Alex Trebek has cancer

A Message from Alex Trebek: pic.twitter.com/LbxcIyeTCF

— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) March 6, 2019

Alex Trebek has announced that he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.

He recently signed a contract for a further 3 years. However he has said he will try to continue to host the long running gameshow for the rest of the season and beyond whilst undergoing treatment.

Prognosis for Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer is not overly optimistic which he himself has acknowledged. But fingers crossed he makes a speedy recovery.

Sad news. He's been doing gameshows in the US almost continually for nearly 50 years. Wish him well.

Very sad to hear this news. Jeopardy! is (in my opinion) the finest gameshow ever created.

You obviously missed Don't Scare the Hare.

Has there ever been a UK version of Jeopardy?

At least three versions..

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!_(UK_game_show)

Here's the TVS/Meridian version



and the Sky version.

Quiz show surely?

I've never understood the appeal. I can see why that might be the case in the US where its the one serious quiz show, but there are a lot better.

I've never understood what the point of the question as an answer idea is, except as a gimmick introduced to catch out the contestants.

In fact I'm sure one of the UK versions ditched the idea after a bit

As I recall, the question as an answer gimmick came about from the Quiz Show scandals of the 50's that embroiled Twenty One and the like. Merv Griffin and his wife Julann thought it would be fun to pitch something where they could say that they were giving the contestants the answers, only for them to have to come up with the questions. Bear in mind this was the mid 60's, and since the scandals broke a straight trivia contest hadn't been seen on US TV.

As for ditching that format point in the UK, one of the problems with such a format is its easy to go on instinct and just blurt out a traditional answer, which slows things down if it needs to be corrected, or just causes irritation if rejected directly.

We just never really "got" Jeopardy over here, even though it's a pretty decent format that's ran for years in the US.

But as things turned out we really "got" other formats that ran for years over here that absolutely bombed in the 1980s in the States - Strike It Lucky and Blockbusters for example.

I think the issue with Jeopardy is that in the US its main selling point is that it's the intelligent quiz show. Over here we've had Mastermind, 15 to 1, Countdown, University Challenge etc. It's not quite got the same unique appeal

They did have a University Challenge thing over there I think?

University Challenge is a remake of the original US 'College Bowl' show I think. It stopped decades ago in the US.