0:00

When

0:01

a show has been in the air as long as Jeopardy!

0:03

has, it's almost inevitable

0:05

others will poke fun at it. Let's see our

0:07

categories. We got big

0:10

girls. Mmm,

0:13

I don't know. You

0:16

better. I'm gonna pray

0:19

on this. They

0:20

out here sayin'.

0:22

And it's always white people.

0:28

It's not Art Fleming or Alex Trebek

0:30

or even Mayim or Ken you're

0:32

hearing. And this is not a clip from

0:34

The Jeopardy! You Know and Love, which you've probably

0:37

caught on to. On screen, the

0:39

stage and lecterns are familiar, as is

0:41

the iconic blue game board. But

0:44

this is from a 2016 sketch

0:46

on Saturday Night Live called Black Jeopardy!

0:49

And instead, it's comedy legend Kenan

0:52

Thompson at the helm. Okay, Keely,

0:54

you're our returning champ. You pick. Okay,

0:57

let's do You Better for $200. Okay,

1:00

the answer there. You need hot sauce,

1:02

duck sauce, soy sauce, and

1:04

safety pins. Keely?

1:06

What is, you better take your ass to the kitchen

1:09

and look in the packet drawer. Yeah, yeah, the

1:11

packet drawer. Yeah,

1:14

every kitchen's got one, you know. SNL

1:17

has been on the air since 1975 and is

1:20

still peerless in its grip on

1:22

the culture. From Dan Aykroyd's

1:24

impersonations of Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon,

1:27

to the launch of Wayne's World, to Natalie

1:29

Portman shedding her good girl image in an

1:32

expletive-laden

1:33

rap, these moments have endured. They're

1:36

comedic flashpoints that we still talk

1:38

about today.

1:39

But even on a show that millions

1:41

of Americans tune into each week,

1:44

not every sketch breaks through the noise,

1:47

except for Black Jeopardy! It's

1:50

the

1:50

second most viewed sketch on SNL's

1:52

YouTube channel, with over 76 million

1:56

views.

1:57

I

2:00

ain't got it for 200. All right. The

2:02

lady from Sallie Mae says, your student

2:05

loan is past due. Rashad.

2:07

What is, I ain't got it because I died,

2:10

you talking to a ghost? Yeah, that's

2:11

right. That's right.

2:14

That's right. Yeah, you can't deal

2:16

with what's not there, OK? Just ask Wesley Snipes.

2:18

Ain't that right, T'Challa? I

2:21

don't know this one.

2:22

That's all right. You'll

2:24

get there. When

2:26

my phone blows up from, like, my people,

2:28

that's when I know we hit

2:30

a bullseye in the culture.

2:32

Jeopardy, SNL, they hearken back to a time

2:34

when we all kind of had these

2:36

similar touchstones, these similar cultural

2:39

experiences.

2:40

I'm your

2:43

host, Buzzy Cohen. And from Sony Music

2:45

Entertainment and Sony Pictures TV, this

2:49

is Jeopardy, the story of America's

2:51

favorite quiz show. On

2:54

today's episode, we tell the story of how Black Jeopardy

2:56

came to be and what it can teach us

2:58

about Jeopardy.

3:07

I'm Dana Perino. Join me for my

3:10

brand new podcast, Perino on

3:12

Politics. As we analyze the 2024 election

3:14

cycle, make sure you subscribe

3:16

to this series on foxnewspodcast.com

3:18

or wherever you download podcasts. And leave

3:20

me a rating and review.

3:25

Look, Jeopardy is no stranger

3:27

to parody. In fact, at times,

3:29

Jeopardy has gotten in on the joke itself.

3:32

Here's Alex Trebek playing Alex

3:35

Trebek in a 1997 episode of The Simpsons. Marge

3:39

Simpson is strapped for cash, so she

3:41

goes on Jeopardy.

3:43

Marge, you were down $5,200. But

3:46

Mr. Trebek. I asked you before the game if

3:48

you knew the rules, and you said you did. Judges?

3:51

Red, Mom! Over

3:57

the years, SNL has often parodied

3:59

game shows. shows like Family Feud or Wheel

4:01

of Fortune, and Jeopardy! wasn't

4:03

spared. One of cast member

4:06

Will Ferrell's most memorable characters

4:08

was his turn as an exasperated

4:10

Alex Trebek on the celebrity version

4:12

of the game. Welcome back

4:14

to Celebrity Jeopardy! Before

4:17

we begin the Double Jeopardy! round, I'd

4:20

like to ask our contestants once again,

4:22

please refrain from using ethnic

4:25

slurs. That

4:27

said, let's take a look at the scores.

4:31

Sean Connery has set a new

4:33

Jeopardy! record with negative $230,000.

4:35

You

4:39

think you're pretty smart, don't you, Trebek?

4:42

What with your dago mustache on your greasy

4:44

hair? Look, what did I

4:46

just say about ethnic slurs?

4:50

Ferrell established himself as a comedy

4:53

heavy hitter during his time on SNL, and

4:55

that was due in no small part to his work

4:58

on the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches. Starting

5:00

in the mid-90s,

5:01

SNL writers would go on to create 15 different

5:05

versions of the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch.

5:07

It was an iconic sketch

5:09

that poked fun at just how different the

5:11

game of Celebrity Jeopardy! was

5:14

from regular Jeopardy!

