Fans Aren't Holding Back Their Enthusiasm For LeVar Burton on 'Jeopardy!'

Adrienne Westenfeld
·3 min read
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Fans Aren't Holding Back Their Enthusiasm For LeVar Burton on 'Jeopardy!'
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After years of anticipation, LeVar Burton is finally living out his Jeopardy! dreams—and fans are loving it.

On Monday, Burton took the hallowed Jeopardy! stage for the first time, joining a roster of prominent broadcasters, athletes, and actors as the show’s latest guest host. His debut episode made waves in more ways than one, activating his passionate fanbase while also setting an ignoble record for the lowest score of all time.

Days before his Jeopardy! episodes were set to air, Burton spoke with Esquire by phone, expressing nervousness about how the episodes would turn out. It might surprise you to learn that Burton hadn’t seen his five episodes; he, like all the guest hosts, viewed them for the first time along with the American public.

“I've done a lot of things to test myself, like jumping out of an airplane and walking on hot coals with Tony Robbins,” Burton told Esquire. “This was still the scariest thing I’ve ever done. With Jeopardy!, the pressure is, ‘Am I doing everything that I need to be doing?’ There's such an expectation, or at least an expectation that I put on myself, to do Alex [Trebek]’s memory proud—to bring the same standard for excellence that I apply in every other aspect of my life to these five shows. I think at the end of the day, what I needed to do was just be myself. I had to just relax and not concern myself so much with the mechanics, because Alex had decades to perfect the way he made it look so effortless. The one thing I hope I was able to do was just be myself.”

Burton brought his whole self to the stage, along with an enormous fanbase of Twitter cheerleaders, including his own daughter. We rounded up some of the best feedback from viewers on Twitter, from callbacks to Burton’s Reading Rainbow days to impassioned pleas for him to become the show’s permanent host. Your lips to God’s ears, Twitter.

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