Favorite Alex Trebek Moments

Even icons pass eventually. Alex Trebek, the dignified host of Jeopardy! for nearly four decades has died. 
It was back in March of 2019, when Trebek shared that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, but he vowed to beat it “because under the terms of my contract, I have to host Jeopardy! for three more years.”

Trebek was a familiar and welcome figure in households all over and I felt it would be nice to look back at some of our favorite Alex Trebek moments over the years. 

Let’s start at the beginning…wow! Check him out!

When talking about Mr. Trebek, you have to talk about his portrayal by Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live. His banter with the wily Sean Connery, played by Darrell Hammond, was a sure laugh every time and gave us years of classic quotes. I’m sharing the Celebrity Rock ‘N Roll Jeopardy which featured Jimmy Fallon’s Dave Matthews, Winona Ryder’s Bjork, Connery, and a surprise appearance by Trebek at the end. 

To keep the laughs going, Ken Jennings, the greatest Jeopardy! contestant of all time gets Trebek to break a little with his classic answer. I always enjoyed the back-and-forth between them and you could tell they both liked and respected one another. 

An underrated moment is when we got to hear Alex speak famous rap lyrics. I thought a huge opportunity was missed that he never released a spoken word album as I found his delivery smooth and comforting. 

Also funny is Alex’s reaction to the answers…rather the non-answers when the category was about football. It was a great example of the wit he had and the ability to balance things out. 

We even got to see a Simpsons version of Alex. One that answered something I thought about for many years: How different would the game be if you had to pay what you lost?

And let us not forget Alex on X-Files!

On March 6, 2019 we got a reminder that nothing lasts forever when Alex revealed the news. “It’s in keeping with my longtime policy of being open and transparent with our ‘Jeopardy!’ fan base,” he explained. “I also wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health. So therefore, I wanted to be the one to pass along this information.”

Not a favorite moment but shows the class and humility he had always. 

I’ll close with this one. He spoke for us all.