Buzzy Cohen Taking Over Jeopardy! As New Host?
And here's another name thrown into the ring!
Mayim Bialik? Ken Jennings? LeVar Burton? They’re all yesterday’s news! When it comes to who will finally step in to become the permanent host of Jeopardy!, there’s a new name in contention. An interesting exchange on twitter — including, of course, a Star Wars reference — has a lot of fans speculating Alex Trebek may finally have a full time replacement in the form of Buzzy Cohen.
As reported by The New York Post, the online exchange that has fans buzzing about Buzzy took place late last week. Last Thursday the game show fan account Buzzer Blog tweeted doubts about Mayim Bialik becoming Trebek’s successor. In response, Buzzy Cohen posted a gif of Yoda from 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. As just about any Star Wars fan will remember, the moment comes after Luke Skywalker leaves Dagobah and the Force ghost of Obi-Wan says, “That boy is our last hope.” Yoda responds as he does in Cohen’s gif with, “No, there is another.” You can see the tweet exchange below.
Two days later, Buzzy Cohen made sure to keep the speculation going by posting a purposely cryptic tweet. He posted a “shout out” to cameramen working with him on an “as yet unannounced project” for suggesting he buy a coffee machine. You can see that tweet below.
Exactly who is Buzzy Cohen? Well if you’re not familiar with him, in spite of his name he is neither an animated action hero nor a character from McHale’s Navy. Like Ken Jennings, Cohen is a former Jeopardy! champion who won nine games between April and May 2016. He proved one of the more divisive champs of the game show. The music executive enjoyed having fun with his wins, doing things like brushing his shoulders off victoriously on camera. He would so often reach Final Jeopardy with no chance of losing, that he would use the opportunity to troll the late Trebek by writing in wrong answers. Once he even wrote in “Who is, You aren’t rid of me yet, Trebek,” referencing the hilarious Celebrity Jeopardy! parodies from Saturday Night Live in which Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond) delighted in torturing Trebek (Will Ferrell) with nonsensical and taunting answers. You can see some of Buzzy Cohen’s antics in the CNN video below.
His nine wins in 2016 turned out to not be the last time fans saw Buzzy Cohen. He returned for the following year’s Tournament of Champions, and won the $250,000 grand prize. He’s also already been a Jeopardy! host — he hosted last year’s Tournament of Champions.
Whatever project Buzzy Cohen is teasing in last week’s Twitter posts, it would be a surprise if they didn’t have something to do with Jeopardy! Then again, we already know the guy was willing to troll Alex Trebek — what would stop him from trolling the rest of us for fun?
Whoever it is that will finally take over full time from Alex Trebek, the answer can’t come soon enough. Every development seems to either raise false hope. Earlier this month the rumor began that Ken Jennings had officially been chosen to be the permanent host, and yet the previous month the former champ announced he was taking a break from hosting.
