KEN Jennings has admitted to once stealing a hosting tip from previous Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.

This happened before Ken, 50, became the permanent host and he has used it ever since.

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Ken Jennings opened up on a recent episode on his podcast, Omnibus, about how he adopted his speech patterns on Jeopardy! while being a hostCredit: Getty

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The host shared that when he guest-hosted, Alex had marked up the paper with notations and showed where to emphasize wordsCredit: Disney

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Ken said that he still adopts those tricks today as host, which sometimes helps and sometimes confuses contestantsCredit: Getty
He also hosts Omnibus podcast with John Roderick, where they shared strange, but true stories.

On the June 6 episode, Talking Drums, the hosts talked about different tones in voices and sentences.

During that conversation, Ken opened up about how he once adapted a tip that Alex had written on his Jeopardy! script.

“When I was first asked to guest host Jeopardy!, they gave me a set of scripts that Alex had already gone over,” he admitted.

“And he had written essentially musical notations above the words of the clues to kind of show these words run together, here’s where the pause is, here’s where you emphasize.”

“It wasn’t exactly like the pitch of every syllable, but he wanted to convey to himself in the moment to really get the right information, to convey the right sense of meaning here,” Ken said.

Ken says that he notices when he will say a phrase wrong now after adapting Alex’s advice.

He also said emphasizing a word can help the players, but also sometimes confuse the players.

John asked Ken if he has adopted Alex’s shorthand.

“I do. Like when I get a script now I do his little tricks and-” Ken began.

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Jeopardy! fans call out Ken Jennings’ ‘disrespectful’ mistake that Alex Trebek ‘wouldn’t have made’ while giving clue
“You use HIS notations?” John asked.

“I do,” Ken confirmed.

“Wow! What a behind the scenes gift you just gave us,” John said.

‘NOT THAT SPECIAL’

John said he wondered what kind of advantage it can give a player to hear Ken’s glissandos.

Jeopardy! Universe

Jeopardy! first aired in 1964 until 1975. Then the nighttime version began in 1974. Since then, many spinoffs of the game show have emerged. Here they all are:

Jeopardy! – (syndicated) 1974 to present, weekdays on ABC at 7 pm ET.

Tournament of Champions – 1984 to present, features the top champions who have appeared on the show since the last tournament.

Second Chance Tournament – 2022 to present features hand-selected non-winners from the season prior, where the prize is entry into Champions Wildcard.

Champions Wildcard – 2023 to present, features all one, two and three-day champions from the season prior worth entry into the Tournament of Champions.

Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament (syndication) – 2023 to present, features past greats invited by producers to vie for a slot in Masters.

Jeopardy! Masters (primetime) – 2023 to present, features the six highest-ranked Jeopardy! champions competing against each other.

Celebrity Jeopardy! (primetime) – 1992 to present, has celebrities compete against each other to raise money for charity.

Pop Culture Jeopardy (streaming) – 2024 to present, will feature teams of three tasked with pop culture trivia on Amazon Prime, host and airdate TBD

Jeopardy! has done away with specialized tournaments like its College Tournaments, Kids Week, and Professor’s Tournament to gear towards a more sports-like model, with Masters being the top of the Jeopardy pyramid.

Other versions of Jeopardy! have fizzled out throughout the years as well, like Sports Jeopardy!.

“I mean it’s nothing special,” Ken replied.

“Everyone’s accustomed to hearing speech, and especially in a tight question and answer form like that. You really want to hit the part that helps them get to the answer.”

“You want to emphasize distinctions or contrasts that are being made in the clue. It’s not that special, but you notice if somebody does it wrong,” Ken said.

Ken also said that he does not have a teleprompter, but there is a screen on his podium.

However, Alex had a piece of paper and X’d out clues with a crayon.

Ken said that he still gets a paper script and marks it up.

HE’S JUST KEN

Recently fans pointed out a trick that Alex did but Ken does not.

He was called out for mispronouncing a clue during the Double Jeopardy! round.

In the blunder, the host asked the contestants about bodies of water, searching for “the Philippines.”

“An active volcano lies within this country’s Taal Lake, which itself occupies a caldera,” Ken said.

The three contestants did not buzz in to answer, with Ken eventually saying, “In the Philippines.”

On Reddit, fans were quick to explain the answer, but also picked up on Ken’s mispronunciation of the lake.

“The clue about the Philippines refers to Volcano Island, in Taal Lake. The island itself has a lake, Main Crater Lake, which has an island named Vulcan Point, making it an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island,” a user wrote.

“Wish Ken learned the correct way to pronounce Taal,” a fan said.

“Ken mispronounced it as tall, not ta-al, two syllables,” added a third.

“Yeah kinda disrespectful Trebek wouldn’t have done that,” said another.

Alex hosted Jeopardy! from 1984 up until his death in 2020.

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Ken said that the speech inflictions aren’t that special, but people notice if someone messes upCredit: Getty

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Ken was really criticized about mispronouncing a word wrong, which fans said Alex would never doCredit: Getty

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Alex hosted Jeopardy! from 1984 until his death in 2020 from pancreatic cancerCredit: Getty