” jokes on social media, as well as comparisons to former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who was the head of the search committee for George W. Bush’s vice president and chose himself. Although the choice was up to Sony executives, Richards gave multiple interviews early on about his involvement in the search process. The New York Times reported that Richards played “a key role” in choosing episodes for focus groups, which were a big factor in ultimately deciding the new host.
Andy Saunders, who has run the Jeopardy! Fan website since 2015, said although fans were irritated by what they perceive as a “rigged” process with Richards, many believed that nothing would change and that they would just have to get used to the idea. But when McNear reported on some of Richards’s comments — calling women promiscuous and criticizing their bodies; making a joke about Jewish people and big noses; asking whether someone’s apartment was in Haiti because of “the urine smell, the woman in the muumuu, the stray cats” — it became clear, Saunders said, that “it was just too much for everyone to ignore.”
“I think the turning point yesterday was when the ADL put out their statement on Twitter,” he said. “I think anytime they come out and say something, that’s what gets Sony and Jeopardy! to act, essentially.”
Saunders gauged the mood of many Jeopardy! fans as “pleasantly surprised” that Richards stepped down so quickly. But he’s wary of how things will progress with Richards as executive producer, especially with future contestants who are a part of the groups that the onetime host disparaged.
Now, as the attention turns to the new guest hosts and Richards’s replacement, the skewering of the whole debacle will continue online. Famed Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer was one of the first public figures involved in the show to offer his thoughts when the news broke Friday. He tweeted, “I was really looking forward to the season premiere where after an exhaustive 61-clue search for the next Jeopardy champion, the show looks past the three obvious candidates and declares Mike Richards the winner.”
Arthur Chu, who won 11 games of Jeopardy! in 2014 and appeared in that year’s Tournament of Champions, expressed his concerns about the show’s future. For more than 8,000 episodes, every weeknight just after dinner, families across the United States have sat down for their favorite TV comfort food. Each evening of Jeopardy! was always the same: Host Alex Trebek introduced the contestants, then a first round (interrupted halfway through by the players’ humanizing anecdotes), a second, and at last the Final Jeopardy tune that’s been the soundtrack for thinking since 1964.
The show’s soothing rhythm is so sacred that when Chu adopted an unorthodox strategy of frenetic hops about the board rather than a stately march down the selected category during his 11-game stint, he went viral as a “Jeopardy! villain.” Some of the names people called him online stung, but in the end, he couldn’t be mad; he’d been a fan since he was a child, too, and he knew how it felt to have something you love change unexpectedly. He figured the hate would fade, and he was happy to be part of Jeopardy! history so long as he could continue following the show as a fan.
Now, Chu is struggling to keep watching. Jeopardy! is changing, and the show threatens to destroy its own appeal by abandoning the unvarying formula we’ve come to depend on and sidelining the people who most make it succeed. It all started with the loss of Trebek. At his tapings, Trebek told contestants that if he were ever to retire, his one piece of advice to his successor would be, “Stay out of the way, and let the contestants be the stars.” When Trebek died of pancreatic cancer in November of last year, most fans expected for a replacement already to have been named and, after a bit of welcoming fanfare, for the show to return to normal as soon as possible.
Instead, Jeopardy! trampled over Trebek’s directive. The hunt for the new host became a public circus of “on-the-job tryouts” featuring a glamorous roster of A-listers, and the star of the show became the week’s celebrity guest host. Each episode, their followers tuned in to root for them, not the actual contestants.
The disruption of rotating hosts was jarring enough for a show built on dependability, but the whole celebrity concept betrayed the secret of how Jeopardy! captivated us: the fantasy that you or I or anyone else could be the one in the spotlight. Anyone who’s good enough at trivia, even a schlubby nerd from Ohio, could get their turn to write the story of the show. During Chu’s streak, there was no question he was the main character, even if it was as the “villain.” Today, Matt Amodio is an 18-day champion and the third-winningest regular-season contestant in Jeopardy! history, but his story has taken a backseat to the drama on the host’s side of the stage.
Eventually, the ill-conceived host competition ended in an even more ill-conceived outcome: The news leaked that Mike Richards, the executive producer who had overseen the process, was planning on hiring himself as host. During the uproar from the fans over this, racist and misogynistic comments made in podcast appearances surfaced from Richards’s past, as did discrimination allegations levied against him at other game shows. When Richards was officially announced as the host, actor Mayim Bialik was hired as co-host as what seemed like a compromise; then Richards stepped down as host but was staying as producer; then the guest-host concept returned, with Bialik first up. Now, Bialik’s past questionable comments are coming to light.
This sort of churn is typical of the manipulative reality TV that clogs our airwaves now — the bait-and-switch, the opacity of the evaluation process, the ratings boost extracted from the fans of guest hosts who never really had a chance. That’s why it’s such a stain on the good name of a show we expect better from.
After the last year we’ve had — after the past five years we’ve had — is it too much to ask that just one beloved American institution not be sabotaged by shortsightedness and ego? In the world of television (and everything else), can we not have one safe space where the expectations stay consistent, everyone does their job, and the little people get a chance to shine?
There can still be a place for Jeopardy!, so long as it centers on the contestants again, and on its own reliability. It just needs some help getting back there. So let me pass on what one child said to me back when I was playing the villain, a message that might be useful to Richards, or to interloping celebrities, or to anyone else who would steal the spotlight or shake up the show: “Why can’t you just do something else, and leave Jeopardy! alone?”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Variety, The New York Times
