The producers of “Jeopardy!” and Sony TV obviously didn’t care what Alex Trebek thought about who should succeed him as host of the game show.
In 2018, Trebek told TMZ’s Harvey Levin on the air that he’d suggested two people to the show. These ideas obviously fell on deaf ears.
One was Los Angeles King announcer Alex Faust, who would have been competition for EP Mike Richards. Faust is a young, good looking white guy. Whoops! That’s what Richards thought he was himself!
The other was CNN legal analyst Laura Coates, a Black woman who is smart, intelligent, and articulate.
Everyone forgot about this interview, it was all forgotten, and Sony TV didn’t even ask these people to do a week’s worth of shows. Instead we got people like Dr. Oz, and both Good Morning America hosts, neither of whom could have done the show anyway.
Now we’re in this weird situation with Richards out. Ken Jennings is who I was told producers expected to choose last winter before Richards took over the process and rigged the competition in his favor. Some insiders also speculate the Mayim Bialik was on track for the job but her current Fox sitcom precluded her doing it full time.
Interesting that Trebek’s wishes were ignored, and a whole new marketing shpiel was introduced. What a shitshow.