Thank you, I mean it is a.
It's a very tough day for
the Jeopardy staff through.
All of his fans,
but especially as you mentioned,
Jenny's wife we've been with for 3030 years.
They are truly a love story and
they were lucky to have each other,
so we're doing OK, you know,
we love him and we miss him already.
You know he was I.
I sent him a note jet late yesterday.
I think this will explain
kind of who the man was.
He was the most professional person that
I've ever worked with in any capacity.
Here he was battling cancer pain,
chemo exhaustion, but you couldn't
tell when when the cameras will.
So as a professional,
the fact that he kept pushing and
that he recorded his final what
would now be his final episodes.
Less than two weeks ago,
it gives you an idea of just.
How much he believed in the show,
how much he cared for it,
but then as a man you know he was
an amazing dad and he loved Gene.
So much that it was inspirational.
So what I told him was I wanted
to thank him for showing me
how to be a better man at work.
An even more importantly a better
man with my family and my wife.
He was. He was really that great.
Right?
You know we didn't know.
That it was going to be his last.
It was the first time he'd ever he we did.
We usually do five shows a day.
He did three and then two on Monday
and then Tuesday he was in pain
and we knew it he had had surgery.
I couldn't believe he was already back
from the surgery that he had had just
two weeks before that I had chills.
The entire the entire tape day that
first show of that that final week,
which is the unbelievably
the week of Christmas.
He gives a speech talking about togetherness,
how important family is,
and it will resonate even more.
Now I it was so beautiful that
we were all emotion emotional.
We were all in tears and we all started
clapping and it almost distracted him.
'cause he he was going OK.
Now let's play.
Jeopardy, but it was.
It was one of those days.
It was just he was at the top of his game,
even though clearly he was very ill.
He really believed in the
importance of jeopardy an I made.
Maybe that sounds corny on today of all days,
but he really thought it was
important what he was doing and
it is that he loved that jeopardy
popular or popularized intelligence.
And it was important for me.
It was the thing he looked
forward to as he said.
A lot of different things
comes with being a TV star,
but that time when he was in
the studio that 30 minutes
where he was hosting the game,
he loved it and that's why he
kept driving himself to do it.
I still don't understand why he was
doing it really other than he just
loved it and wanted to be there and he
reveled in these intelligent people
and the contestants in the writers.
He just.
He loved being surrounded by it.
You know, I think he really.
Became synonymous with the show
in that he really was that smart.
He was self deprecating about
his intelligence and saying, oh,
I would probably get 50% of the answers
I was in the writers room with him.
We we met every morning before the
shows he had gone through every clue
and this was including the last taping.
He went through all of them, 61 per show,
rewrote them, gave his flavor.
Sometimes called into question
some of the information.
And then because he had the
knowledge in a different way,
I mean he really was.
The show, I mean,
he was my first day meeting him.
He started to quiz me about a
place in England he had visited.
It's just who he was, he was.
He craved knowledge an.