What is… Pop Culture Jeopardy!?
Answer: a new twist on the classic game show coming soon to Prime Video
Aux News Jeopardy!
Are you a pop culture fiend who’s ever watched Jeopardy! and thought, “Hmm… I bet I could do that, but I don’t know enough about old coins or rock formations or what former presidents ate for breakfast”? Now might be your time to shine.
Prime Video announced a new twist on the classic game show today (via Variety): Pop Culture Jeopardy!, which is exactly what it sounds like. Contestants who may not know George Washington’s birthday or Andrew Jackson’s star sign, but definitely know Kerry Washington’s and Janet Jackson’s will compete in teams of three for the grand prize. Sounds like it might be time to dig into the archives of your favorite pop culture site and beef up a bit. (Wink wink!)
The question-and-answer format of the game will remain the same as primary Jeopardy!, which means the show will have to hire more of the writers they tried to move on without during the recent WGA strike. Luckily, those scribes will be able to put any TV and movie trivia they gleaned from talking to new friends on the picket line to good use here.
No host has been announced for the spinoff yet, but OG Jeopardy! EP Michael Davies is on board to produce. This also marks a major milestone in the Jeopardy! universe—Pop Culture Jeopardy! will be the first spinoff of the game created specifically for a major streaming service. Other past off-shoots include VH1's Rock & Roll Jeopardy!, Crackle’s Sports Jeopardy!, Jep! (a children’s version that ran from 1998 to 2000), Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time, Jeopardy! National College Championship, Celebrity Jeopardy!, and Jeopardy! Masters.
That is, of course, not to mention the main daytime version of Jeopardy!, which began in 1964, The syndicated version that we know and love premiered 20 years later in 1984. That’s still going strong, with former player Ken Jennings as the host. His former partner, Mayim Bialik, stepped away from the show last December.
33 Comments
Celebrity Jeopardy is real? Huh… I thought it was just an SNL thing.
They bring it back from time to time. Usually the term “celebrity” really gets stretched to include C-listers or folks like various news or sports commentators the same way any other game show (or reality show) with “celebrity” in the title does. So you’re never gonna see an A-lister there… or at least I sure haven’t.
Sometimes reality is better than Sean Connery making mom jokes at Trebek’s expense…
If you told me that was photoshopped I’d believe you.
I can’t imagine anything capturing the Wolf Blitzer experience more than him getting his ass handed to him by Andy Richter (and a less extent Dana Delaney).
It’s kinda hard to make out, but the fact that it looks like he’s staring wide-eyed in shock down the barrel of the camera is mint. the Wolf Blitzer experienceWorst prog band ever.
He’s looking into the future when he steps back into the CNN newsroom and is met with nothing but awkward silence. Meanwhile Richter’s like “I’ll take geophysics for a thousand, Alex.”
So. I did what anyone’d do and start typing “Wolf Blitzer Jeopard-” into YouTube but as the drop down populated “Wolf Blitzer vomits” appeared and, well……but then I found the Jeopardy highlights, and holy hell, you can hear the frustration beginning to etch through Trebek’s normally warm and patient Canadianness:“What is a defendant?”“N- no!”Honestly, this is better than SNL.
Not sure how coherent I’d be next to Dana Delaney myself, to be fair.
Totally fair. Maybe that look is mortification at the rager he has going (by his standards, anyway).
Anderson Cooper was also terrible when he was a Jeopardy contestant. Something about these CNN guys, I guess.
If I recall correctly, more than a few people here thought LaVar felt a bit flat during his time as guest host, but I’d still like to see him get a shot at a full-time gig like this if he’d be up for it. Also, saying that Bialik “stepped away” seems a bit euphemistic:https://www.theringer.com/tv/2023/12/27/24015707/mayim-bialik-jeopardy-main-host-history-ken-jennings-writers-strike
LaVar would be great for a pop-cultural version. And holy hell, Bialik is an ass, as is everyone who dithered around not putting Ken in. Unless they can bring Trebek back from the dead, he’s literally the most perfect host on the planet.
There’s already a decent bit of pop culture already on Jeopardy. I mean not to slam pop culture aficionados (after all, I am posting on an entertainment website, so I kind of am one) but this really reads like Prime is just doing “Jeopardy: Easy Mode!”
As someone who only watches Jeopardy for the trivia (I could care less about the strategy), the actual questions are already relatively easy compared to some other shows like Only Connect and University Challenge.
University Challenge isn’t so hard. If you know anything about crop rotation in the 14th century, you’re guaranteed to win!
LOL, it’s naming opera (and,NGL, western classical) composers by ear, or identifying pieces by ear. I’m absolutely pants at that.
I do appreciate that it’s an actual quiz show with decent prize money but without some gimmick or element of random chance. I like answering the questions on The Chase, and people keep saying I should go on it, but I keep thinking what if I get stuck on a team with the sorts of morons who don’t know what country Madrid’s in? And, worse…buzz in before I do?And, even worse still, they do nothing and the rest of the team carries them to victory?
the sorts of morons who don’t know what country Madrid’s in?…France?
See, at least you weren’t confident about it. It’s the idiots who gleefully buzz in…“What year did World War II end?”*hits buzzer grinning like a loon* “1878!” *other contestants death stare at them*…that get me.
“What year did World War II end?”1066.I was going to say “Canada” for the Madrid question, then I decided France was funnier.
That was exactly my thought. Half the categories are already pop culture (especially if you stretch that term to include sports). This is basically like saying “Here’s the game without all those annoying topics that feel like school– you know, stuff that requires effort to learn.”
I bet they’re thinking “Jeopardy: Social Media Fodder!” The pop culture categories get like 20x the views when they post clips on Tiktok etc.
That is true, I hadn’t even thought of that angle…
I’d think Sports Jeopardy would do well.Lots of sports nerds out there.
Yeah I’m kind of surprised no one else has done that (well, since 2016 when it last aired). I mean, it obviously wouldn’t be on main ESPN since they usually have some actual sports games on, and it obviously wouldn’t work on regular Jeopardy’s every weekday schedule, but like, surely on one ESPN2 or one of the other offshoots (or one of the other sports networks) could surely find a decent day/timeslot when no big sporting events are happening.
Dan Patrick (the former ESPN personality) hosted a Sports Jeopardy show a while back, but it was on…Crackle. No wonder hardly anyone remembers it. Yeah, I wish they’d revive that concept and put it on a service that people actually watch.
Finally a Kenny Mayne project with legs!
What is something stupid people will not care about or watch?
This is fine and all, but what I would really like is for the main show to come to an on demand streaming site. It’s been on broadcast TV forever but unless you pay big $$$ to someone like Hulu+Live TV or YouTube TV, you won’t be able to watch current seasons/episodes on any on demand service.This isn’t even a “I wanna cut the cord already” complaint — it’s because my local channel has a bad habit of preempting it for breaking news, or severe weather coverage, or stupid sports games. They’re supposed to replay missed episodes of J! at 2 am (and then WOF at 2:30) for DVR users but at least half the time they either don’t air it, or it airs in the wrong time slot and I miss it.And for the record I don’t mind preemptions for weather coverage but the news and sports can go screw because it’s never Anything of Actual Importance.
bring back beat the geeksalso win ben steins money
Yes! I loved Beat the Geeks!
At last my time has come……………….