5:16

I'm Dave Schilling, and I am a writer

5:18

of many things, but mostly I write about

5:21

culture. Dave Schilling is a

5:23

comedy scholar of sorts, and in 2018,

5:26

he wrote an oral history for Vulture, the

5:28

entertainment and culture outlet of New York Magazine,

5:31

on how the Black Jeopardy! sketch came

5:33

to be. I think one of the reasons why

5:36

we love Jeopardy! is because these

5:38

are people who have

5:41

a wealth of knowledge that

5:43

far outstrips what the average

5:45

person has.

5:47

But Celebrity Jeopardy! is more like, if you went on Jeopardy!

5:49

what would it be like? And the

5:51

sketches kind of took that to such

5:55

an extreme.

5:56

I speak a little French, you're an assbite. Pardon my French.

5:58

Ha ha! My

6:01

name's French. Yeah, well, who gives a damn? Moving

6:05

on. That you have, you know, Burt

6:07

Reynolds being kind of unaware

6:10

or Sean Connery, you know, being very,

6:13

very vulgar. It

6:15

was both making fun of the celebrity

6:17

and like finding the particular

6:20

things that each celebrity was being mocked for.

6:23

Celebrity Jeopardy was a popular

6:25

recurring sketch with some of the biggest stars

6:27

of the SNL cast ever to grace the

6:29

stage. And that's in no small

6:31

part because it was the perfect vehicle

6:33

for impersonations. Norm

6:36

McDonald played a nonchalant, wisecracking,

6:39

gum chewing Burt Reynolds. And

6:41

Daryl Hammond created a famously belligerent

6:44

Sean Connery who hated Alex

6:47

Trebek and appeared in almost

6:49

every sketch.

6:51

But once Will Ferrell ripped off the mustache

6:53

and stepped away from the lectern, Jeopardy

6:55

was kind of off limits to SNL

6:57

writers and cast members looking to break

7:00

through.

7:00

Will Ferrell had done the

7:02

thing and he'd done it well. So

7:05

who'd want to go up to bat with him?

7:09

You know, that guy is a legend and a hero

7:11

of, you know, all of us.

7:13

That's Kenan Thompson, who's been a cast

7:15

member of SNL since 2003. He

7:18

has the longest tenure of anyone

7:20

in the history of the show. But when he joined

7:22

in the early aughts, he was the new guy.

7:25

So we don't want to number one,

7:28

step on toes, but number two also like underserved

7:31

in such an arena that is so sacred or whatever.

7:33

So if you're going to step there, you got to come with it.

7:36

But Kenan is a sketch comedy veteran

7:39

in his own right, getting his start as

7:41

a child actor on Nickelodeon's All That

7:43

and Kenan and Kel back in the 90s.

7:46

Here, Kenan saves the president from

7:48

an ominous display of orange sodas

7:50

in Kenan and Kel. Hey, check

7:53

out the groovy orange soda display.

7:56

Wow.

7:58

Hey, hey, hey, Mr. President, look out! No!

8:01

Look out! What the...

8:03

Sometimes

8:08

he plays the straight man, simply reacting

8:11

as Zaneir characters bounce off him. But

8:14

he also takes center stage.

8:16

You might have seen him in his most popular

8:19

SNL sketches, Diner Lobster

8:21

and What's Up With That. In

8:23

this 2010 clip from the What's Up With

8:25

That sketch featuring Robert De Niro and

8:27

Robin Williams, Thompson, as

8:30

host DeAndre Cole, frequently

8:32

interrupts his guest by bursting into an improvised

8:34

stream of consciousness song.

8:36

Uncomfortable silence.

8:43

I know you don't. This is wrong. This is disrespectful.

8:46

Come on, trust in you. You're being disrespectful.

8:49

I'm being disrespectful. By

8:52

the time the idea for Black Jeopardy arrived on

8:54

his desk, Keenan had been a cast member

8:56

for over 10 years. And in that decade,

8:59

he'd found writers he clicked with.

9:01

My name's Brian Tucker. I'm a writer

9:03

at SNL. I've been a writer there for

9:05

the past 18 years.

9:07

When Brian first came on in 2005,

9:10

he was immediately drawn to Keenan.

9:13

Keenan had been there for about a year and a half. And

9:17

I saw him reading

9:19

things at our table and he was

9:21

really, really funny. And I thought to myself, no one's

9:23

really writing for this guy, you know, and

9:26

he could be special here. And

9:28

so I also did not have

9:30

cast members that I was writing for regularly.

9:32

I was new. And so he and I

9:34

developed an instant relationship.

9:37

Me and Brian Tucker worked together a lot,

9:40

you know, like I would say I

9:42

worked with him probably the most because he's

9:44

just, you know, as

9:46

excited about the Black side guys as I am. You

9:49

know what I mean? He is white. He is

9:51

from North Carolina, so he's like very white. But

9:54

he loves San Francisco. He loves the Jefferson.

9:57

For

9:58

many years I've written for...

9:59

several black comedians. My

10:02

first job was on The Chris Rock Show. I wrote for Dave

10:04

Chappelle on his show. The idea

10:06

for Black Jeopardy! came from Brian's personal

10:09

experience working in comedy.

10:11

So being around funny black

10:13

people, sometimes I would

10:15

feel that I wasn't quite

10:18

there. I didn't have their same experiences.

10:21

And he realized there was something perfect

10:23

about the format of Jeopardy! that could help him tease

10:26

out that feeling.

