Every time Jeopardy! Host Ken Jennings looks into the camera and says “yesterday on Jeopardy!” he’s lying… and he’s perfectly fine with it.
The longtime host of America’s most beloved quiz show revealed the industry secret that millions of viewers never knew in a new Fox News interview.
All Jeopardy! shows tape an entire week of episodes in a single day.
“I think a lot of viewers don’t realize we do a full week at a time,” Jennings explained. “Like, we do five Jeopardy!’s in one day. So, when a player wins, they have to rush off stage, put on a new outfit. I put on a new suit. We come back out 10 minutes later, and then I tell the great lie, which is like ‘yesterday on Jeopardy!’ but it was not yesterday! It was 10 minutes ago. We’re just fooling you.”
Current Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding’s remarkable 28-game winning streak wasn’t spread across weeks of triumphant mornings. Instead, it was an endurance marathon over just a handful of shooting days.
“When players win for weeks at a time, it’s an endurance contest,” Jennings said. “That’s a real marathon for them. They’ve got to play and then go back and play again.”
Jennings also shared his No. 1 prep tip to help win: Just watch the show.
“If you watch Jeopardy!, the rhythm of the host’s voice will kind of get into your pulse,” he said. “You’ll know the kind of stuff that comes up, the kind of material. That’s how you become a good Jeopardy! player.”
Even Jennings said he had a weak spot. Hockey, a staple of the show during Canadian Alex Trebek’s era, made him sweat.
“There was always a lot of hockey on Jeopardy! when I was on, and maybe because of Alex being Canadian,” he said. “It turned out I did not know as much about ice hockey as a genuine Canadian like Alex.”
Five years into the job, Jennings still considers Trebek the gold standard and models himself accordingly.
“Doing an Alex Trebek impression is basically the best way to host Jeopardy!” Jennings said. “Like, it’s not a slavish thing. Like, he really perfected it, so if you’re getting as close to Alex as you can, you’re going as close to perfection as you can.”