CELEBRITY Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik has stopped mid-game on Sunday to express shock that all three A-listers were taking the match seriously.
Fans praised the episode – in which Joel Kim Booster beat Ray Romano – as the first “normal” one.
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The iconic Ray faced Booster – star and writer of the 2022 movie Fire Island which has a simmering 94% on Rotten Tomatoes – and Melissa Rauch – Mayim’s former Big Bang Theory co-star.
All three came to play on the weekly spinoff, instead of acting out on stage as per previous episodes, and were mostly pared back and focused.
Mayim, 46, had to admit as much before a commercial break: “You’re three of the funniest people in the business.
“But tonight you’re all business!”
Going into Final Jeopardy, Joel was on fire with $18,600, Ray $3,300 and Melissa: $3,300.
It read: “With wood becoming more difficult to source, this company turned to plastic for its automatic binding bricks introduced in 1949.”
Ray revealed his answer was more of a suggestion and wildly wrote: “What is: We should be allowed to pause.”
The moment resulted in an uproar from the audience, as Joel correctly got “Legos” and built his way to a $20K win.
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‘FINALLY’
Fans not only enjoyed the generally respectable game but also that they knew who the stars were.
“This is the most chill group of players,” one fan tweeted.
“I like that I am familiar with all of the contestants tonight,” posted another.
“Most normal game of #CelebrityJeopardy yet lol” wrote a third.
“Joel is so calm and collected. Very impressed by his command of the board” wrote a fourth.
Joel – who won the episode – will face Wil Wheaton and John Michael Higgins in the second semi-finals game so far – the winner of that will advance to the finals with Ike Bareholtz.
The tournament-based spinoff is worth $1M for the charity of the winner’s choosing.
MIXED RECEPTION
Celebrity Jeopardy! first aired in 1992, and the last showdown took place in 2015.
The special had only previously been hosted by the late Alex Trebek, who tragically passed away in 2020 from cancer.
It’s been retooled starting in September and will now last months, be worth $1M (for charity) and be an hour-long tournament with the new Triple Jeopardy! round.
Almost every episode has resulted in huge backlash.
Comedian Eddie Huang was slammed for keeping his sunglasses on all show earlier, and Constance Wu cursed in Final Jeopardy writing “tit” on the lectern.
Iliza Schlesinger was slammed for hiding behind the lectern in another episode gone awry.
Then, last week Hasan Minaj was deemed the “most annoying Jeopardy!” contestant ever for his on-stage antics which included yelling an answer without buzzing in.
He took to Fallon to “insincerely apologize” on Thursday and called Jeopardy! fans “geriatric.”
‘WE KNOW’
Jeopardy! executives have had to “apologize” for the comedian-heavy new special multiple times since it debuted with Mayim.
New EP Mike Davies earlier said: “Episode two of Celebrity Jeopardy! [in particular], I think we’d characterize that as one of the more polarizing episodes at least I’ve been involved with.”
“There are certain people on Twitter who didn’t enjoy the episode.”
“Some of the suggestions, ‘we shouldn’t have done a tournament,’ ‘we should have done… half-hour shows.'”
Producer Sarah Foss buzzed in: “Longtime fans want to play this like it’s the regular show. [At least] Ike Barinholtz [from episode three] was a real fan.”
Iliza whipped out an iPhone in her episode – which stunned viewers, one astounded person wrote to Twitter: “They’re allowed to have their phones at the lectern?! WHAT!!!??”
Another viewer wrote: “Bare midriffs and cell phones, WHAT is Jeopardy coming to???”
“To be clear these are not their personal cell phones, they are non-web-enabled production phones so our celebs could capture social content,” EP Davies tweeted in reply.
“We should have explained. Apologies,” he concluded.
Alum Buzzy Cohen also said about Minhaj: “I think Hasan knew a lot of stuff, but next time, maybe we will see a more composed Hasan.
Since its debut and before its retooling, Celebrity Jeopardy! has featured over 200 celebrity contestants, including Anderson Cooper, Jodie Foster, Regis Philbin, Pat Sajak, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Stephen King, and so many other household names.
So famous was the spinoff that it scored the famed Saturday Night Live parody skits some fear the actual show is now becoming, barring tonight.
Over the summer, GOAT contestant Ken Jennings and actress Mayim were officially announced as the permanent replacements for the late, great Alex.
Celebrity Jeopardy! airs on Sundays at 8 pm ET on the ABC network and each episode is available to stream on Hulu one day after it airs.
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