10:27

Jeopardy! is a great format for

10:30

a comedy sketch because there's

10:32

so many elements to it. You can have

10:35

fun, different contestants. You can have

10:37

an overall theme. But the best part

10:39

is you can do a set up and then you can

10:41

do a punch line. And often sketches

10:43

are very character based where it has

10:46

to come from someone's attitude or the dialogue

10:48

or whatever. And with Jeopardy! you

10:50

can just write straight up jokes. You can

10:53

cram in a

10:54

lot more jokes in a short amount of time

10:57

than you could a traditional sketch.

11:00

The seed of an idea for

11:02

a new Jeopardy! sketch took life when

11:05

Brian brought it to fellow SNL writer,

11:07

Michael Che.

11:09

The sketches that seem to do best

11:11

are sketches that just fall out of me

11:13

and other writers instead of ones where

11:15

we have to think all the time. So when I

11:17

pitched it to him and we got together to

11:19

do it and it came very easily,

11:22

I thought, okay, this can be something.

11:25

Brian and Michael wrote the script with Kenan in

11:27

mind as the host. They just felt

11:29

he would be absolutely perfect for

11:31

it.

11:32

Because he's got such a good natured

11:35

warmth underneath and everything he does, things

11:38

that might feel controversial

11:41

or uncomfortable, people

11:44

trust him and so he can say those things

11:46

and make them work.

11:48

The reason why Kenan Thompson stands out so

11:50

much to me is his face.

11:53

That's critic Dave Schilling again.

11:55

He has this incredibly elastic face but

11:58

also very warm, welcoming face. He's

12:01

got the same affability

12:03

and warmth that Chris Farley had. But

12:06

Chris Farley was a physical comedian, right? He

12:08

would throw himself through a table to

12:11

get people to laugh.

12:13

Keenan doesn't have to do all of that physical stuff. He

12:16

just kind of can make

12:18

a face, like an aside to the camera with

12:20

his face, and make you laugh.

12:24

If you're going to have like a race-based

12:26

game show, you know, you put it in Keenan's

12:28

hands and everyone feels, oh,

12:31

this is going to be fun.

12:32

It turns out Keenan was a big

12:35

fan of Jeopardy. He used to watch it growing

12:37

up in his family's home in Atlanta.

12:39

I used to love Jeopardy because it would always remind

12:41

me how dumb I was, you know what

12:43

I mean? It makes you want to be smarter

12:45

and better yourself.

12:47

There's really nothing like a hard round of Jeopardy to remind

12:49

me of everything I don't know. And it

12:52

always makes me want to be smarter.

12:54

Black Jeopardy was definitely one of those weeks where I was

12:56

not looking for it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was

12:58

just kind of chilling and kind of seeing

13:00

whatever the world was going to deliver.

13:03

And of course, here comes Tucker with that one. Tucker

13:06

said, I had an idea of like, now

13:08

stay with me. Black Jeopardy, I

13:10

was like, I get it. One thousand percent.

13:13

Whether he was expecting it or not, Brian

13:16

Tucker and Michael Che delivered.

13:20

Black Jeopardy was just strong. It's just chock

13:22

full of jokes. It was just so

13:25

undeniable, you know, joke potential in it.

13:28

He found it funny for a reason everyone else did. There's

13:32

a certain cultural idea of the people

13:34

that go on Jeopardy. Keenan tried

13:36

to describe it. They feel like a very

13:38

quiet life, maybe some wine, maybe some

13:41

classical music playing, but just not a lot

13:43

of noise and not a lot of headaches.

13:46

It reads kind of white. White

13:48

like green bean casserole or

13:51

winter sports or

13:53

buzzy Cohen. And you

13:55

can hear what Keenan's talking about, even

13:58

when the big blue board does include.

13:59

clues about Black American culture.

14:02

Like when Professor Sam Buttery went viral

14:04

by getting a clue about Doja Cat right.

14:07

No one was expecting it. This

14:10

feline not only got freaky deaky

14:12

with Tyga, she also told us to

14:14

get into it. Yeah, so we did. Yeah.

14:17

Sam. Who's Doja Cat? Yeah, you're a fan,

14:19

I can tell. But that's not to

14:21

say that Black contestants haven't excelled

14:24

on the show. Matt Jackson and Ryan Long

14:26

both reached Superchamp status and

14:28

Colby Burnett has dominated not one

14:31

but two tournaments.

14:32

But Keenan's read remains kind

14:34

of true.

14:37

The Black Jeopardy sketch subverted all

14:39

of those ideas. It asked, what

14:42

if the canon of knowledge that Jeopardy

14:44

asked you about was completely different?

14:47

But first, it had to be funny. And

14:50

to get on SNL, it had to kill.

14:53

So the Black Jeopardy team had to get past

14:55

some pretty tough critics. On

14:57

a show like SNL and like Jeopardy 2, there's a

15:00

lot of people that need to buy in to get it

15:02

on TV.

15:04

We have a read through on Wednesday. And

15:06

then if people like it, it gets picked for dress rehearsal

15:08

on Friday and Saturday. I do

15:10

remember that we were

15:13

a little nervous about it because we thought people

15:15

would look at the title of it

15:17

and be like a Jeopardy sketch. You know, hasn't

15:20

SNL covered that ground far

15:22

too much already and too well?

15:24

But we had run it by Louis CK who

15:26

seemed to like it.

