I’m sure all of us at some point in our lives have watched a Television Game Show.  Whether it’s a classic like Family Feud, Hollywood Squares, Password, What’s My Line or maybe it’s something newer like Who wants to be a Millionaire.  Most of these have had hosts with personalities almost as big as the shows like Monty Hall, Richard Dawson or Bob Barker.  But one is so synonymous with a show that all I need to say is Jeopardy and you would immediately think of Alex Trebek.

Photo Credit: Associated Press (AP)

Alex was born on July 22, 1940 in Sudbury Ontario Canada.  He began his career in 1961 working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reading national news and covering a range of special events for CBC Radio and Television.  His first hosting job was on a Canadian music program called Music Hop in 1963 followed by numerous other shows through the remainder of the 60s and early 70s.  Then in 1973 he moved to the United States to work for NBC to host a new game show called The Wizard of Odds.  This led to other game show hosting duties until he was tapped to film a pilot of a revived version of Jeopard in 1984 when original host Art Fleming declined to return.

Photo Credit: Jeopardy

The show was picked up and Trebek remained the host for 37 years, and filmed over 8,200 episodes. He received seven Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Game Show Host among many other accolades.

On March 9th, 2019 announced he had been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer which would eventually take his life on November 8th, 2020.  Even though his treatments he continued to film new episodes of Jeopardy and taped his last episode on October 29th, 2020 just 10 days before his death.  This final episode eventually aired on Television January 8th, 2021 with a wonderful tribute at the end allowing his fans an opportunity to say goodbye.

As a tribute to Alex Trebek, the wonderful people over at The Penny Depot created this special pressed penny with Alex’s face, and signature.  He will be missed, and I don’t think Jeopardy will ever be the same without him.

As Alex Trebek used as his trademark sign off.  “So long, everybody!”