It’s been a week since Ken Jennings took over the temporary hosting duties from Mayim Bailik on “Jeopardy!” but he’s already pretty comfortable. So much so, that Jennings is now cracking jokes on stage.
“Jeopardy!” champion Andrew He became the victim of such a joke this week. It began when the player chose the “National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey” category for $800
- The Double Jeopardy clue read, “A very brave cleaner shrimp gets a meal of parasites and dead skin from the mouth of one of these scary predators.”
- Contestant Jeff Meyers buzzed in first and said, “What is an eel?” Jennings asked him to be more specific.
- Meyers responded, “Electric eel?” The answer was incorrect.
When no one else buzzed in, Jennings responded with a punny joke: “As Dean Martin might’ve said, ‘That’s Amore,’” referring to the moray eel.
The show’s Twitter account posted a GIF of the moment with the caption, “Dad joke alert!” As you can expect, the tweet went viral.
Two hours later, Jennings retweeted the original with another joke alongside: “I will be coming to your homes individually to apologize for this.”
Fans took the discourse to the comments. Someone tweeted back begging for Jennings to become the permanent host. Another observed how comfortable the contestants felt around him and the “fun vibe.” Instead of an apology, a commenter wrote, “I expect a re-enactment.”
But that’s not all! Jeopardy Champion Matt Amodio chimed in, adding to the humor: “Everybody loves somebody who is willing to apologize.”
It looks like Jennings landed the joke after all.
Jennings will be the second host of the quiz show’s 38th season for the rest of the year. His return began on Nov. 8 — the one-year anniversary of Alex Trebek’s death.