My revised rankings:
- Buzzy Cohen
- Anderson Cooper
- Mike Richards
- Aaron Rodgers
- Mayim Bialik
- Ken Jennings
- Katie Couric
- Bill Whitaker
- Mehmet Oz
My Rankings:
- Aaron Rodgers
- Ken Jennings
- Mayim Bialik
- Anderson Cooper
- Buzzy Cohen
- Mike Richards
- Katie Couric
- Bill Whitaker
- Oz
Quick question that I can’t answer because I always delete the episode from my DVR as soon as I’ve watched it: Did any of the guest host stints produce an automatic Tournament of Champions qualifier?
I gotta say, when Joe Buck hosts, he’d better have a board with these categories:
DIGS
SIDE LINE
TOUCHDOWN
UNBELIEVABLE
VIKINGS
“WIN” IT
He would boost “morbid curiosity” ratings but after one too many bronzer disasters or bag leaks they’d have to somehow shepherd him into some other career option that might be more accommodating of his deteroriating state - exactly what, I’m not sure, offhand, and is a road best not to go down.
Instead of him, I’m thinking more of the warm, homespun, avuncular Bob Cole-like Charles Kuralt-yness of Wilbur Ross, if we’re gonna go down that road.
A more seasoned, balanced list:
Terry Bradshaw
too bad Quentin Crisp wasn’t still around
Trent Reznor
Glenn Close
Quentin Tarantino
Stephen A. Smith
Cindy Lauper
I don’t know who this woman is, but if she says “You got it!” one more time, I’m gonna scream.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
Well, that didn’t take long. 
I don’t know who she is either. Apparently they’re recruiting random people off the street to audition.
And the current contestants are no better. I’m amazed at how many really easy clues there were, and nobody even rang in.
Savannah Guthrie is NBC’s chief legal correspondent, and co-host of the Today show. She was one of NBC’s White House correspondents during Obama’s first term, and interviewed Trump during the 2020 campaign. She’s hardly a random person off the street.
My wife watches The Today Show and Monday morning they had a segment about Savannah hosting Jeopardy. I had to think for a minute until I realized that she and Katie Couric are two different people.
You got it!
Makes me think of this…
(1) Famous Forehead | Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole | Adult Swim - YouTube
Let’s all take a shot every time she says it tonight. Board will be dead by tomorrow.
When come back, bring lips.
You got it!
But the liquor industry will have made impressive profits!
Somebody must have handed her a note between tapings: I heard it once early on and steeled myself to hit the “mute” button for the rest of the show, but don’t recall hearing it again (or perhaps Monday overloaded my ability to hear it).
Overall she strikes me as remarkably similar to Mayim Bialik, at least as far as her approach to the game is concerned. At least she has managed to clear the board.
I’m getting the impression it doesn’t matter too much who the host is. the show is the same. Maybe because they’ve all had decades with Alex as a role model for how it should be done. No one is really outside of the box.
What they need is Bill Burr, or some other similar comedian to just absolutely rip into the contestants during the interview portion. I was watching an old episode last night and one contestant stated his job was “DJ and music journalist.” Come on, that’s a layup; “So, you’re unemployed and you have a blog?” Someone’s badly dressed, tell 'em they’re here the wrong week, the Teachers Tournament is in March. Openly yawn and check your watch if they drone.
What bother me more than the “you got it” kind of thing, is that every host has to openly prostrate themselves before the Altar of Trebek. It’s like a cult of personality. It;'s north Korea, or a trump rally. “I love Trebek more!”
[pedantry]It wasn’t necessary for Guthrie to correct the contestant’s pronunciation of “ecce”. In Church Latin, yes it’s pronounced “etch-ay”, but in Classical Latin it would have been more like “eck-ay”, as the contestant said.
(When Caesar said "I came, I saw, I conquered it sounded like “Wenny Weedy Winky”).
[/pedant]