Celebrity Jeopardy! (Saturday Night Live)

Sketch

The sketch begins at the start of the second round of Jeopardy!, called Double Jeopardy!. Trebek welcomes the audience, often apologizing for the contestants' behavior during the game's (unseen) first round (e.g. "Before we begin the Double Jeopardy! round, I'd like to ask our contestants, once again, please refrain from using ethnic slurs"), and introduces the celebrity contestants (who often appear confused, cocky, immature, belligerent, loud/obnoxious, very unintelligent and/or showing no interest whatsoever in the game), along with their current scores, which are revealed to be either $0, a negative score, or a very low positive score. The rules of Jeopardy!, as in the original game show, require that a contestant select a category and a dollar value from the game board in order for the game to proceed. However, the celebrity contestants will refuse or fail to select an appropriate clue, grinding the game to a halt, and often requiring Trebek to choose one himself.

As the celebrities' growing ineptitude became apparent, the subject matter used for categories shifted from normal topics (such as "Movies" and "Popular Music") to more childish topics, as well as categories whose titles give not-so-subtle hints as to the correct response without even reading the clues, such as "Colors that End in 'Urple'", "States that Begin with 'Californ'", "Famous 'Kareem Abdul-Jabbars'", and categories that do not require any responses whatsoever (such as "Don't Do Anything", "Automatic Points", and "I Have a Chardonnay", where "you automatically get the points and I get to have a glass of wine"). "Potent Potables", a recurring category on the actual Jeopardy! show, appears in every sketch but is never selected, though Trebek mentions that it is about alcohol to Kathie Lee Gifford, who soon rejects it. When it finally is selected, it results in an inadvertently offensive pre-recorded Video Daily Double involving Bill Cosby.

During the round, none of the contestants ever gives a correct response, buzzing in and either giving horribly incorrect responses or saying things that have nothing to do with the game, frustrating Trebek who does nothing to hide his contempt for the celebrities' performance. Trebek's mood is also exacerbated by Connery's antics, which include making sexual jokes at Trebek's expense; including the implication that Connery has had sexual relations with Trebek's mother. Connery, who almost always refers to Trebek by his surname, also tends to misread categories, turning them into sexually suggestive phrases (i.e., misreading "Catch These Men", a category about people on the FBI's Most Wanted list, as "Catch the Semen"; "Japan U.S. Relations" as "Jap Anus Relations"; "An Album Cover" as "Anal Bum Cover"; "Therapists" as "The Rapists"; "The Pen Is Mightier", a category about quotes from famous authors, as "The Penis Mightier", which Connery thought was a penis enlargement drug; "Famous Titles" as "Famous Titties", "Who Reads" as "Whore Ads", "Let It Snow" as "Le Tits, Now",etc.). Connery would also appear to change categories, such as crossing off letters in the categories "Richard Nixon" to make it read "Hard On" and "I Have a Chardonnay" to make it read "I Have a hardon", and, on one occasion, covered up an entire category with a piece of paper with a new one on there (specifically, "Potpourri" was covered up by "Things Trebek Sucks").

Trebek eventually grows exasperated with his inability to conduct the show, and cuts the round short by moving to the Final Jeopardy! round. Sometimes, he discards the scripted category; when this happens, the scripted category is usually not revealed (although at times, if conducive to the contestant's shenanigans, he will, as in the category "Famous Mothers"). When Trebek discards a category, he moves in favor of a much easier task; for instance, he will ask the celebrity contestants to write their own clue and respond to it, or make any mark whatsoever to earn a correct response. Sometimes, a childishly simple category is announced, such as "First Grade Math" or "Horsies". Despite constructing scenarios wherein it appears impossible for the celebrities to fail, they invariably do. Connery occasionally provides a correct response, but uses his wager to transform the text into a rude phrase. For instance, when Trebek asks the contestants to write a number to earn a correct response, Connery writes "V" for his response, which Trebek acknowledges as correct since "V" is the Roman numeral for 5, but Connery reveals "SucK it, Trebek" for the wager (the "V" forming the top of the "K"). In some occasions, Connery appears to have sympathy for Trebek until the wager reveal, which happens to be a rude drawing at Trebek's expense. However, Connery wasn't the only contestant to perform this. In response to a Final Jeopardy! question from one of the earlier sketches, which has each of the contestants name their favorite food, John Travolta responds "miso", surprising Trebek who says that miso is indeed a soup; yet when he asks for the wager, Travolta reveals it to be "horny", which is read as "me so horny".

