A lot of the candidates being floated here are well into their 50s-60s. If they're gonna choose anybody, it has to be someone in their 30s-40s that they know will want to stick around as long as Alex did.
Two things: As covetous at the hosting gig of Jeopardy! is, there's no guarantee someone would want to stay with it. Maybe he's an aspiring comic trying to get into late-night TV and actually succeeds, thereby not holding onto hosting a game show for the rest of his days.
The other thing is who knows how much life is left in the show? It's an enduring format and doesn't risk being cancelled, even if it has a lousy host for a season, at this point in the run; but the television landscape isn't what it used to be. At some point, the change in people's entertainment patterns will catch up with even one of the most enduring prime access syndicated shows (even if that means is just moves online).
get Pat Sajak for a week if you want
If Johnny Gilbert in the context of his audience warmup is any authoritative source, when he recounted the story of that April Fool's show in 1997 at one of the tapings I attended, he indicated Pat made it very clear by the end of it that's the last time he would ever host the show.
While I don't doubt that Mark Walberg would do a fantastic job, the problem is they would have a lot of non-regular viewers tuning in to his first show out of curiosity...and then immediately tuning out once they realize it isn't that Mark Wahlberg...
It really makes me wonder why he didn't take a stage name. He's earned more recognition for who he isn't, and at the same time, is passed off because he isn't who people think he is.
I have a hard time seeing any of the New York-based newspeople mentioned here taking the gig because, although Jeopardy isn't really a full-time job, it would require spending a lot of time on the west coast. I know that CBS made it work when Julie Chen was simultaneously anchoring The Early Show and Big Brother, but it feels like a different era these days from a budget perspective.
Considering it's a two-day-a-week taping schedule twenty-odd weeks of the year, I'm sure anyone who wants the gig enough to be offered it, no matter where he currently lives, will make it work.
You can't really make a judgement until you audition someone, and even that isn't foolproof; Dick Martin fooled us on Mindreaders.
Perhaps he was the best mindreader of you all. Evidently knew what to do to get the gig.
