If you haven’t followed the Jeopardy! saga, the sparknotes are these:
- Alex Trebek died.
- Jeopardy! needed a new host.
- Some guy named Mike Richards, a producer of multiple game shows, got himself to be in charge of the search for a replacement.
- Mike Richards chose himself.
- Claire McNear, author of Answers in the Form of Questions: A Definitive History and Insider’s Guide to Jeopardy!, wrote a scorcher of an exposé on Richards, highlighting demeaning comments Richards made about women on a bad podcast he used to host while also drawing attention to multiple lawsuits filed against Richards during his time with The Price Is Right, such as one by a model who alleged she was wrongfully terminated after giving birth. These weren’t the only things in McNear’s exposé. But they were the big ones! It also made Richards out to be your generic office butthead—opportunistic, manipulative, disingenuous, creepy…all the good things.
- A few days after the McNear article was published, Mike Richards stepped down as the new host of Jeopardy!
- Today, Mike Richards is no longer the executive producer of Jeopardy!
One complicating factor for the show was that there were a lot of good options for replacement hosts (none of whom were Richards), including Ken Jennings, arguably the greatest Jeoparder of all time (I cannot believe spell check didn’t stop me there wow I’m riding high right now). Which brings us to the other arguable greatest Jeoparder of all time (man this is awesome I had no idea that was a word I’m going to use it so much these next few days):
James Holzhauer.
Holzhauer was always a different animal than Jennings. Jennings was there to be a great Jeoparder. (Jeoparder! Can you believe it??) Holzhauer was there to ruthlessly take every dollar he could. The two seem to have a good relationship, though, which is something Holzhauer does not seem to have with Richards. Which brings us, at long last, to the reason for this post.
James Holzhauer has been having a blast making fun of Mike Richards on Twitter.
Here you go. In sequential order.
