Jeopardy! Fans Shocked To Learn Guest Host’s Pay
Following the death of longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek in 2020, the popular game show has seen a slew of guest hosts come and go.
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Following the death of longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek in 2020, the popular game show has seen a slew of guest hosts come and go. Now, a recent senate disclosure form has revealed how Dr. Oz was paid for his two-week stint on the series. According to the filing via The Hollywood Reporter, the Pennsylvania senate hopeful was paid more than $268,000 for the mini-hosting gig. While fans were a little surprised by the sizeable payout, the document states that all the money had been donated to an unnamed charity.
Some of the former Jeopardy! host’s other earnings mentioned in the documents were his two million dollar salary for The Dr. Oz Show and more than $7 million in ownership interest from Oz Media. Mehmet Oz also brought in approximately $330,000 in royalties from Columbia University for his part in developing a piece of cardiovascular equipment called the MitraClip, The Wrap reported. Interestingly, his alternative pseudoscience approach to medicine has been criticized by physicians, government officials, and scientific publications like British Medical Journal and Popular Science.
Meanwhile, Jeopardy! tried out numerous hosts before landing on Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik as their choices in 2021. The pair are scheduled to share duties on the show until the end of season 38. Although the Call Me Kat star received a very warm welcome from viewers on her debut, fans have grown tired of her on-air blunders and quips about confetti being another term for “funfetti.”
But the final straw came during the April 8th episode of the game show when the actress did a strange impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger when revealing the answer to a question about one of his movies. Social media immediately erupted with tons of horrible feedback about Mayim Bialik’s Jeopardy! hosting skills and they were pleased with the network to make Ken Jennings the full-time host. “Not only do I miss Ken when he’s not there, but Mayim reminds me daily of how much better he is at the job,” one unhappy viewer said via The Sun.
Despite the criticism, Mayim Bialik would still like to continue standing at the Jeopardy! podium. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight last month, the Blossom star revealed that her time on the quiz show is slowing coming to an end. But, if it were up to her, she would like to be a permanent member of the game show’s team. While she will be recording new episodes until this spring, she doesn’t know what will happen after that.
Unfortunately for the former Big Bang Theory star, unhappiness with her Jeopardy! hosting duties have been reflected in the show’s viewership ratings too. Since their tenure began, Ken Jennings has brought in almost double the viewers as his counterpart. According to the publication, the former champions raked in 10 million viewers when he returned as a guest host back in November.
Moreover, when Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert said Jennings would be back next week, fans expressed their excitement on social media. “YAY!! Ken Jennings will be back next week! Please make him permanent host!” one supporter said on the game show’s Facebook page. Another echoed the enthusiasm with, “Ken is coming back on Monday!”
