‘Jeopardy!’ Host Mayim Bialik Says She Had to Keep Amy Schneider’s Winning Streak a Secret

Mayim Bialik had to spend the last few weeks hiding the fact that she never got to meet Amy Schneider, whose 40-game “Jeopardy!” winning streak ended last week.

That’s because Ken Jennings, with whom Bialik is sharing co-hosting duties on the Sony quiz show, was the host during Schneider’s two-month streak. But given the delay between taping the show and airing it, Bialik, who also stars on Fox’s “Call Me Kat,” had to play coy with her co-stars the entire time.

“I couldn’t tell anyone that I didn’t meet Amy,” Bialik told TheWrap on Monday during a conversation to promote the primetime “Jeopardy! National College Championship” special, which she is hosting for ABC. “Like, it’s finally Monday night [last week], and I was able to post in support for her and was a little bit relieved that it was finally public, because then I didn’t have to go back to work and be like, ‘I can’t say anything.’ That’s kind of what my life is like.”

Video: Amy Schneider's winning streak comes to an end

Schneider’s 40-game streak came only three months after Matt Amodio won 38 games in a row to briefly hold second place to Jennings, who won 74 straight games back in 2004. Her total earnings also put her at No. 4 on the all-time list of regular season cash winnings, behind Amodio, James Holzhauer and Jennings.

TheWrap asked Bialik to explain why the two winning streaks were so close together (Amodio ended his streak last October). “I think it’s kind of like the stock market. Like, if you look at it over a period of five years, 10 years, I think there’s probably more of these kinds of trends. Do I think people are smarter now? No. Is there more information available that never was before? Absolutely,” she said. “I think it’s been a really fun and special time. But you know, that’s also the fun of ‘Jeopardy!’ You never know what’s going to happen. Someone can seem like they’re winning, winning, winning, and anything can happen — they can have a tummy ache. And that kind of changes the course of their day.”

Bialik and Jennings will trade off hosting “Jeopardy!” through the end of this season, which wraps sometime in the summer. Then Sony will take another chance at naming a permanent host for the late Alex Trebek, who died in 2020. Mike Richards held the job for one day of taping before he stepped down in the wake of past misogynistic comments coming to light.

“Jeopardy! National College Championship starts Tuesday, Feb. 8 on ABC