'Jeopardy!' Host Ken Jennings Offers Apologies to Fans Over 'Dad Joke'

By BreAnna Bell

Jeopardy! champion and now temporary host Ken Jennings has issued an apology for making a dad joke on a recent episode of the competition series. Jeopardy! champion Andrew He appeared on the show and chose the category "National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey" for $800.

The question read: "A very brave cleaner shrimp gets a meal of parasites and dead skin from the mouth of one of these scary predators." Contestant Jeff Meyers chimed in first and answered, "What is an eel?"

Upon pressing from the host for a more specific answer, Meyers guessed "Electric eel?" The answer didn't pass the test, and when nobody else gave it a chance, Jennings told the crowd, "as Dean Martin might've said, 'That's Amore,'" referring to a moray eel. The show teased the clip on social media, tweeting "Dad joke alert!" 

Jennings responded to the funny moment online, jokingly offering an apology for all of the fans. "I will be coming to your homes individually to apologize for this." Though, it seems an apology was unnecessary in this case. "tbh dad jokes are literally the best," one person said."Love, love, love Ken as host. Please give him the permanent gig," another hoped. "That was a quick response and very, very funny," agreed someone else.

Jennings first took over as a temporary host following the death of beloved host Alex Trebek, who died following a battle with pancreatic cancer. "I miss Alex a lot," Jennings previously said. "When I'm here, I feel like he's probably in the building somewhere. It's hard not to talk about him in the present tense."

"The first day I came into guest host was just a few weeks after Alex had passed and it was a really rough time," Jennings admitted. "I got to the studio and one of the producers handed me a little box and Alex's wife, Jean, had given me a pair of his cuff links that he had worn on the show. What a lovely gesture that was from Jean." He continued: "You know, at a time that was very hard for her family, dealing with a lot of grief and a lot of challenges, she thought about Jeopardy! and she thought about me, a person she had never even met," he said. "And I just thought, 'What a lovely thing to do.' She's fantastic."

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