00:00I'm so excited to talk about Celebrity Jeopardy, especially because this season is an all-stars season,
00:05bringing back past contestants as well as the past three champs.
00:10Is the material, I guess, going to be amped up this season because all of the contestants have experience on
00:15the show?
00:16When I got the scripts, I was thinking, oh, these don't feel like Celebrity Jeopardy.
00:21Like, this feels like Jeopardy Jeopardy, and it's because we know all these people can play. They're legit.
00:26Are there any other, I guess, changes or surprises in store for this season, given that it's a new all
00:31-star season?
00:32We haven't changed anything format-wise, but, you know, the surprises of Celebrity Jeopardy are always like,
00:37oh, like, these people are also super smart. That's like my favorite thing about, it's my favorite and my least
00:42favorite.
00:43On some level, I'm like, you know, Mira Sorvino has an Oscar and is glamorous.
00:48Does she also have to be good at Jeopardy? Like, couldn't that be our thing?
00:51Like, as an ordinary-looking nerd, couldn't that be our thing?
00:54I don't get why the celebrities are all so good at Jeopardy, but they are.
00:58Past contestants of both Jeopardy and Celebrity Jeopardy have deemed the buzzer to be one of the hardest parts to
01:04get down at the game.
01:05Are there any other, I guess, hidden struggles or misconceptions that contestants often discover after their first time playing?
01:11Well, you know, in regular Jeopardy, they're just not ready for how intense it is to be on TV.
01:16You know, they've never been on TV before, and suddenly they have to play the hardest show on TV,
01:20and it's, like, their favorite show, but they can't believe it.
01:23And that's not really a problem with Celebrity Jeopardy.
01:25You know, when the cameras turn on, these guys just can go into another gear.
01:29You know, they're all fantastic.
01:31Often the problem is, like, I have to settle them down a little bit because, you know, they're having a
01:36good time.
01:36They're joking around, and I like that, too, but we also have a game of Jeopardy to get through, Alex.
01:41I have to be the bad cop sometimes.
01:43While we said this season is welcoming back past contestants, how does casting for Celebrity Jeopardy typically work?
01:49It's a little bit above my pay grade, but from what I've heard, it's kind of a tough show to
01:53cast because, you know,
01:55you can't just throw anybody on the Jeopardy set.
01:57The Alex Trebek stage is difficult.
01:59The clues are difficult.
02:00The game moves very fast.
02:01The buzzer scares people.
02:03So it really has to be people who already love the game.
02:05And so usually what it comes down to is who has made the mistake of saying in an interview, you
02:10know,
02:10who told E! News that they love Jeopardy or that they always used to watch Jeopardy with their dad or
02:15whatever it is.
02:16Those people will be getting a phone call.
02:18Well, the next one I'm hoping.
02:20I know Emma Stone said she's dying to be on Jeopardy.
02:23She was saying she, like, tries out just for civilian regular Jeopardy.
02:26You know, she's like, she's aiming for the stars.
02:29Definitely.
02:30I don't know what her plan is.
02:30Does she have a disguise?
02:31I don't know what her plan is.
02:32If Emma Stone's just going to show up one night.
02:34Hopefully she's making some headway on that.
02:36How great would that be?
02:37Has any celebrity contestant been featured in a clue while competing on Celebrity Jeopardy, or could this happen?
02:44Sometimes it happens as a gag.
02:46We didn't do it this year, but sometimes if we know which players are slated for which games,
02:49we can have a category that's themed around their name or something.
02:52The closest I saw was a couple years ago.
02:55Keira Sedgwick came on and there was a Kevin Bacon clue.
02:57Kevin Bacon once said that when he attends a wedding,
02:59he bribes the DJ to not play this song from a 1984 movie he starred in.
03:05Keira.
03:07What is Footloose?
03:08How did you know that?
03:09Naturally.
03:10That's amazing.
03:10And I was like, is this good news or bad news if she doesn't get this right?
03:14But she did beat the other two to the buzzer on she knew her Kevin Bacon trivia.
03:19As she should.
03:19She's one degree away.
03:21You have to be on the entire time in this role.
03:24How much of your on-air time is improvising versus planning ahead in advance?
03:29Very little of Jeopardy can be planned ahead.
03:32You know, it's not the kind of show that just generates, you can generate scripted funny moments.
03:36And I kind of like that, that I don't have to do a little spiel or a sketch before we
03:41play.
03:41Because the game is the thing on Jeopardy.
03:43But if something funny happens in the game, I have to be ready to, you know, call it out.
03:47Or is there a way to riff on it?
03:49And that could really be anything.
03:52And, you know, it's one of the more fun parts of my job is that who knows what's going to
03:55happen tonight.
03:55It could literally be anything, especially in Celebrity Jeopardy, because those guys have fun.
