Alex Trebek has been hosting Jeopardy for a really long time. One of the more entertaining side effects of this is that as pop culture has evolved, many of the clues in the game show cover things you never would have dreamed of when he started hosting in 1984. Trebek could just read the clues, but he’s a better host than that, so when a clue includes the lyrics from the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, then you’re going to get the rap done right, Trebek style!
While Trebek never exactly sings when the clues involve song lyrics, he does have a tendency to perform them rather than just speak them. He’s actually quite successful in giving many clues a feeling of sophistication that they just would not have had otherwise. He does sort of sound like your grandfather trying desperately to be hip, but at the same time your grandfather probably wouldn’t try to be this hip. Alex Trebek is the world’s coolest grandpa.
While many modern game shows go all in for the theatrics, Jeopardy has been playing it straight for decades, which is why it seems so out of place when Trebek breaks out of his shell and goes off on Will Smith’s rhymes. While he doesn’t appear to be directly familiar with the words - his beat is a bit off - he’s not going to let that stop him. If you need a refresher on the full sitcom opening, and this is as good an excuse as any to get one, check out the video below.
Trebek has made the news recently for equally theatrical reasons when it was revealed that threatened to quit the show after he was forced to re-tape a segment in order to make a child contestant happy. We’re glad that didn’t happen, as we just can’t see Matt Lauer giving the same amazing vocal performance from behind the podium.
At this point, we expect Alex will host the show forever. We certainly hope so anyway. While the show has recently fallen behind the likes of Family Feud in the ratings, in part due to that show’s increased silliness, there’s something about the stalwart Trebek we can’t help but admire. Besides, in a few years there’s going to be a clue regarding the theme song to The Big Bang Theory and you know you want to hear Trebek cover that one. Maybe there’s an album in there somewhere.
