'Jeopardy!' Fans Praise David Faber's Performance as the 'Stuff Dreams Are Made Of'

After LeVar Burton's highly anticipated week as Jeopardy! host, David Faber is serving as the [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

After LeVar Burton's highly anticipated week as Jeopardy! host, David Faber is serving as the guest host for a week starting Monday. Faber, 57, is a business journalist, serving as a co-host of CNBC's Squawk on the Street morning show. After his first episode, Jeopardy! fans praised Faber's hosting style, even though many are not aware of his day job.

Faber will serve as Jeopardy! guest host through Friday, Aug. 6. He is just one of many journalists to fill on for the late Alex Trebek while the Jeopardy! producers decide on who will be the permanent host. Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Bill Whitaker, Savannah Guthrie, George Stephanopoulos, and Robin Roberts have all hosted before Faber. He is also the next-to-last guest host, as Fox Sports broadcaster Joe Buck will finish out the season with his Aug. 9-13 hosting gig.

Faber joined CNBC back in 1993. In addition to his work on Squawk on the Street, he also produces documentaries for the network. He won a Peabody Award in 2005 for the documentary The Age of Walmart. His books include The Faber Report (2002), And Then The Roof Caved In (2009), and House of Cards: The Origins Of The Collapse (2010). He previously competed in the 2012 Jeopardy! Power Players Tournament, beating Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Dana Perino, notes Esquire.

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"Well, your amazing team here really just kept trying to get me to be myself," Faber said of the advice he received from the Jeopardy! producers in a video the show released last week. "You know, there's not that many opportunities in the game — because the game is the star — to show a lot of yourself. And really, I wanted to just focus on the gameplay. But they did tell me to smile, to try to have fun, which I tried to do, to loosen up a bit. That was all great advice, to be enthusiastic, obviously, and supportive of the contestants as well."

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Faber hosted Jeopardy! at home with his friends to prepare. "A bunch of my friends showed up to be contestants, to have me be there, and then a few others just to listen and critique," he said. "It actually ended up being very helpful."

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The CNBC host's charity of choice is the Robin Hood Foundation, which fights poverty in New York City. Jeopardy! will make a donation to the organization that matches the winnings of all contestants during Faber's week of hosting. So far, Jeopardy! has donated $2 million to charities picked by the guest hosts.

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"New York has always had a lot of people who are having a rough go," Faber said in a statement. "So, I wanted to try to focus on my hometown."

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"He is doing a good job and flows naturally. My 78 YO mom is enjoying him also, let's see how the remainder of the week goes," one fan tweeted.

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"I wasn't familiar with him but he's doing a great job! He's natural, and somehow soothing," another viewer wrote. "Maybe a new favorite for me."

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