Celebrity Jeopardy! (Saturday Night Live)

Celebrity Jeopardy!
Saturday Night Live sketch
Will Ferrell (as Alex Trebek) and Darrell Hammond (as Sean Connery). Will Ferrell (as Alex Trebek) and Darrell Hammond (as Sean Connery).
Written by	Norm Macdonald and Steve Higgins
Stars	Will Ferrell Darrell Hammond Six episodes: Jimmy Fallon Norm Macdonald Two episodes: Kenan Thompson One episode each: Alec Baldwin Drew Barrymore Jim Carrey David Duchovny Dean Edwards Ana Gasteyer John Goodman Tom Hanks Taran Killam Lucy Liu Tobey Maguire Kate McKinnon Chris Parnell Matthew Perry Amy Poehler Winona Ryder Reese Witherspoon Horatio Sanz Molly Shannon Martin Short Ben Stiller Alex Trebek (Cameo) Kristen Wiig
Total episodes:	15
Timeline:	1996–2015

Celebrity Jeopardy! is a series of sketches that aired regularly on the television comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live between 1996 and 2002, the years when Will Ferrell was a cast member. It parodies the same-named special event on the television quiz show Jeopardy! that features competition between notable individuals with all winnings going towards charitable organizations, and significant reductions to the game's level of difficulty. Fifteen sketches aired between December 1996 and February 2015: two sketches per season from 1996 to 2002, when Ferrell was a regular on the show; and one each in 2005 and 2009, when Ferrell returned to the show as host. The sketch was revived for the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special on February 15, 2015.

Ferrell portrays Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Darrell Hammond also appeared in each sketch, usually portraying Sean Connery, in an impersonation that "often questions Trebek's sexuality and sometimes implies that he has known Trebek's mother in a carnal sense." Norm Macdonald appeared as Burt Reynolds in six sketches. Jimmy Fallon also appeared six times, each time portraying a different character.

On several occasions, Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches have been referenced during actual episodes of Jeopardy!.

Sketch

The sketch begins at the start of the Double Jeopardy! round. Trebek welcomes the audience, introduces the celebrity contestants, and reveals their scores, which are either $0, a negative score, or a very low positive score. Many times, the contestants refuse or fail to select an appropriate category and dollar value from the game board, 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, categories with titles giving not-so-subtle hints as to the correct response without reading the clues (such as "Famous Kareem Abdul-Jabbars"), and those requiring no responses whatsoever. Recurring Jeopardy! category "Potent Potables" appears in every sketch but is never selected, and when it finally is chosen, it results in an inadvertently offensive pre-recorded Video Daily Double involving Bill Cosby.

Instead of buzzing in with the correct questions, contestants either give horribly incorrect responses or say 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 pranks and antics, which include making sexual jokes at Trebek's expense, deliberately misreading or vandalizing the categories on the board to turn them into sexually suggestive phrases (such as "Catch These Men", a category about people on the FBI's Most Wanted list, which he misreads as "Catch the Semen"), and implying that he has had sexual relations with the host's mother.

Trebek eventually grows exasperated with his inability to conduct the show and cuts it short by moving to Final Jeopardy!. He either discards the scripted category in favor of a much easier task (such as having the celebrities write and respond to their own clue), or announces a childishly simple category. Even though it appears impossible for the celebrities to fail, they invariably do. Connery occasionally provides a correct response, yet uses his wager to transform the text into a rude phrase. Sometimes Connery appears to have sympathy for Trebek until the wager reveal, which happens to be a rude drawing at Trebek's expense; on an earlier sketch, this is also performed by John Travolta, who in response to a clue asking the celebrities to name their favorite food, responds with "miso", an actual soup, yet when Trebek asks for the wager, 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 interested in the game. The contestants, who are either unaware of what the game is or uninterested in playing, 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 the correct question. No contestant ever offers a correct response; however, two come close: Phil Donahue and Tony Bennett, who in their respective sketches, offer descriptions for the holiday of Christmas and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. When Reynolds, who had initially been the celebrity who appeared on each episode, makes his return appearances, he misreads categories in the same manner as Connery and insists that he be addressed as "Turd Ferguson" because he finds that name funny.

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 Connery. In one of his sketches, Reynolds is declared an unquestioned winner, even though he wins simply because he has the least amount of negative money, rather than actually earning a victory. When Trebek ends the show, he either states that money will not be awarded to charity or announces his intention to resign or commit suicide.

