What did you make of the news that Mike Richards and Mayim Bialik would be replacing Alex?
Well, I felt like the point of the guest hosts was that they were trying to promote diversity. And they ended up picking a very vanilla option. Another white man doesn’t reflect the contestants very well, especially now. And I think they also should have done a better job of vetting him before they announced it, it felt a little sloppy.
Leigh Hoopes, 36, marketer, Cincinnati, Ohio
When did you start watching “Jeopardy!”?
I literally do not remember a time in my life where I didn’t watch “Jeopardy!” I used to stay a lot with my grandparents when I was little, during the summers because my parents worked. And I would watch it every single week night that I was there with my grandmother. We had dinner — or supper, as they called it — and then everybody took their baths, and then it was time for “Jeopardy!”
You were a contestant on the show, tell me about that.
It was seven years ago. So I’d been trying to get on for years — it was one of my bucket list items, and my other bucket list item was to win, and I didn’t win. But I gave the reigning guy a run for his money, at least. You know, when people ask about it they say, ‘Was Alex a jerk?’ I’m like, ‘No, he was an extremely nice, cool, dude.’ For me, he is somebody who … he had the answers, but he didn’t act like he knew everything. He was willing to double-check and he would rerecord things that he didn’t feel he pronounced properly. I don’t want to say that I consider him a member of the family, but maybe like, a cool uncle, or like a librarian. Somebody who was a keeper of knowledge, but not a gatekeeper.
So where do you think the producers should go from here?
Is there even a need for a full-time host? No one truly will ever be able to replace Alex. I don’t even know if it’s worth trying.
Tony Mittica, 33, barber, Beaver, Pa.
What did you think when they announced Mike Richards as the replacement?
I thought it was a bizarre choice. I didn’t love the idea that he was basically just an unknown person. And being the executive producer, it was almost like, ‘Oh, let’s just see whoever we have, like laying around the building.’ And then after hearing what came out, it’s just another classic case of a privileged white man who, you know, gets everything that he wants.
Looking back, what characteristics made Alex good as a host?
That impression of, of intelligence. The thing that was cool about Alex was that he wasn’t like your classic tacky game show host. That block in the evening was always “Jeopardy!” followed by “Wheel of Fortune” and I hated “Wheel of Fortune.”
