'Jeopardy!': James Holzhauer Poked Fun at Alex Trebek With His Final Answer Tribute

At the end of Thursday night's Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time episode, the three contestants [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

At the end of Thursday night's Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time episode, the three contestants all had trouble with a movie-related clue. James Holzhauer had no idea what the correct response was, so he came up with a fitting tribute to Trebek. He called the beloved game show host the "GHOST," or "Greatest Host of Syndicated TV."

Of course, Holzhauer pulled off the tribute with his particularly wacky humor. He actually began to write out Pat Sajak, referring to the Wheel of Fortune host, but then crossed Sajak's name out and replaced it with Alex Trebek.

"I wish you had risked more points," Trebek jokingly replied.

The "Final Jeopardy" clue asked for the names of the two recent foreign-born film directors to win the Best Director Oscar twice but have their films lose Best Picture. The correct response was "What is Alfonso Cuaron and Ang Lee?" Lee won Oscars for Life of Pi and Brokeback Mountain, while Cuaron won for Roma and Gravity. None of those four films won Best Picture.

None of the three contestants got the correct response. Ken Jennings was closest, picking Lee and Alejandro G. Inarritu. However, Inarritu's Oscars are for The Revenant and Birdman, the latter of which did win Best Picture. Brad Rutter wrote a tribute to the Super Bowl LII champion Philadelphia Eagles.

Getting the wrong response did not hurt Jennings in the end though. He won his second night of the tournament with 67,600 points. Holzhauer, who won Wednesday's episode, finished with 33,692 points and Rutter had 23,467.

The first-ever Jeopardy! GOAT tournament has been poignant for Trebek, as the contestants have paid tribute to the host. They have been wearing purple ribbons all week to show support for Trebek, who is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

"I feel like I've grown up watching Alex and he's the closest thing my generation has to a Walter Cronkite -- a broadcaster who you just trust because he's in your home every night," Jennings recently said of Trebek. "It's amazing that he's still with us and he's facing his health battles with such courage."

Trebek has compared the tournament to a "Super Bowl-type competition."

"In the first half of the match, I don't think they missed one clue," Trebek told TMZ. "When you're dealing with players of this caliber, you know that there aren't going to be many mistakes. It's very competitive."

The next new episode of Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage/Getty Images

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