'Jeopardy!' host Ken Jennings opens up about anxiety over using trivia show's buzzer: 'It's such a mystery to me'
CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA: 'Jeopardy!'s host Ken Jennings is undoubtedly one of the most known celebrities of the trivia game show, thanks to his long association with it. Jennings went from being the contestant with the highest winning streak to being a full-time host, which has made him an integral part of 'Jeopardy!', making fans tune in just to see him.
So, it's definitely shocking to know that the 49-year-old would have any anxieties related to the gameplay. In a recent interview with the contestants of 'Jeopardy!', Jennings revealed that he indeed had issues related to pressing the buzzer all those years ago when he was a contestant.
Ken Jennings' struggle with the 'Jeopardy!' buzzer
The Friday, July 14, episode of the show featured an interview between the three contestants, returning champion Ittai Sopher, Daniel Moore, and Allison Madson. The conversation shifted to Sopher's popular way of pressing the buzzer, which helped him get more opportunities to answer the clues. "Everybody's going to tease me about the ones that I didn’t get, but Ittai was quicker on the trigger," said the current 'Jeopardy!' champ Moore who correctly answered 30 clues in the first two rounds of the episode. "Ittai was very... like I could tell when he got in ahead of you, he was really like, going all in," commented Jennings.
"I still haven't figured out the buzzer," Sopher said on his "full body buzzing." Jennings agreed with the contestants, saying, "It's a weird thing, right? It's such a mystery to me because it does come and go, and I could never... the one thing I noticed is if I thought... the more I thought about it, the less I could do it. And I don't know what that means." Moore then shared his disbelief, saying, "Yeah, well, if the person who's done it the most of anybody doesn’t get it..." To which the host added, "I mean, I've seen games where James Holzhauer was struggling on it, like, anybody can have a bad day."
Ken Jennings impressed with Daniel Moore
There is much buzz going about Moore's impressive performance on the last episode and his eventual win by a major difference from his fellow contestants. Jennings was especially impressed by his quick thinking. On the conversation around pressing the buzzer, the host said, "That's high-level Jeopardy! play." Many viewers of 'Jeopardy!' seem to have a lot of faith in the new champ and believe that he might spend a long time behind the podium. Despite Moore's failure in getting the Final Jeopardy clue, his unmatched performance in the first two rounds left his victory untouched.
