Name: Alex Trebek on Letterman, 1990–95
Uploaded: 2019-03-07T02:53:49.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Alex Trebek on Letterman, 1990–95' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Alex Trebek on Letterman, 1990–95' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-07. Transcript available.

Alex Trebek on Letterman, 1990–95

Dave, I have what I think is a kind of a cute idea.
What's that, Paul?
Well, I think that I came up with a kind of a cute nickname for one of us guys
in the band.
I think one of the musicians should have a kind of a cute nickname, so I got a
nickname for Will Lee.
Yeah, Will Lee, our bass player.
The Tramp. What do you say?
You're just nuts.
All right, I'm crazy.
You know, I do want to mention something. Speaking of television, excuse me,
too much soda.
The most exciting. Now, see if you don't agree with this, Paul.
I discovered something this morning. The most exciting thing on television
today.
What do you think that would be? On a regular basis, the most exciting thing on
TV.
Jeopardy?
No.
You're very, very close.
No, I said that because you were talking about Jeopardy.
Yeah, but you're very, very close.
Well, it's the brand new concentration here on NBC, I believe.
Oh.
Alex Trebek is the host.
My favorite.
Yeah.
After one of the contestants.
Canadian, you know.
Huh?
Canadian, yeah.
It's like that the Wild West days they have out there in Calgary all of a
sudden.
It's like...
That's right. It's the stampede.
Yeah, the Calgary stampede here tonight.
Maybe if we give them some cheese, they'll go away.
So, so now the puzzle has been solved by one of the contestants.
And then Alex says, let me go over to the board now and show you how they
solved the puzzle.
And that for me, when Alex goes to the board to show you how they solved the
puzzle, well, I'm in heaven.
That is exciting.
He goes right to the board.
He doesn't, there's no pointer or anything, and he does kind of like this.
He says, there you have the key.
There you have the arrows pointing at the bell.
There you, and then he shows you how they solved the puzzle.
It's magic.
It's television magic.
Seriously.
We have a couple of rows of mice enjoying the show tonight.
I wonder if he could explain how they solved that Soul Train scramble board
when they...
Now, see, I don't know what you're talking about.
Well, that's on Soul Train when they have a contestant, he says, the first
person to solve the big Soul Train,
they've got a million letters, and, you know, two black kids go like this, and
it says, Marcus Garvey, out of nowhere.
Yeah.
And there's no possible way they could know.
See, I think it would be tough for Alex Trebek, a white Canadian, to go on to
Soul Train and solve that puzzle.
I could be mistaken.
Maybe you're right.
But he's darn good at...
Well, watch for it.
You'll see what I mean.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Welcome back to the program.
On the show tonight, Alex Trebek, Robert Craig, and the Memphis Horns?
Yes, the actual Memphis Horns.
Yeah, nice to have you here again.
Kimmy Robertson from Twin Peaks, your favorite program.
I love that show.
You know what's on tonight, by the way, is the big super hit over there on CBS,
Flash.
Flash, this is your favorite.
It's my new favorite program, because the guy can run, he's like a guy in his
late 20s, he can run 600 miles an hour.
Wow.
And guess what, he fights crime.
And he does that, too.
What if he didn't fight crime?
He just hung around running 600 miles an hour.
Need anything from the store?
No!
That would be silly.
He's an errand boy.
He runs errands.
He's a messenger in New York.
He runs 600 miles an hour.
He gets his own show.
You know how he can run 600 miles an hour, don't you?
How does he do that?
How can he?
In a word?
You want to know how?
In one word?
What's the word?
Steroids.
I see.
You know, when I turned down the offer to host Jeopardy!, they called our next
guest.
You know, Merv's wife actually invented that game.
Yeah, I know.
After they split up.
He did not get a penny.
Nothing.
He's also the author of what's sure to be the hot Christmas gift this season.
It's the Jeopardy! book, right here.
Look at that, ladies and gentlemen, the Jeopardy! book.
Please say hello, folks, to Alex Trebek.
Good to have you here.
Thank you much for joining us, being on the show.
Now, you are Canadian, aren't you?
Yeah, I am Canadian.
Where are you from?
And you realize that with Paul playing the theme, Merv's going to get extra
bucks.