Trebek is the beleaguered straight man, and is generally the only person on stage who is interested in the game. The contestants, who are either unaware of what the game is or uninterested in playing it, will ramble incoherently, deliver irrelevant monologues, or openly antagonize the host. Whenever a contestant takes the game seriously, he/she proves utterly incapable of supplying a correct response. In all fifteen sketches, no contestant ever buzzes in with a correct response. Two came close: Phil Donahue in the second sketch answered "This December 25th holiday involves decorating a tree and opening presents" with a vivid description of a Christmas Eve/Morning scenario while never actually saying the word "Christmas", and during the 40th anniversary sketch, Tony Bennett, played by Alec Baldwin, delivered a similar description of the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, only to be cut off by Trebek before he could remember Jim's nickname. Initially, Burt Reynolds had been the celebrity who appeared on each episode. When Reynolds appears for the last time on the sketch, he misreads the categories in the same manner as Connery. (Condiments as "The Condom Thing" and A Petit Dejeuner as "Ape Tit"), and insists that he be addressed as "Turd Ferguson" because, as he states, "it's a funny name". Reynolds appears briefly along with his podium (which still reads "Turd Ferguson") in the fourteenth sketch near the end of the Double Jeopardy round and then mysteriously vanishes during Final Jeopardy. Reynolds also makes an appearance during the 40th anniversary sketch, having apparently "driven" his podium onto the set.

At the end of almost every sketch, all three celebrities have scores in the negative thousands of dollars, and in most cases, a humorous, often sexual, Final Jeopardy! punchline is delivered by Hammond's Sean Connery character. Only once has the sketch ended with an unquestioned winner and money being awarded to charity, but even in this sketch, Burt Reynolds won simply because he had the least amount of negative money, rather than actually earning a victory.

Trebek ends the show, many times by announcing that money will not be awarded to charity or by declaring his intention to resign or commit suicide.

SNL cast members

A typical Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch featured three cast members (two as contestants and Ferrell as Trebek) plus that week’s host as a third contestant. The thirteenth edition of the sketch (Cosby, Sharon Osbourne, Connery) featured three members of the SNL cast as the three contestants and Ferrell, now hosting, reprising his role as Trebek. The episode with Connery, Ozzy Osbourne, and Martha Stewart featured cast members in all four roles.

SNL hosts

Thirteen of the fifteen sketches included the episode's host, usually as a contestant. The tenth sketch was one of two not to feature a host, as it was part of an SNL primetime special that did not feature a guest host. The 40th anniversary special also did not have a host. Both Ferrell and Macdonald were previous cast members who reprised their Celebrity Jeopardy! role upon their return.

Background

During the May 2007 special Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation, Norm Macdonald said he created the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch purely as an excuse to do his Burt Reynolds impersonation. Macdonald also claims that Reynolds is a fan of the sketch and that there were talks to do a sketch where the real Reynolds would crash the game and punch out Macdonald. Reynolds would then play the remainder of the game, with his responses being even dumber than Macdonald's. However, Macdonald was fired from Saturday Night Live before that sketch could be written.

Both the host and contestants are played as caricatures of their real life personalities. Hammond said that, while his initial Connery impression was as accurate as possible, it would eventually morph into a "bastardization" of the actor, which audiences—and Hammond himself—found far more entertaining. Though Trebek shaved his trademark mustache in 2001, Ferrell retained it as long as he played the character, even in the twelfth sketch—Ferrell's last episode as a cast member—when a clean-shaven real Trebek made a cameo at the end.

Critical reactions

Critical responses to the sketches have been positive. In 2008, Ferrell's portrayal of Trebek was #3 in IGN's "Top 15 Will Ferrell characters".

Impact

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has mentioned his admiration for Will Ferrell's impression of him in interviews. Trebek also stated that during every taping of the show, he is asked by one of the audience members if he liked Ferrell's impression, and always replies that he does. On several occasions, Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches have been referenced during actual Jeopardy! episodes:

In the May 19, 1999 Celebrity Jeopardy! episode, the Jeopardy! round featured the category "'S' Words", and the Double Jeopardy! round featured "Swords" in the same column (Connery misread "'S' words" as "Swords"). During the September 5, 2001 episode, the Double Jeopardy! categories were "Sean Connery", "Surprise Me, Trebek!", "Therapists" (misread by Connery as "The Rapists"), "Things You Shouldn't Put in Your Mouth", "The Number After 2", and "Rhymes With 'Dog'".

The June 27, 2006 show featured the category "Japan-U.S. Relations", which had been misread by Connery as "Jap Anus Relations". In the November 8 and 16, 2006 Celebrity Jeopardy! tournament episodes, categories included "Surprise Me, Trebek!" and "Answers That Start With 'Feb'", respectively (the latter of which is a reference to the category "Months That Start With 'Feb'" from the sketch). On the November 23, 2009 show, the categories in the Jeopardy! round were "SNL Celebrity Jeopardy!", "States That End In Hampshire", "What Color Is Green?", "Current Black Presidents", "Sounds That Kitties Make", and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Word That Rhymes With Star".

A May 15, 2015 Celebrity Jeopardy! featured "The Pen is Mightier" as a category (which was misread in a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch as "The Penis Mightier" by Connery), and on September 16, 2015, contestant Talia Lavin who did not know the actual answer jokingly guessed "The Love Ballad of Turd Ferguson" during Final Jeopardy!.