15:28

Louis CK was the SNL host for

15:30

that week's episode, March 29, 2014, to be exact. And his

15:34

character was integral for the jokes

15:36

to land. And he was game.

15:39

Lorne Michaels, the creator and longtime

15:41

executive producer of SNL, liked it too.

15:43

So they let us run with it.

15:46

And once it's in my hands, as far as like the

15:48

writing is concerned, then it's on me kind of just

15:50

to maestro through basically as the host.

15:53

So our contestants are Amir.

15:55

How you doing? Keely.

16:01

And, um, Mark. Well,

16:04

that's

16:06

a surprise to see you, Mark. Yes,

16:10

well, I'm a professor of African-American

16:12

studies at Brigham Young University,

16:14

so I just thought I'd give this a try. In

16:17

this first iteration, Louis C.K. guest

16:20

stars as the lone white contestant who

16:22

thinks he has a shot at winning the game.

16:24

That is not the case. So, uh,

16:27

so let's do a psss for 600. Okay,

16:31

Rahim wants to borrow your bike to

16:33

go to the store right quick. Mark! Uh,

16:36

what is psssh, no way, Jose.

16:44

Well, that's gotta be at least close, right? Let's

16:48

just move on and hear about today's process. Johnny?

16:51

Even in Black Jeopardy,

16:53

Johnny Gilbert is still announcing.

16:55

Black Jeopardy came back in 2015,

16:58

this time with Elizabeth Banks guest starring. She

17:00

plays a well-intentioned liberal white lady

17:03

who's shocked by her inability to

17:05

play the game.

17:06

True to the OG Jeopardy format, this

17:09

next clip is a video clue featuring

17:11

SNL cast member Leslie Jones. What's up?

17:14

In 1943,

17:16

an artist named Archibald Motley painted

17:18

the picture behind me. My

17:21

question is, after all these years, who

17:23

killed Tupac? I killed Tupac. Allison?

17:31

Okay, I think

17:33

I'm getting the hang of this. I'm gonna

17:35

say, Tupac was killed

17:38

by a corrupt justice system that threatens

17:40

us all.

17:41

Oh, I'm sorry, but that was a trick question.

17:44

The answer is that Tupac

17:46

is still alive. No, no, no, absolutely.

17:50

Black Jeopardy killed again,

17:53

but to be like the real thing, it needed

17:55

to have staying power. I

17:58

think that was the challenge.

17:59

doing it again. You know what I mean? The second time

18:02

I was like, okay, well, how's it gonna be different from the

18:04

first? And it was different

18:06

enough, but

18:07

it wasn't like super duper different.

18:11

To make a sketch that could last, they

18:13

needed to hit on something truly new.

18:17

How they found that is after the break. At

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18:47

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18:51

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18:55

The Council of Franks, on behalf of delicious

18:57

Oscar Mayer 100% beef Franks,

19:00

has declared its official position.

19:02

Oscar Mayer 100% beef Franks are 100% beef

19:04

Frank delicious. This summer, choose

19:10

delicious, choose 100% beef. Keep it, Oscar. The

19:16

Black Jeopardy was very surprising to

19:18

me because I didn't expect it to be particularly

19:21

original. That's culture writer

19:23

Dave Schilling again. SNL

19:25

has had game show parodies since the

19:27

beginning. And so it all felt very cliche.

19:30

Of course, we're going to do a game show parody

19:33

and Jeopardy is the biggest game show in

19:35

America. So the idea

19:37

of doing it again just seemed lazy

19:40

on its face. But then you watch the

19:42

sketch and it's such a perfect engine for

19:44

comedy. And it's such a perfect way

19:47

to articulate those ideas of

19:51

the black community being its

19:53

own kind of special world and

19:56

people going into it and understanding it.

19:58

In 2016, the SNL writer

19:59

The creators brought Black Jeopardy back, with

20:02

one major shift in the makeup on

20:04

stage.

20:05

All right, the boy of the show is Keely. Let's

20:07

stay with bruh for 400. All

20:10

right, bruh. He's been playing for a while

20:12

now, but he's still putting up big numbers. Jared.

20:16

This is easy. Who's my man? Yarmir Yawger,

20:18

yo.

20:19

It's like, y'all must say what now? Come

20:23

on, dog. He's a hockey player. The man won the

20:25

Art Ross trophy four years in a row,

20:27

fam. It's just, yeah, I

20:29

know you're speaking

20:30

English, but, uh... It

20:33

ain't my English. I feel like the original

20:35

concept was everybody was black, and, you know, there's just

20:37

one white person like, what is this show? And

20:41

then we did it with Drake, and it was like, the differences

20:43

are black, and that was cool.

20:45

On SNL's third go-around with the sketch,

20:48

the team found a new thing to say.

20:50

It highlighted the differences in black

20:52

identity.

20:53

And Drake, as a black Canadian, shows

20:56

not everything is universal, but

20:58

connection is always possible.

21:01

Jared, I think Canada's messing with your blackness,

21:03

man. Why do I have to

21:05

be your definition of black, huh? You're

21:07

judging me before you even know me? It's making

21:09

me so angry inside, dog.

21:11

You

21:12

just said the secret black phrase of the day,

21:14

Jared. You win the game. All

21:19

right. Well, the sound of slow jams means

21:21

it's time to wrap it up. Tune in next

21:23

week when we give away two tickets to the Sister

21:25

Sister reunion show. With

21:29

a solid format, Keenan, Michael, and Brian,

21:32

plus writer Sam Jay, started to push

21:34

what they could say with the sketch. They were

21:36

ready for some bigger swings.

