CELEBRITY Jeopardy! viewers got nothing out of bounds, but surely more side chatter than they bargained for on Thursday’s special.
Actor Brendan Hunt, who amused fans when he flashed his unique socks, won in a “blowout” after all three players got casual with host Mayim Bialik.
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Brendan, who stars on Ted Lasso, faced Cari Champion, a lead anchor on SportsCenter, and B.J. Novak, author, and actor from – where else but – The Office.
They played for an eventual $1M charity prize and are the last fresh A-list faces who will be seen until next year.
This was the last quarter-finals game – as waiting in the wings are two finalists.
Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton made the cut having won two episodes, along with Mad TV’s Ike Barenholtz.
The last finalist will either be Patton Oswalt who put up a towering $54,400 in his debut, Michael Cera, or Brendan who similarly couldn’t be lassoed in tonight.
By Final Jeopardy, B. J. Novak had just $8,400, Brendan netted $38,000, and poor Cari – who had guessed “career slam” instead of “grand slam” for a sports clue – at $1,100.
‘GUESS WE HAVE TIME TO KILL’
The three contestants spent nearly five minutes chatting with Mayim during the second Q&A and it ran a bit long for fans liking.
Cari discussed her stunning resume, Brendan his late uncle in a hilarious way, and B.J. how he was once a clue on regular Jeopardy! that no one got, which was funny.
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But the whole segment ran quite long as one angry fan Tweeted: “Worst show ever. Non-stop yapping… unbelievably bad.”
Another wrote: “Please wrap it up we got a game to play!”
Mayim also took a moment after spotting that Brendan had interesting Yellow Submarine-looking socks, which maybe wasn’t needed.
“Did we just stop the game to look at Brendan’s socks?” one fan tweeted.
“I’m guessing we got a lot of time to kill tonight. Got all the side segments tonight,” wrote another.
Final Jeopardy! read: “Al Capone played banjo in a band called the Rock Islanders at this notorious spot.”
No one was correct with “Alcatraz” – Cari answered “What is Brendan’s mind?”, B.J. answered “What is going on here?” – and Brendan protected his lead with $28000 to win.
One fan accused: “Mayim is shockingly bad at the interview segment, considering she’s ostensibly there because she’s a celebrity herself. Also, I think she’s mispronounced Brendan Hunt’s name a couple of times.”
MIXED RECEPTION
Celebrity Jeopardy! first aired in 1992, and the last showdown took place in 2015.
The special had only previously been hosted by the late Alex Trebek, who tragically passed away in 2020 from cancer.
The spinoff was so famous that it spawned the also famed Saturday Night Live parodies some fans are fearing the new version is becoming.
It’s been retooled to be an hour-long tournament with the new Triple Jeopardy! round.
Almost every episode has resulted in a huge backlash from purists and casual fans alike as it’s been deemed so unbelievably dumbed down.
Despite the easier materials, many of the contestants have made headlines for not taking their stint very seriously.
Comedian Eddie Huang was slammed for keeping his sunglasses on all show, and Constance Wu cursed in Final Jeopardy writing “tit” on the lectern.
Iliza Schlesinger was called out for hiding behind the lectern in another episode gone awry.
Then, Hasan Minhaj was deemed the “most annoying Jeopardy!” contestant ever for his on-stage antics which included yelling an answer without buzzing in.
He took to Fallon to “insincerely apologize”, irked fans claimed, as he called Jeopardy! fans “geriatric” for not enjoying him.
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