- I mean, I love Jeopardy!
I've been watching since I was in high school.
A huge fan of Alex Trebek
so to be able to be here, to pay tribute to him,
and honor his extraordinary life and career,
raise money for some great causes
and also just meet these brilliant contestants.
It's such a thrill.
Yeah, I mean, it really is a dream come true.
I've watched Jeopardy! my entire life
so to actually be on this stage.
I've been a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy!
a couple of times but to be behind Alex's lectern,
it's, yeah, it was amazing.
I'm just hoping not to really mess it up.
I mean, it's such a great show
and I'm such a fan and there's so many levels to it,
and I want it to be a really good experience
for the players.
For them, this is an amazing, amazing moment in their lives.
And, I've been a player.
I know what that feels like,
so I want this to be good for them
and I wanna do the best job possible for them.
I do, I mean, I remember the first time I was on Jeopardy!
and I was so excited to meet Alex Trebek,
and I remember when he walked on the stage,
I was like...
There was just something about seeing him
and I've met a lot of famous people,
but for some reason, he was somebody
who was just such an integral part of my entire,
you know, youth and growing up
and to be able to be back on the show from time to time.
I got a call from him,
probably about a month or two before he died,
and I, he was asking me about some other stuff,
but I used it as an opportunity just to say to him
how much I appreciated him and how much, you know,
all what he had brought to my life
and to the life of so many people,
so I was really glad I got the chance to do that.
But, he's just, you know, I miss him as does everybody.
And, you know, whoever leads the show forward,
they're certainly big shoes to fill,
and I know whoever becomes the host of the show,
they're gonna carry on Alex's legacy.
For me, I have so many memories of Jeopardy!
of watching it with my brother,
watching it with my mom over the years,
and I think that's one of the great things about Jeopardy!
is that there's not a lot of stuff
you can do as a family together
and know that it's intelligent and educational
and fun and exciting.
So, I love that Jeopardy! has been able to keep that
and keep that going for these generations,
and now there's a whole new generation
of people who are watching Jeopardy!
who watched as kids with their parents
and now I have a son and I cannot wait
to sit at home and watch with him.
And also now, with Alex's death,
just the appreciation for him.
And I think it makes it even more
of a sense of being part of a family,
of being part of a kind of a family of viewers
and I'm sure for everybody who works here,
everybody I've met,
so many people here have been here
for a decade or two decades or more,
and there's this incredible institutional knowledge
that's built up and that's really just extraordinary
to kind of step into and be able to get
to spend time here for a little bit.
Wow, to be a contestant,
I was so freaked out when I did that
and I've done it four times.
I won twice, I lost really badly twice.
It's definitely better to win
and I lost to Cheech Marin and I gotta tell you,
to walk into the newsroom the day
after you've lost to Cheech Marin,
it's painful but he is an excellent player.
He's so smart.
He's so quick on the buzzer but it's...
Just to be in Jeopardy! whether you're as a contestant,
as a guest host, is just...
Even in the audience, it's just thrilling to watch,
and when you watch something your entire life
and you really enjoy it,
and you really just feel a part
of a larger kind of family and fan base,
to suddenly be inside it is extraordinary,
and I can't believe I'm here.
I was nervous, yeah.
I don't really get nervous very often much anymore,
but I definitely found myself very focused.
And there's a lot of...
When I've watched the game,
when I watch the game at home
or when I played as a contestant,
all you focus on is trying to get the right response
but there's a lot more that goes
into it when you're guest hosting.
And so, there's a lot of sort of mechanics of the show
that you're trying to keep in mind
at the same time as interacting
and making sure the game is running smoothly.
You know, look, I love reading and researching
and that's what I do throughout my day
and that's what I've done for 25
or however many years I've been a reporter
so to be on a program which is all about
knowledge and the search for knowledge
and the joy of learning new things, it's thrilling.
And I think a lot of the stuff I've learned as a journalist,
it fits very well here just in terms of the wide base
of knowledge that you need to be a journalist.
It's the same for Jeopardy!
You need to have a wide range
of facts at your fingertips.
I mean, there's...
I think folks in the news business have a kind of a leg up
because there's a lot of knowledge you just pick up
over the years of being, following politics
and following government and world events that, you know,
you never know what's gonna pop up as a clue in Jeopardy!
so I don't think they need too much of my advice.
I know Dr. Sanjay Gupta is gonna be guest hosting as well
and I'm sure he'll do a great job.
He's just such a smart, wonderful guy.
I think for a contestant...
I wish when I was on as a contestant
that I had enjoyed the moment more, you know?
I mean, I was so focused on just answering the,
getting the right response and, you know,
not making a fool of myself and trying to win
that it all just went by so fast
and it wasn't until kind of that night or days later
that I would kind of relive what actually occurred
and really kind of enjoy the entire experience.
So I would hope that the contestants who are playing now
would enjoy the process, enjoy the game as much as possible
and just try to relax into it.
It's interesting from now the perspective I have is,
you see the players being nervous in the beginning,
and some of them, kind of, it takes them a while,
that first Jeopardy! round,
for them to kind of get their bearings.
And then they just come roaring back
and, particularly in Double Jeopardy!
and that's always so exciting to see.
I picked two different organizations.
For the first week, I'm playing
for the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, which is in Haiti
and it's a really...
It's a top of the line hospital
and it's in a country that really needs good medical care
and where a lot of people don't have access to medical care,
can't afford it, and this is a hospital
that serves people who are really in need.
A lot of women, a lot of children.
They do great work so I'm really happy
to be able to raise some money for them.
The other organization I'm raising money
for is Justice Defenders,
and they work to defend the defenseless
in communities in East Africa
to provide attorneys and paralegals
for people who can't afford to have an attorney
but really, really need one.