Jeopardy! Champions Are Boycotting The Show
Several former Jeopardy! winners announced their intentions to boycott the gameshow’s iconic Tournament of Champions if the show used any recycled questions due to the ongoing WGA strike. According to Deadline, a group of former contestants, including Ray Lalonde, Chris Pannullo, Ben Chan, Luigi de Guzman, and Amy Schneider, said they wouldn’t compete in the postseason tournament if Jeopardy! reused any clues from previous seasons/episodes as a way to skirt around the writer’s strike.
The threatened boycott has led Sony Pictures Television, producers of Jeopardy!, to push the Tournament of Champions back until the WGA ends their strike.
A group of former Jeopardy! contestants won’t compete in the tournament if the show reuses any clues from previous episodes as a way to work around the strikes.
While the former winners standing in solidarity with the Writers Guild is a wonderful gesture, a spokesperson for Jeopardy! wants viewers to know that it’s performative, at least from their perspective. According to Jeopardy! producers, none of the former contestants threatening to boycott the Tournament of Champions were even contacted to be a part of a potential tournament.
The spokesperson claimed that regardless of the threatened boycott, “Jeopardy! never had any intention of producing a Tournament of Champions for Season 39 until the strike is resolved.” They further stated that the Tournament of Champions represents the “pinnacle” of Jeopardy! competing and should feature the gameshow’s strongest players answering the show’s “toughest original material.”
Of course, the fact that Sony Pictures Television didn’t make that statement until after the former contestants expressed their concerns brings the sincerity of their claim into question.
The threatened boycott has led Sony Pictures Television, producers of Jeopardy!, to push the Tournament of Champions back until the WGA ends their strike.
The spokesperson went on to say that the current plan for Jeopardy! is to hold off on Season 39’s postseason for now and instead produce new regular episodes of the gameshow featuring material already written by WGA members prior to the strike.
Sony Pictures Television plans to announce more news about what it calls its “exciting plans and enhancements to the contest experience” for the upcoming 40th season “and beyond.
Meanwhile, Jeopardy! execs expressed their love and admiration for the WGA and the show’s own writers, saying that the show has a long history working with the WGA and has nothing but “tremendous respect” for the union. “We have always been careful to honor our WGA agreements, and we would never air game material not created by WGA writers,” a Jeopardy! spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson went on to say that despite their warm and gushy feelings toward the WGA, they would still deliver first-run Jeopardy! episodes in the fall to over 200 affiliates across the country, just like they did during the 2007-2008 writer’s strike when they were “led by Alex Trebek.”
The statement’s use of late Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek’s name seems odd, as if execs are hiding behind a beloved figure to excuse their actions. Saying, “Alex did it too!” doesn’t quite come off the way they no doubt intended it to. The spokesperson ended the statement by saying that they hope the guilds and the AMPTP can reach a resolution both parties deem fair sooner rather than later.
“We have always been careful to honor our WGA agreements, and we would never air game material not created by WGA writers.”
Jeopardy! spokesperson
Celebrity Jeopardy! will also make its return this fall with original material written prior to the WGA strike. The primetime show, along with its daily counterpart, is allowed to film new episodes during the SAG-AFTRA strike due to something known as the “Network Code.”
The Network Code is an agreement that runs through June of next year that allows certain programs like daytime soap operas, game shows, and variety shows to continue filming during a strike.
We’ll have more to report on the subject following next month’s announcement from Sony Pictures Television.
