‘Jeopardy!’ Bosses Explain What Happens When Hosts Make Mistakes

Martin Holmes July 6, 2023, 8:56 am

Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik — Jeopardy!, Inc; ABC

After being on the air for almost 60 years, Jeopardy! is a tightly run ship, but that doesn’t mean mistakes never happen, including flubs from the show’s hosts while reading questions.

Earlier this year, some Jeopardy! viewers accused Ken Jennings of giving a hint during a Literary Title Characters clue and misspeaking when quoting a clue about Palmolive’s slogan “You’re soaking in it.” Meanwhile, fellow host Mayim Bialik has been slammed for disallowing answers that should have been deemed correct.

Speaking on the latest episode of the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, the show’s producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss opened up about what happens when mistakes such as these happen.

“Of course they make mistakes; we are human, they are human,” Foss said. “Basically, we tell our contestants to go off of the game board, so no matter what the host says, knowing that the clue copy is almost always totally correct, our contestants are asked to go off that material. So if the host says something slightly different, the contestant should go based on what the clue reads and come up with their response.”

Foss added that sometimes there are “technical issues” that come up, which means they have to replace a clue. “But it’s really not based on a host mess-up,” she stated. “It’s based on a video clue popping up and the video doesn’t play or a video clue that’s supposed to pop up, and you see the text of the video, but you don’t see the video to support it. So those are the situations where we need to replace it altogether.”

The long-time producer also explained the situation with “pick ups,” meaning when Jennings and Bialik have to re-record certain lines or clues. “In between rounds, I’ll say to either of our hosts, ‘Hey, we need to redo Authors for $200; you accidentally said Martin, and it was actually Matthew. Not that they would do that.”

Former champion Buzzy Cohen, who co-hosts the Inside Jeopardy! podcast, brought up an example from his time guest hosting the show in 2021.

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“One exception would be if a host, for some reason, said something that was part of the response,” Cohen said. “So I did that once when I was guest hosting; we threw out the clue, stopped tape [and] put a new clue in there.”

Foss revealed that “once in a great while,” even the late Alex Trebek made mistakes like that, though Cohen thought the producers were just saying that to make him feel better.

“No, it really did happen,” Foss said. “He would laugh, and it would give us one of those genuine Alex out-of-character moments where he wasn’t the consummate professional.”

“Things happen, even in a show like Jeopardy!,” Foss added. “We run a pretty tight ship, but things do happen.”

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