Episodes

#	Original airdate	Episode	Celebrities impersonated			Notes
1	December 7, 1996	S22:E08	Sean Connery	Burt Reynolds	Jerry Lewis
2	May 10, 1997	S22:E19	Phil Donahue		Marlon Brando
3	October 4, 1997	S23:E02	John Travolta		Michael Keaton
4	May 9, 1998	S23:E22	Sean Connery	Minnie Driver	Jeff Goldblum
5	October 24, 1998	S24:E04	Tom Cruise	Adam Sandler	Sean Connery	Sandler is the first SNL cast member to be parodied.
6	March 20, 1999	S24:E16	Nicolas Cage	Calista Flockhart
7	October 23, 1999	S25:E03	French Stewart	Burt Reynolds		Only episode with the four people (Ferrell, Fallon, Macdonald, Hammond) who appeared more than once. Reynolds starts with the highest score on any of the sketches, $14. Macdonald, now hosting, reprising his role as Reynolds.
8	April 15, 2000	S25:E17	Sean Connery	Keanu Reeves	Hilary Swank	Ricky Martin (Chris Kattan) appears in the Video Daily Double while Chad Lowe (Chris Parnell) appears in the audience.
9	December 16, 2000	S26:E08	Robin Williams	Catherine Zeta-Jones	Sean Connery
10	February 8, 2001	S26:Special	Ozzy Osbourne	Martha Stewart		SNL Thursday Night Live prime-time special. Writing on the sketch originally began the week before it aired.
11	September 29, 2001	S27:E01	Chris Tucker	Anne Heche
12	May 18, 2002	S27:E20	Dave Matthews	Björk		Rock & Roll Edition; Connery had recorded an album of filthy limericks in order to be eligible. The real Trebek made a cameo appearance. The last episode with Ferrell as a regular cast member.
13	May 14, 2005	S30:E19	Bill Cosby	Sharon Osbourne		Ferrell, now hosting, reprising his role as Trebek.
14	May 16, 2009	S34:E22	Kathie Lee Gifford	Tom Hanks		A fourth podium for Reynolds appears for only one round, then he and his podium mysteriously vanish while no one is paying attention, only to re-appear at the end of the sketch. Hanks appeared as himself. Hammond's last episode as a regular cast member.
15	February 15, 2015	40th Anniversary Special	Sean Connery	Justin Bieber	Tony Bennett	Reynolds (who arrives by "driving" his podium), Christoph Waltz (Taran Killam) and Matthew McConaughey (Jim Carrey) appear in the middle of the sketch, replacing Bieber and Bennett, respectively. Trebek quickly ends the game without advancing to Final Jeopardy! after a Video Daily Double under Potent Potables features footage of Bill Cosby (Kenan Thompson); in light of Cosby's sexual assault allegations, Trebek apologizes and clarifies that it was filmed in June.

Cast

SNL cast members

Will Ferrell plays Alex Trebek in the skits.

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.

• Dean Edwards as Chris Tucker
• Jimmy Fallon as Adam Sandler, Nicolas Cage, French Stewart, Hilary Swank, Robin Williams and Dave Matthews
• Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek
• Ana Gasteyer as Martha Stewart
• Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery, Phil Donahue and John Travolta
• Taran Killam as Christoph Waltz
• Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds
• Kate McKinnon as Justin Bieber
• Amy Poehler as Sharon Osbourne
• Horatio Sanz as Ozzy Osbourne
• Molly Shannon as Minnie Driver
• Kenan Thompson as Bill Cosby
• Kristen Wiig as Kathie Lee Gifford

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.

• Drew Barrymore as Calista Flockhart
• David Duchovny as Jeff Goldblum
• Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek
• John Goodman as Marlon Brando
• Lucy Liu as Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds (who changed his name to Turd Ferguson in several sketches, claiming “it was a funny name”).
• Tobey Maguire as Keanu Reeves
• Matthew Perry as Michael Keaton
• Winona Ryder as Björk
• Martin Short as Jerry Lewis
• Ben Stiller as Tom Cruise
• Reese Witherspoon as Anne Heche
• Jim Carrey as Matthew McConaughey
• Alec Baldwin as Tony Bennett
• Tom Hanks as Himself

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 SNL before that sketch could be written.

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 (in the first sketch, wherein "'S' Words" is a category, Connery misreads it 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! 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). Notably, Martin Short competed on the November 17th episode of that year, becoming the only person to compete on both the real and SNL versions of Celebrity Jeopardy! 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", a category about famous authors and their books (which was misread in a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch as "The Penis Mightier" by Connery, who thought it was a penis enlargement product); and on September 16, 2015, a contestant who did not know the actual answer jokingly guessed "The Love Ballad of Turd Ferguson" during Final Jeopardy!

Saturday Night Live continues to include Jeopardy! parodies; a recurring such parody introduced in season 39 is Black Jeopardy!, which reimagines the show as one targeted toward African-Americans. The same Jeopardy! set is used.