‘I Schooled Dr. Oz!’ CNN’s Chris Wallace Talks Smack — And Buzzer Secrets — With Jeopardy! Host Ken Jennings
CNN anchor Chris Wallace talked some trash with Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings, and learned the record-shattering champ’s secrets for managing the buzzer.
Wallace interviewed Jennings for this week’s edition of his Max series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace — now available exclusively on Max, and no longer airing a weekly highlights version on CNN.
In one exchange, Wallace boasted about his “undefeated” record in Celebrity Jeopardy! and his “schooling” of Dr. Oz — as well as some valuable insider tips:
WALLACE: Ken, there is one difference between you and me. And I just, I don’t want you to feel bad about this, but I do want – I need to show you a clip of me on Celebrity Jeopardy a few years ago. Take a look.
[CLIP]
WALLACE: I have been waiting so much to show this to you. I am an undefeated Jeopardy champion.
JENNINGS: Wow, there’s very few right? Are you one in O, lifetime?
WALLACE: Yes, exactly. I didn’t go – you think I was going to go back and do that again?
JENNINGS: Retired, undefeated, drop the buzzer.
WALLACE: And yes, as you might have seen there, I schooled, Dr. Oz. I do have one thing to say about this. However, I did an interview with Alex Trebek who was the host then. And in the course of the interview I said, “So honestly, Alex, do you dumb it down for celebrity Jeopardy?” And he looked at the camera and he went (sh). But I did prepare like everybody does before Jeopardy. And I mean, I even had a big loose-leaf notebook – Operation Trebek –that I had my researcher do and I want to ask you a few questions about it. One is, the buzzer. How important is the buzzer in success in Jeopardy?
JENNINGS: It’s often the key to the game. Because, you know, we’re not the Price Is Right. We’re not bringing random people out there. We’re bringing Chris Wallace, damn it. You know, we find smart people. And everybody there could pass the same difficult test to be there and that means often the margin of victory is just reflexes. And it’s tricky, you can’t buzz, as you know, you can’t buzz as soon as you know the correct response. You have to wait for the host to finish reading the question, the clue, at that point, the buzzers are activated. And if you buzz early, you get locked out // And of course if you’re too late, you get beat by your competitors. So there’s a very narrow window you’re trying to find.
WALLACE: So question, why is it that you don’t let people just buzz in as soon as they know?
JENNINGS: Uh, in the old Art Fleming show in the 60s, that’s exactly how it worked. And they tried it for the first year of the Alex Trebek revival in 1984. What happened was the people would just buzz in immediately and then try to read the clue while the host finished reading. And sometimes they would get it and sometimes they would just stand there dumbly when Alex came to them and it was not good TV. So we added the delay.
WALLACE: I mean, it absolutely is a key because you have to sit and wait and then time it. It has to be exactly after you finish reading the clue.
JENNINGS: Yeah, the rhythms of the hosts voice are very important. And I almost think that was my secret sauce coming into Jeopardy is I had been watching Alex since I was 10 years old, and I knew how he would say every clip syllable in the clue I was reading and then I knew what the, what the rhythm would be. And for whatever reason, I just fell right into it.
Watch above via Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.
