Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings took a potshot at Wheel of Fortune while discussing his new hosting gig.
In an interview about the current season of Celebrity Jeopardy! All Stars, which features returning celebrity contestants from its first three seasons, Jennings, 51, went out of his way to say his show was more difficult to cast and win than its TV cousin.
“Candidly, it’s very hard to cast Celebrity Jeopardy! All-Stars. It’s not Celebrity Wheel [of Fortune]. We can’t just invite everybody who thinks it would be fun," Jennings told CinemaBlend. ”
“You actually have to be legitimately good at Jeopardy!, and that means trying to find a crop of celebrities every year who have mentioned their Jeopardy! fandom in an interview, or who looks good in glasses, or whatever it is,” Jennings added, laughing.
While Jennings seemingly put down Ryan Seacrest and his celebrity game show for no reason, the Jeopardy! host has a point. Casting celebrities to guest-star on your show can be a difficult balancing act of wants, scheduling conflicts, budget, and branding, let alone on a trivia show—just ask Celebrity Jeopardy! winner Ike Barinholtz.
Barinholtz, 49, has encountered the issue while scheduling guests for his new trivia podcast, Funny You Ask.
In the show’s first episode, Mindy Kaling had a miniature panic attack when she realized first that the podcast was actually a trivia show, and then that she would not ace the Boston Celtics portion as she had previously thought.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, The Studio star said that celebrities do not like to appear stupid.
“The pitch is you won’t look bad. If anyone’s going to look bad, it’s me,” he said. “There’s an episode where I got my a-- kicked, where the questions just missed me like Neo dodging the bullets.”
Scheduling is also incredibly difficult for Celebrity Jeopardy!. In fact, it is the only Jennings show that tapes on weekends, when stars are free from their regular shooting schedules.
As one of the previous champions of Celebrity Jeopardy!, Barinholtz has an automatic spot in the show’s three semi-finals, with Abbott Elementary‘s Lisa Ann Walter and comedian W. Kamau Bell.
Other notable contestants include Macaulay Culkin, Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho, and Ray Romano.
As for why the show is returning to its previous winners in just its fourth season, Jennings said it was “above his pay grade.”
“And in this case, we knew we had a lot of great players from the past three years, and we thought this way, no question marks. Everybody here is a pro,” Jennings said. “You’re going to see very high-level Celebrity Jeopardy! play.”
Celebrity Jeopardy! will return on April 10, with a faceoff between Andy Richter, Mina Kimes, and Veep‘s Timothy Simons.
