2 Jeopardy! Host Alex Trebek Was a Younger, Cooler Dick Clark
Yep, that’s Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek as a smooth, hip 23-year-old hosting a show called Music Hop in 1963 on the CBC in Canada. He appears to be calling to a young lady to come sit on his lap. This link has video of the young MC in action.
This wouldn’t be shocking if it were, say, a young Pat Sajak or Bob Barker. But the difference between Alex Trebek and other game show hosts is that Trebek always comes off like he’s a wizard who somehow knows the answer to every single question on every subject. When a contestant gets one wrong, he doesn’t look down and read it off the card; he makes sympathetic eye contact with the loser and says, “Ooh, I’m sorry, the Council of Pereiaslav treaty was of course signed in 1654, not 1655.” And he has this look on his face like “I know you’re kicking yourself for missing that one, we all have our moments of intellectual weakness.”
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with being average. Or even stupid, for that matter.”
So it’s easy to assume he came out of academia somewhere, a genius with unfathomable encyclopedic knowledge who was chosen as the only man smart enough to host a quiz show where he routinely talks down to Ph.D.s like they’re kindergarteners. But, no, he’s just a TV guy, one who didn’t hesitate to use his smooth TV hosting gig to charm the ladies:
“Don’t try to hide your arousal, honey. It’s not possible.”
