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Buzzy Cohen is a legendary “Jeopardy” champion and a fan favorite.
Back in 2016, he had a nine-game winning streak, won the Tournament of Champions in 2017, hosted the tournament in 2021, and was dubbed Mr. Personality by the late Alex Trebek.
Now, he’s pulling back the curtain on the famed gameshow in a new podcast called, “This is Jeopardy!” The episodes even go back to when Art Fleming hosted the first version of the show in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
It turns out, when the show was revived with Trebek as the host, Fleming wasn’t happy with the move.
“That was a big controversy,” Cohen revealed to KTLA 5’s Sam Rubin. “Alex brought more of a suave, sexy gameshow host thing and Art was very much the professor and people were up in arms over Alex Trebek.”
Hard to believe that the famous host had to win over fans in the beginning.
Having been a contestant, Cohen explained how nerve-wracking the experience actually is.
“I think everyone is so good at this show when they’re sitting at home on the couch playing against the dog. You get up there, and the two people who are playing, they were are also the smartest people in their class or smartest people in the bar and they’re trying to buzz in as fast as you,” he said.
It turns out, buzzing in isn’t as easy as it looks.
“You have to wait until the host finishes the last word of the clue. If you buzz in too early, you get penalized,” he explained. “
Trebek actually had that rule enacted when he became host because contestants were buzzing in too early and cutting him off.
The move actually changed the game completely.
To really go in-depth, in one episode Cohen interviews the person behind enabling the buzzer, Michael Harris.
Technically the correct name is signaling device.
Cohen even interviewed Fritz Holznagel who wrote the book “Secrets of the Buzzer.”
When it comes to the game itself, the former champion likes to think it’s all three contestants against the board.
“All three of you are trying to find that Daily Double, you’re trying to beat that material together. There’s so much chance in terms of where the Daily Doubles are, and how strong you feel wagering. It really is about how your competitors are in terms of their aggressiveness, but ultimately you’ve got to know the stuff.”
Cohen did confirm that the Masters’ questions are the hardest and the celebrity editions are a bit easier.
“The producers want everyone to be successful on the show,” he said. “They write the syndicated show at a level they all know is ‘Jeopardy.’ The Tournament of Champions is a little harder, Masters takes it up another level. No celebrity is going to come on the show to be made to look stupid. They try to make it material that they’re familiar with.”
To learn more about the game show, listen to “This is Jeopardy!” wherever you get your podcasts.
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