21:39

In October of 2016, just

21:41

weeks before the presidential election was to

21:43

be decided,

21:45

Tom Hanks was the guest host.

21:47

Our contestants are Keely... Hi.

21:51

Shanice... Okay, now. And...

21:55

Doug. How

21:58

are you doing, sir?

22:00

On stage, Tom Hanks sports a

22:02

T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag,

22:05

imposed onto a bald eagle, plus

22:08

a Make America Great Again hat.

22:10

Once again, a white contestant was competing

22:12

on the Black Jeopardy stage, but this time, the

22:15

result was unexpected. Oh,

22:18

hey. Doug, you should

22:20

be ready to play Black Jeopardy? They

22:22

told me a fella can win some money, so let's win

22:24

me some money. Get her done.

22:25

Yeah,

22:28

admire your confidence.

22:30

We have Keenan on one side with, again,

22:32

his good-natured and warm

22:34

personality. And then on the other side, we have another

22:36

beloved figure, Tom Hanks, who,

22:39

when he's the person with the Make

22:41

America Great Again hat, other

22:44

hosts might leave people very uncomfortable, but

22:46

again, in his hands, you trusted him. And

22:50

once he starts answering these questions, they

22:52

realize that these two have a lot in common.

22:55

They don't trust authority.

22:58

They are worried about technology.

23:00

They have

23:02

people in their community that are very close,

23:05

rather than trusting people on the outside.

23:08

Tom Hanks has a sturdy wife, and

23:10

he loves her body, you know, stuff like

23:12

that. The board is yours, Shanice.

23:15

Let's go with, maybe, they out there

23:17

saying for $200. Okay, the answer,

23:19

they out here saying the new iPhone

23:22

wants your thumbprint for your protection. Oh,

23:25

okay, then, dunk. But I

23:27

don't think so. That's how they get you. Yes! Yes!

23:30

I

23:37

don't trust that.

23:38

Me either. No, I read that and it goes straight

23:40

to the government. Well,

23:42

that is not bad, dawg. That's

23:46

the board of yours.

23:48

Tom Hanks was a punch because,

23:50

you know, that's when we brought in,

23:52

like, the real current,

23:54

you know,

23:55

politics of it all. You know, he was adding

23:57

little tidbits up to the live show, like, you know.

24:00

finding this character and he really like locked it in

24:03

at the live show and made it make sense.

24:05

It was so believable. And

24:08

there's a beautiful moment. It was

24:10

a moment of clarity for, you

24:12

know, communication between two different sides

24:14

of the aisle.

24:15

Okay. Let's go to,

24:17

they out here saying for eight. Okay, the answer

24:20

there, they out here saying that

24:22

every vote counts. Oh, Doug again.

24:25

What is, come on, they already decided who wins the

24:27

report happens.

24:28

Yes, yes, yes. Hey,

24:35

the Illuminati figured that out months ago. That's

24:37

another one of the dollars.

24:38

Hey, we're doing it.

24:40

While laughs are happening, you know what I mean? It's

24:42

a very healing kind of experience,

24:44

you know, to touch on not

24:46

necessarily absurdities, but extremities.

24:50

This one was a smash.

24:52

It launched Think Pieces, receiving all

24:55

kinds of press coverage. Vox called it the

24:57

best political commentary of

24:59

the election.

25:00

And the Tom Hanks sketch also prompted texts

25:03

to Keenan from his friends and family.

25:06

When my phone blows up from like my people,

25:08

that's when I know we hit, you know, a

25:10

bullseye in the culture because like,

25:13

I don't hear from them every week. You know what

25:15

I mean? Sometimes they

25:17

tune in, sometimes like they enjoy the

25:19

show but they won't actually start hitting my phone until

25:22

it's something that, you know, kind of touches

25:25

home for them. And I get that, but

25:27

it'll be like all my friends from like, you know what I mean?

25:29

Like the whole Atlanta, which is like very black. So I know

25:31

we just did something for the culture. It was like fantastic.

25:34

And that always feels real good.

25:40

I've written hundreds of sketches on the show

25:43

and often I still try to write something

25:45

that will appeal to everyone, you know, politically

25:48

and culturally. And I've never

25:51

done something that has done it as

25:54

well as that.

25:55

Some said the sketch spoke to something aspirational

25:58

at a time when a lot of people.

25:59

didn't feel hope about the future of the country.

26:02

According to the Pew Research

26:04

Center in 2016, 49% of

26:07

registered voters said they were worried

26:09

the future would be worse compared

26:12

with life then.

26:15

I

26:15

think one of the reasons why Black Jeopardy

26:18

was one of the most beloved recurring

26:21

sketches on SNL in the modern era

26:24

is because of the time that it

26:28

was released into the world. We're

26:32

at the tail end of the Obama era. Race

26:34

has been on everybody's mind for

26:37

those eight years. Race

26:39

is on everybody's mind all the time, but

26:41

it became more apparent and more

26:43

part of the conversation

26:46

in a more substantive

26:48

way because of who the president of the United

26:50

States was. So this sketch comes along

26:52

and really shines

26:55

a light on that, but makes that difference funny

26:58

and

26:59

something to celebrate. Black

27:01

Jeopardy made the rapport between Black people feel

27:04

like a good thing. Even Keenan,

27:06

who'd been making people laugh for almost

27:09

his whole life, was awed by the response

27:11

to Black Jeopardy and the power of

27:13

comedy.

