Fans React to Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik Hosting 'Jeopardy!' For the Rest of the Year
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With Mike Richards almost a distant memory, Jeopardy! is still on the prowl for its permanent host. Today, news broke that the game show had, at least in the short term, solved that problem, enlisting recurring help for the remainder of 2021.
After Richards’ episodes finish airing this week, Mayim Bialik will host September 20 through November 5. And after that, Bialik and Jeopardy! GOAT Ken Jennings will split hosting duties as their schedules allow for the rest of the year. Kudos to Jeopardy! for successfully kicking the can down the road to 2022.
Not everyone is happy about the news. In some corners of Jeopardy! Nation, Bialik, like Richards, is seen as a ticking controversy bomb, waiting to explode. Fans have pointed to her vaccine skepticism, her paid partnership with pseudoscientific supplements, and her problematic comments about survivors of sexual assault as disqualifications for further affiliation with Jeopardy!. Jennings is also not free of scandal; in recent months, fan outcry drove him to apologize for offensive ableist comments he made in the past, like this resurfaced tweet from 2014: “Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair.”
Moreover, fans are calling for more racial diversity at Jeopardy!, with many people still dissatisfied by how fan favorite LeVar Burton was passed over for the permanent host gig, and by how Laura Coates, Alex Trebek’s hand-picked successor, didn’t even get to audition. If you’re not sure what to make of the Bialik / Jennings development, have a scroll through these tweets to get caught up.
Also, when Mayim Bialik is an unrepentant rape apologist anti-vaxxer who shills pseudoscience brain pills it’s a hell of a choice to zero in on one offensive tweet Ken made 7 years ago that he’s owned and changed behavior from.
— Fibromarxalgia 🇵🇸 (@comedyunism) September 16, 2021
Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik are named as permanent hosts of ‘Jeopardy!’…until the end of the year. They need to get their act together over there. pic.twitter.com/oD1OWHJkIM
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 16, 2021
If @jeopardy is going with #HotPersonInAWheelchair @KenJennings they might as well have just kept #MikeRichards.
Same dude essentially. Same issues.
And the lack of racial diversity in this decision is shall we say: glaring.
No shade to @missmayim.
I ❤️ her.
But: *sigh*— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) September 16, 2021
Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings at their new Jeopardy photo shoot pic.twitter.com/nKt5XKNIRz
— Evan Mills (@awkvanmills) September 16, 2021
Why is @Jeopardy still looking for a permanent host? They have better choices to choose from but they must feel @KenJennings and @missmayim are safe white hosts, for now. They're determined to still go with what the deem as Americas favorite color. #Jeopardy https://t.co/TXV6EfOs3L
— Silent Observer (@silentobsvr) September 16, 2021
As a reminder, you can make derogatory "jokes" about disabled people and still have good things happen for you, like @KenJennings. pic.twitter.com/tR4gpq59Fq
— Steven Spohn (Spawn) (@stevenspohn) September 16, 2021
Oh, you mean this Ken Jennings?
(Levar Burton was *right there*) pic.twitter.com/uPbUbuTr09— Annie Heffernan (@Anniek121) September 16, 2021
Can you please just hire LaVar Burton? @levarburton Please?
— 🌹 ησт мє, υѕ 🌹 (@EricOines) September 16, 2021
The last time white people tried to avoid acknowledging Black people this hard they wrote a Constitution. https://t.co/nuRxXSWkwC
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 16, 2021
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