Ken Jennings Is Working With a ‘Comedy Coach’ to Bring More Laughs to ‘Jeopardy!’
Jeopardy! isn’t known for being the most hilarious show on TV. After all, three nerdy contestants showing off their trivia knowledge in the form of questions isn’t exactly a formula for comedy gold. Unless, of course, one of the contestants is Sir Sean Connery.
That being said, the late Alex Trebek did manage to squeeze in a few memorable laughs during his legendary run as host, such as the time he absolutely bodied a “nerd-core hip-hop” fan for absolutely no reason.
Now the current host of Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings, is reportedly working on beefing up his joke-telling skills, and has hired a “comedy coach” seemingly to counter criticisms that he comes across as “awkward and unfunny” on the air. “How to be genuinely funny is one of the things that hinders (Jennings),” an anonymous source told Closer Weekly. “People on the show know it, Ken knows it deep down. He’s an awkward character and can’t make people laugh unlike his contemporaries, Steve Harvey and Drew Carey, and it bothers him. His delivery and timing have got to be improved if he’s to win over audiences.”
“He needs to focus on his comedic skills now,” the source added, “get some lessons and have people come on over to help him, give him some pointers. He wants to nail this thing, and bosses are backing him.”
It’s true that some of the other hosts of other iconic, long-running game shows are comedians, like Carey and Harvey on The Price Is Right and Family Feud, respectively. But both of those jobs require a lot more one-on-one engagement with contestants. On Jeopardy!, Jennings, for the most part, just has to stand behind a podium, reading off information.
On the plus side, this means that there’s less of a chance that he’ll be kneed in the junk during tapings.
But Jennings is seemingly a big fan of comedy, despite what his past social media attempts at humor would have you believe. He even wrote a book on the subject: Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture, which chronicled the history of humor “from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets all the way up to the latest Twitter gags and Facebook memes.” And he’s clearly been trying to work comedy into his hosting duties, such as the time he made a circumcision joke during the show, which quickly went viral.
Of course, Jennings’ biggest laugh, hands down, came back when he was a contestant, and offered an off-color response to a clue involving gardening tools.
Jennings may be feeling extra-sensitive about his comedic abilities for one very specific reason: Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost has been hired to host Pop-Culture Jeopardy!, the spin-off for those of us who are too stupid for the real Jeopardy!. According to some reports, Jennings was “quite upset” with this news.
Although, one could argue that Jennings should take it as a compliment that the producers hired another bland white guy with big Mormon energy.
You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).