27:14

Our comedians are, you know, kind

27:17

of our frontline heroes as

27:19

far as attacking trauma, you know what I mean,

27:21

attacking pain or attacking absurdities

27:24

or things that are irking you, you know

27:27

what I mean? They take those

27:29

uncomfortable conversations and bring

27:31

it to the table like, let's eat, you know what I'm saying? Let's sit

27:33

down and like really get into this.

27:35

You'd think a wildly viral sketch would make Brian

27:37

Tucker and Michael Che's lives easier, but it

27:40

actually turned up the pressure for them

27:43

and they didn't touch it again for two

27:45

years.

27:47

Every time we did Black Jeopardy, Michael Che

27:49

would be like, okay, that's the last one. And

27:52

I thought, well, maybe we could do another

27:54

if we thought of an idea that

27:57

seemed unique. So

28:00

then when we did the Tom Hanks

28:02

one,

28:04

it went over so well. It was in

28:06

the middle of the 2016 election. It

28:08

got a lot of media attention. And

28:10

we thought, okay, that's our grand finale. We should

28:12

just step off and leave. But

28:14

then Chadwick Boseman came. Ah

28:16

yes, the acclaimed Chadwick

28:19

Boseman.

28:20

In 2018, he starred as T'Challa

28:22

in Black Panther

28:23

and became a superhero legend in

28:26

his own right. The first movie

28:28

in the franchise grossed $1.3 billion

28:31

and made Chadwick

28:33

a household name.

28:37

Chadwick was having the most

28:39

explosive moment I've ever seen a black actor

28:41

have in my lifetime. You know what I mean? Like,

28:44

I've never seen anything more explosive than that Black

28:46

Panther week. It was crazy. I

28:48

want to be a great king, Baba. Just

28:52

like you. You're going

28:54

to struggle. Black Panther had

28:56

sparked something for Brian too. And

28:59

I had the idea after

29:01

watching the Black Panther movie,

29:04

I was like, you know, people in Wakanda grow up so

29:06

much different than black people

29:07

in America. You know, they have such

29:09

a utopia. And then if someone

29:11

like that came over here, what would they think? And

29:14

I ran it by Michael Che. And he was like,

29:16

maybe, you know, this character in

29:18

this movie is so important

29:21

to the black community. We can't mess this up.

29:24

And I said, I understand. And then when

29:26

we ran it by Chadwick, he was

29:28

like, maybe, you know,

29:30

he also was very protective of the character.

29:33

Understandably, of course. Michael

29:35

Che agreed, let's at least talk about

29:37

it. Let's at least send it to the table. And if people

29:39

don't like it, then it won't be on the show.

29:46

This time around, the stakes were so

29:48

much higher and the writing didn't

29:50

come as easy.

29:52

We were like, this has to hit 100%. Everyone

29:55

has to feel good about it. And so if

29:57

the first black Jeopardy took Michael

29:59

Che

29:59

maybe two hours to write. I'll

30:02

bet this one took six or seven hours to write.

30:04

Joe Piccini's. Let's stick

30:06

with Fena for four hundred. All right. This

30:09

is the reason your cable bill is

30:11

in your grandmama's name. Oh,

30:14

T'Challa. What is to Anna here is

30:16

the foundation of the family.

30:17

Hm.

30:26

That's really nice. It's

30:29

wrong. But it's

30:31

really nice.

30:33

As much as Obama was important to

30:36

putting black people into

30:39

a mainstream lens in American

30:41

culture.

30:42

Dave Schilling again. Black

30:44

Panther really did that and

30:46

really put black ideas,

30:49

black thoughts, black concepts into

30:51

the kind of, the

30:54

primary culture of America. And

30:56

so having Chadwick on that sketch really

30:59

kind of put a bow on it. Let's keep going. Let's

31:02

stay with grown ass for six hundred. All right.

31:05

You send your smart ass child here

31:07

because she thinks she grown. T'Challa.

31:11

What is to one of our free universities

31:13

where she can apply her intelligence and

31:15

perhaps one day become a great scientist?

31:17

Okay.

31:17

Okay. Well,

31:20

the answer we was looking for was out

31:22

my damn house.

31:24

But you know what? I'm going to give

31:26

it to you, T'Challa. Y'all must

31:28

not have no mean streets in Wakanda. All

31:30

right. The board is yours. Chadwick's

31:32

appearance as T'Challa was another smash

31:35

hit. Solidifying

31:37

black jeopardy in

31:38

the SNL canon and underlying SNL's role as a culture

31:41

maker. The

31:43

reason why we're here is because we're here.

31:46

And underlying SNL's role as a culture

31:48

maker. And like SNL, jeopardy

31:51

is also a beloved American staple. So when

31:53

you have one playing off the other, what

31:56

does that teach us? SNL

31:58

and jeopardy. are American

32:01

institutions and it's hard to really quantify

32:06

how important they are to our

32:09

society, our culture. After

32:12

the break, I pass the mic to a new host.

32:16

Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest,

32:19

but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's

32:21

see, so, no, that's a good thing.

32:25

That's definitely not a problem.

32:27

Reese's, you did it. You stumped

32:29

this charming devil.