03:59You succeeded the late Alex Trebek in this role of hosting Jeopardy.
04:03What's the biggest lesson of his that you've channeled into your hosting?
04:06And where do you feel you stray the most from his hosting style?
04:10Alex's dictum, it's just kind of charmingly him.
04:14He always felt the host should not be the focus of Jeopardy.
04:19That's why he's announced as the host of Jeopardy, whereas in the 60s, Art Fleming was called the star of
04:23Jeopardy.
04:24Because Alex explicitly said, I'm not the star.
04:27The game is the star.
04:28The clues are the star.
04:29The players are the star.
04:30I should be taking a backseat to the game.
04:32And that's just such a not Hollywood way of thinking about your job, you know, that I should recede a
04:37little bit.
04:37But he was absolutely right.
04:38Like, if you notice what the host of Jeopardy is doing, something has gone wrong.
04:42So the thing I learned from Alex is, like, a very light touch and pick your spots.
04:46And I think the only thing I would do different is that, unlike Alex, I was a contestant on the
04:50show.
04:50So I always have in the back of mind how those three people are feeling.
04:54And often they are big feelings.
04:56And so I'm kind of like a, not a grief counselor, but kind of a nerd whisperer out there.
05:00Like, it's going to be, my whole vibe should be, it's going to be okay.
05:04You're all going to have good memories from this.
05:06Like, it's going to be fun.
05:07And, like, I hope that helps settle them down.
05:09You made a cameo in Happy Gilmore 2 this past summer.
05:12I'm a huge fan of Adam Sandler.
05:14This golfer won the first of his six tour championships in 1996.
05:18Jana.
05:19Who is Skippy Goldenbaum?
05:21That is incorrect.
05:23He is Jewish, but we were looking for Happy Gilmore.
05:26At least he knew it.
05:28How did this come to be and what was the experience like?
05:30Happy Gilmore was a very big part of my, like, college-era life.
05:35And so when they came to us, if you've seen the movie, you know it's like, it's not an exclusive
05:39Jeopardy! cameo.
05:40There's also 500 other cameos.
05:42You know, like, you know, me and Bad Bunny are now one degree of Kevin Bacon separation, which is cool.
05:48And they had this whole gag set up on the Jeopardy! stage.
05:51And this is a real thing that happens to people who are mentioned in Clues is something could go wrong.
05:56Like, there could be a clue about you, but then what if the players don't know you?
06:00I have a writer friend where that happened to her.
06:02Her book came up, but then nobody could name it.
06:03And she was like, oh, that hurts.
06:07And that's kind of the gimmick in Happy Gilmore.
06:09But they came to our set, and we got to hang out, and the director was kind of throwing in
06:13jokes in real time.
06:15It was a lot of fun.
06:16Another recent collab of yours was a promo for Project Hail Mary, where Ryan Gosling competes in a round of
06:22Final Jeopardy.
06:23We will accept that.
06:24An ACL tear is also known as an IDK, Internal Derangement of the Knee.
06:28What did you wager?
06:29Everything.
06:30You double your score to 51,200.
06:32Ryan Gosling, congratulations!
06:34What a Hail Mary from our champion, Ryan Gosling.
06:37Wow.
06:38How were you approached for this as well, and what was that experience like?
06:42I only found out, like, the night before, and it wasn't a done deal until the day of.
06:46As I understand it, Sony, we're a Sony show.
06:48Sony had international distribution rights to Hail Mary, so when Amazon had this idea,
06:55I'm just going to speculate that it's Timothee Chalamet's fault for all that Marty Supreme viral publicity he did.
07:01Like, that's my guess as to what happened.
07:03And when they said, hey, Ryan's kind of a fan and has this idea that we could do a Final
07:07Jeopardy with a Hail Mary theme,
07:08like, we were very excited.
07:10Like, I've never seen our executive producer that excited.
07:12He was, like, coming off the ground that there was, like, you know, we have Celebrity Jeopardy,
07:17but, like, this is A-list Celebrity Jeopardy, and Ryan was lovely.
07:21Pop Culture Jeopardy recently came to be.
07:23I know the first season aired on Prime Video.
07:25It's heading to Netflix next.
07:27Have you gone to watch?
07:28Have you talked with Colin Yost at all before he started on that show?
07:32Colin and I, like, have a little Jeopardy host group chat now.
07:35It's a very small group chat.
07:37It's a little bit exclusive because we, among other things, we share the same dressing room.
07:42So whenever they tape Pop Culture, I'm like, Colin, leave my stuff alone, you know.
07:46And I think he does.
07:47It seems like he has been going through my stuff a little bit.
07:49I got some, like, very detailed accounting of things in my dressing room
07:52that maybe I wasn't sure that Colin Jost was going to be going through.
07:56But, you know, we trade tips, and he's a natural-born host, and he does a great job.
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