For years now, Google has touted daily celebrations that honor key historical figures, dates in history, quirky holidays and more. Usually, the praise comes in the form of the Google doodle on the main search page, with either an animated segment or a small game to play, but the company decided to do something a bit more organic when paying tribute to the legendary Jeopardy! frontman Alex Trebek, who passed away a month ago after years of battling pancreatic cancer. Only the best for such an icon.
Whenever fans attempt to plainly search for Alex Trebek's name, not only does Google supply users with the applicable links that are being sought out, but the company also added one of its signature "Did you mean..." suggestions, and in a way that speaks directly to the heart of Jeopardy! fans everywhere. Below is a screenshot of what one would see, but feel free to try it yourself, of course.
That's right. Before any links about Alex's death pop up, before his Wikipedia page is visible, and before Jeopardy!'s Twitter page gets any mentions, Google is able to give fans a winking reference to the instantly familiar way that Jeopardy contestants are required to correctly answer clue on the show. Clearly that suggestion isn't trying to imply that people don't actually know who Alex Trebek is. Surely, I search for people all the time were I don't yet know who they are, but that's not the case at all with Alex Trebek, who's been a TV icon for nearly as long as I've been alive.
While it's obviously not a massive retrospective video that highlights a plethora of memorable moments from Alex Trebek's career, Google's suggestion joke is the simplest form of perfection in this sense. And it only helps to maintain its quaintness that many fans might not even realize that "who is Alex Trebek" is a cheeky Jeopardy! nod and not just Google being big, dumb technology.
Alex Trebek's friends, family and fans all needed a boost like this, since the host's November death was such a blow to the Jeopardy! community, given how positive and forward-minded Trebek was for nearly the entire time since he was first diagnosed.
Fans got a nice surprise ahead of Thanksgiving, when Jeopardy! revealed that Alex Trebek had actually pre-recorded a peaceful message wishing everyone a lovely and safe holiday. It's possible he did the same for the Christmas holiday, since it's believed that Christmas Day will be the time when Trebek's final Jeopardy! episode will air.
With ratings having risen after Alex Trebek's death, Jeopardy! airs daily in syndication, with Alex Trebek's final episodes still airing for another few weeks. While waiting to see how the show will move on in a post-Trebek world, head to our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our Winter and Spring 2021 TV schedule to see what else is on the way.