32:32

This episode is brought to you by State

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Farm. What if your life story was a podcast?

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statefarm.com for a quote today.

33:03

In putting together this episode, my producer

33:05

Rob talked to a lot of people about

33:08

Black Jeopardy, how it came together and

33:10

what it means. He's also a lifelong

33:12

Jeopardy and Black Jeopardy host, Kenan

33:15

Thompson fan.

33:17

And so to finish telling the story, I'm

33:20

very excited to be passing the mic over

33:22

to him.

33:25

Some of my earliest memories are sitting at my

33:27

great-grandmother's feet in the living room of her

33:30

Harlem apartment with Oreos and milk, listening

33:33

to the smooth steadiness of Alex Trebek's voice

33:35

as he presented clues and shouting answers

33:37

at the TV.

33:39

I watched almost every day

33:41

as my great-grandmother wore every answer she got correct

33:43

as a badge of honor. She got

33:45

a lot more answers than I did.

33:47

Watching Jeopardy with her introduced

33:50

me to worlds far from my own, knowledge

33:52

about important people and achievements and

33:54

events in history. And it instilled

33:57

in me that the pursuit of knowledge was a noble

33:59

one.

33:59

regardless of whether that knowledge had

34:02

application to my lived experience, or

34:04

if the people delivering that knowledge looked or

34:06

sounded like me or the people I knew.

34:08

What's undeniable, though, is

34:10

that I loved Jeopardy. I

34:13

relish in impressing the adults around me with the

34:15

random facts I could hold in my head, and

34:17

I did it often.

34:18

Similarly, my experience

34:21

watching Kenan Thompson on TV started

34:23

earlier than I can remember, but it

34:26

spoke to something different in me.

34:30

My educational moment, every

34:32

day French with Pierre Escargot.

34:36

Ho ho ho! C'est tout

34:38

plait on les vétons bonjour du

34:40

mignonbril. Please remove

34:42

your banjo from my belly button.

34:50

Kenan talked like the people I knew. His

34:53

comedic sensibilities felt familiar. In

34:55

my eyes, we came from the same world, even

34:58

though he grew up in Atlanta, and I grew up in New York.

35:01

But it's not just that I related to him. It

35:03

feels like he's always been making me laugh.

35:06

He's been on TV my entire life. He

35:09

joined the cast of Nickelodeon's All That in 1994,

35:12

which is the same year I was born, and

35:14

today he's rounding out his 20th year as a

35:16

cast member on SNL. I

35:19

could always catch him on TV somewhere, even

35:21

when I wasn't trying to. I flipped the channels,

35:24

and there he was. With one

35:26

glance at the camera, he can communicate

35:28

multitudes, in the same way the people

35:31

in my family can.

35:33

When I spoke to him for this episode, I

35:35

kind of felt like I already knew him. Turns

35:37

out that sense of familiarity I feel with him is

35:40

something lots of other people feel too, and

35:42

he's reminded on the regular.

35:53

I'm

35:58

like, that's not time wasted.

36:01

I wanted to know what that felt like, to make

36:03

people laugh for decades, long

36:05

enough for an entire generation to grow up and start

36:07

lives. Turns out, it's

36:09

everything he's dreamed of.

36:11

I always wanted to be a group

36:13

kind of performer or

36:15

entertainer or part

36:18

of something that brought joy

36:20

to people's lives on a daily basis. The

36:23

way that I am now is at

36:25

such a level that I never expected. When

36:28

I first saw Keenan on Black Jeopardy back in 2014,

36:31

I thought it was hilarious. It worked

36:33

because someone as beloved as him felt good hearted,

36:36

even while mocking a beloved staple of American

36:38

TV.

36:40

But I think it spoke to something bigger than

36:42

just poking fun at Jeopardy for being buttoned up.

36:44

What up, what up, what up? Welcome

36:47

to Black Jeopardy. I'm your host, Alex

36:50

Treblak. Now

36:52

I'm just playing, I'm Don L Hayes.

36:55

It's Jeopardy's 50th anniversary and

36:57

we finally got our own.

36:59

It also sparked something for me. I

37:02

realized maybe Jeopardy and

37:04

SNL

37:05

actually have more in common than I initially realized.

37:08

Both shows demand a certain level of knowledge

37:10

of the viewer, but of course slightly different

37:12

kinds of knowledge. Every

37:15

episode of SNL is a smorgasbord

37:17

of pop culture references. Everything

37:19

from movies to music to politics, nothing

37:22

is safe from mockery. But to

37:24

be in on the joke, you have to be in

37:26

the know.

37:27

Who's made the most recent faux pas on Capitol Hill?

37:30

What's in theaters right now? Who's the guest host

37:32

for that week and what are they known for?

37:34

And similarly, the Jeopardy viewer

37:36

is curious and at least aspirationally

37:39

knowledgeable about the world and its history. But

37:42

something the Black Jeopardy sketch made light of is

37:44

that the game of Jeopardy favors the sensibilities

37:47

of some demographics more than others.

37:49

Black Jeopardy did that by reimagining

37:52

the game in an alternate universe, where those

37:54

values were turned on their head.

37:58

I don't

38:00

know you, shaking my

38:02

head, what had happened was, and there's always

38:05

white people."

38:08

Black

38:14

Jeopardy handled what could be tricky social

38:16

commentary

38:17

with ease.

