Jeopardy! taps former champ Buzzy Cohen to host its Tournament of Champions
Jeopardy! is still between hosts at the moment, presumably because Sony Picture Television damn well knows it’s going to get yelled at for almost anybody it picks to fill the podium of the late and venerated Alex Trebek. The company’s rotating line of guest hosts in recent months has ranged from acceptable (Ken Jennings) to “What the fuck?” (Dr. Oz), even as it continues, against all common sense, to ignore the Very Real Populist Movement calling for LeVar Burton to just take the damn job already.
Anyway: Jeopardy! has now announced another new hosting gig that is also not LeVar Burton’s for some reason, naming the person who will be wrangling one of its most prominent gigs of the year: The annual Tournament Of Champions. To tackle this literally high-stakes game (the prize for this year’s tourney is the usual $250,000, plus a matching donation to the Hope Of The Valley Trebek Center For Homelessness), Jeopardy! has gone the “old champ” route, tapping Buzzy Cohen to host the event. Cohen’s $164,603 run on the series back in 2016 isn’t the most winning-est in the show’s tenure, by a pretty hefty margin, but his sense of humor and rapport with Trebek made him one of the most notable contestants in recent years. (His nine-game run and subsequent Tournament win probably didn’t hurt his chances.)
This year’s Jeopardy! Tournament Of Champions will run from May 17 to May 28. LeVar Burton’s phone remains, presumably, on.