Quickest FJ! get in the Ken Jennings era. I took the intended route of "long live the" = "viva el/la/los/las", and the 1960s category was enough to get me to the right final word, Viagra commercial or no.
In the "it just didn't stick" category, I watched about 4-5 minutes of a Keith Haring show on a rerun of PBS "American Masters" this weekend. I'm familiar with his style, and if you showed me a characteristic one of his pieces of art, I could get to "1980s pop artist who died of AIDS-related complications", but the name just wasn't there.
Bamaman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:12 pm
I turned it on in the middle of the second clue so I was a little taken aback not to hear Alex’s voice. Did Ken say anything at the beginning beyond the usual greetings?
I was pleasantly surprised how well he did. Being very familiar with the show and how it works was no doubt a help for him. Reserving judgment on if he deserves the job until I see more of him and the other auditions.
Yup, he addressed it head on.
And he concluded the show with a "Thank you, Alex". I wonder if that's going to be a thing. I thought Ken did very well. He kept
the pace up, and was a little faster than Alex at reading the clues. Well, faster than TODAY'S Alex - if you stroll thorough some old 80s YouTube videos, you'll notice that Alex is a lot faster (and higher pitched) - I don't think that's to evade algorithm detection, but I could be wrong.
The only weird thing I noticed is on DD2, the contestant never technically gave a wager...he just said "Let's do it again". If I were an EP giving Ken notes after the show, that would be kind of a big one...Standards and Practices wouldn't like it the contestant later on said, "I meant to bet X again, not bet it all again". Granted, in this case, he couldn't bet X, as he had less money. And Ken -DID- respond with "True Daily Double!", but we never heard the contestant confirm it.
(For the record, I hate the phrase TDD anyway, so I'm biased.)
But, overall, I thought Ken did a great job. There are very few hosts that would be deal-breakers for me, and there's only one host who would be perfect...and, sadly, we saw his last episode on Friday.
I did notice Ken walked to the lectern after his intro, right before he started introducing the categories - you never saw Alex do that in recent years, probably after the time he tore his Achilles? Alex just always seemed teleport from his "Hello to the contestants" location to behind the lectern while he reads the category names.
MarkBarrett wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:15 pm
Now that I have had time to rewatch today's opening and compare it to one from last week I can see there are slight changes. While Alex is still seen, the larger images of him in a more close-up view are gone. It's so subtle that it's barely noticeable from the previous weeks this season.
I never watch the intros, but I was watching for Alex in this one...and I only saw him in one little picture with the Clue Crew. I thought there might have been more, but I wasn't sure. It'll be interesting to see if the others have been changed.