38:19

The whole concept of trivia is that

38:21

there is a realm of objective human knowledge that

38:23

with the right research and commitment,

38:25

anyone can tap into. In

38:28

that spirit, a game like Jeopardy is

38:30

in principle fair. Everyone

38:32

comes to the game on an even playing field because

38:34

the knowledge they are challenged to recall is freely

38:36

available to all of us. But Black

38:39

Jeopardy poked a few holes in those assumptions.

38:42

Not everyone has access to the same information.

38:45

And it illustrated the feeling of being an outsider who's

38:47

expected to have access to a canon of knowledge

38:50

they're not familiar with.

38:52

It also challenges the concept of knowledge

38:54

itself, is the ability to recall

38:56

facts about the world and history, the only

38:58

way to demonstrate intelligence.

39:00

What if it were different? What

39:03

if being able to read a room, or navigate

39:05

cultural norms, or crack a joke

39:07

that makes a group of people laugh were all ways that

39:09

we were also recognized as demonstrating our intellect?

39:13

As much as this was a clever appraisal of Jeopardy,

39:16

Dave Schelling thinks it really landed because it

39:18

revealed something about SNL as well.

39:22

It

39:22

has historically been a very white television

39:25

show. I think that's why these

39:27

sketches endure

39:30

and they transcended just the regular

39:33

churn of Saturday Night Live is because you don't

39:35

see sketches like this very

39:37

often.

39:39

You don't get these really

39:41

particular Black

39:44

references on SNL every single

39:46

week. It is a rare treat. And

39:49

when you get it, it's rare that

39:51

they're quite as incisive and clever

39:54

as these sketches. And of course.

39:56

Black Jeopardy would not have worked without Kenan Thompson

39:59

as the host.

39:59

straight man as the guy making the

40:02

faces and being just

40:04

a charming, fun, warm and

40:06

welcoming

40:07

kind

40:09

of comic figure.

40:14

This got me thinking about how we develop

40:16

relationships with the people on our TV screens,

40:18

like Kenan Thompson and Alex Trebek.

40:21

People who were there week after week for

40:23

years. And in these two cases, people

40:26

I've been watching since I was a little kid.

40:29

I think it has as much to do with them as it does

40:31

the shows that have come to define their careers. Jeopardy

40:34

and SNL debuted 59 and 47 years ago,

40:36

respectively.

40:40

That's a long time to be in American homes,

40:42

week after week, year after year. Dave

40:46

Shillings explained to me why he thinks both shows

40:48

have such staying power. SNL and Jeopardy

40:50

are American institutions. And

40:57

I think one of the reasons for that is these are institutions

41:00

that were developed at a time when

41:02

we all watched the same stuff. You

41:06

know, there weren't a million options for entertainment.

41:10

They harkened back to a time when we all kind of

41:12

had these similar touchstones. Saturday

41:16

Night Live and Jeopardy also share an adherence to format.

41:20

You always are going to get the same thing

41:22

no matter when you tune in. It's going to be

41:25

the same. And that feels nice.

41:29

Kenan told me the two Jeopardy hosts actually got

41:31

to me. Kind of like a crossover

41:33

episode. It was

41:35

backstage at the 2019 National Hockey League Awards.

41:39

He just went in. He was like, hey, man, you know what I mean? Like, I

41:41

love that. I think

41:43

he referenced Black Jeopardy was his opening line.

41:45

Like he said, some line from it. And he was just

41:47

like, man, that was classic blah, blah, blah. And

41:50

don't you just love comedy? And he was just so

41:53

relaxed and chill. I thought he was going to be more, you

41:55

know, kind of uptight or, you know, brainy-ish,

41:58

nerd-ish. But he was...

41:59

was super smooth. I

42:04

was like, Alex is a player. He's

42:07

out here with mass wag. I

42:09

was like, okay. Well, Alex

42:12

was such a force in hand-holding people

42:14

into, it's

42:16

okay to not be as smart as you

42:18

think you are, but keeps

42:21

studying and working hard.

42:23

Two titans of entertainment and

42:26

mutual fans of one another. Even

42:28

if one famously parodied the other.

42:31

Alex once said, you know you've made it

42:34

if you've been parodied. And that's true. Black

42:36

Jeopardy hits because Jeopardy is so big

42:38

and so beloved.

42:40

And we don't have to choose.

42:41

We can love them both. This

42:48

is Jeopardy. The story of America's favorite

42:50

quiz show is a production of Sony Music Entertainment

42:53

and Sony Pictures TV. It's hosted

42:55

by me, Buzzy Cohen. This episode

42:57

was produced by Rob Dozier and Mia

42:59

Warren. The series producers are Julia

43:02

Doyle, Rob Dozier and Mia Warren.

43:05

Associate producer is Serena Chow. Our

43:07

series editor is Sarah Kramer. Executive

43:10

producers are Lizzie Jacobs, Tom Koenig,

43:12

Sarah Kramer, Michael Davies and

43:14

Suzanne Prettie. Production management

43:16

help from Susanya Davenport and Tamika

43:19

Balance-Kolozny. Our theme song was

43:21

composed by Hannes Brown. Sam Baer

43:23

engineered this episode. Special

43:25

thanks to Charlie Yetter and

43:27

Steve Ackerman. And a big,

43:29

big thank you to the Jeopardy staff and

43:31

crew for all of their time and help on this. Shout

43:34

out to Alexa Machia. If you

43:36

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