Yeah, now, that's what I heard this morning.
You were on the Regis and the Kathie Lee show talking about that.
Now, Merv wrote the song.
Yeah, it's called Time for Tony, his son.
Did you know that Merv Griffin's wife came up with the idea for Jeopardy?
Now, let's talk a little bit about it.
First of all, where in Canada are you from?
Northern Ontario, a place called Sudbury.
I don't know if that's close to Paul's name.
Sudbury, Ontario, sure, it's close to me.
Where are you from?
Thunder Bay.
Thunder Bay.
Oh, that's the cold part.
Yeah.
Even colder than Sudbury.
And you worked up there in the CBC for a while?
Yeah, I started in Ottawa in 1960.
Then I spent 10 years in Toronto.
Came to the United States in 1973 to host the Wizard of Odds.
I was the Wizard of Odds.
What was that show where you and the contestants roll?
Yeah, the High Rollers with the big dice.
That was very popular because people love gambling.
Yeah.
You got any money on the fight tonight?
Yes, I do, as a matter of fact.
I have 10 bucks with Mary Connelly.
Who are you picking?
I'm picking...
Mary Connelly.
No, no, no.
I want the buster to win.
But, you know, he weighs like 246 pounds.
They ought to put him in with George Foreman.
Yeah, I think so.
But it would be nice to see him win, but I'm afraid he's not going to.
But whatever happens, I'm going to tomorrow pretend like I predicted it tonight.
I wouldn't want to bet against...
I wouldn't want to bet against a guy who outweighed you by 40 pounds, though.
Yeah, well, I don't know.
We'll see what happens.
Do you have money on the fight?
No, I don't gamble, but I'm going to go watch it.
Now, tell me about the game shows you've done.
You've mentioned Wizard of Odds.
High Rollers.
High Rollers.
I did Battlestars, which I used to refer to as the son of Hollywood squares
because we had just six celebrities instead of nine.
We had triangles instead of boxes.
Oh, I kind of remember that show.
And it was a great job because I would ask a celebrity a question.
The celebrity would give a funny answer.
I would laugh and then go on to the next question.
It was perfect.
Then I'd grab my check, go home.
Yeah.
Okay, Battlestars.
Then what happened?
We did a tough one over at CBS that lasted six months.
It was called Double Dare.
Probably the toughest show I've ever done.
That's one reason it only lasted six months.
Any other after Double Dare before Jeopardy?
I did the $128,000 question.
I do classic concentration now on this network.
Yeah.
And Jeopardy.
Yeah.
Now, it's interesting because in those days where you're thinking to yourself,
eh, what's going to become of me?
Am I going to just go from one little game show to another?
And then...
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But...
Now, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Hear me out, ladies and gentlemen, please.
And now you get on to Jeopardy, and it seems to be the perfect combination.
It is a good combination because I really enjoy the show.
I did a high school quiz show in Canada before coming to the U.S.
It was called Reach for the Top, in which I was dealing with...
Oh, yeah.
I used to love that.
That's right.
Yeah, go ahead.
Tap me out.
Turn my lights off right here.
When's the last time...
When's the last time a Canadian struck you?
Paul, did you ever hit him?
No, no.
This would be the first.
When it was...
Oh, you're on his side suddenly.
Canadians stick together.
Wait a minute.
Who signs your checks, Paul?
Exactly.
Mr. Larry.
You better stick with him.
Yeah.
Check that landed immigrant status, too.
I got my card with me.
No green card for Paul.
Anyway, the game show up in Canada, the high school show.
It was good training for Jeopardy because people had to be bright in order to
score well.
And the same is true of Jeopardy.
And I think it says something about the American public that they really like
Jeopardy.
It's the only show of its kind, although there are a few imitators now.
But even those people who don't come up with any correct responses in a whole
half-hour show enjoy the program.
Yeah.
So it says something about America.
And I play along when I'm at home and I see the show.
And I'm good for, like, the $10 and $20 categories.
I can handle those.
That's on the old show.
That's on the old show.
We have $100, $200, $300.
All right, those I can answer.
In the Jeopardy round.
You're expected to get those.
First letter in the alphabet.
You know, I'm right there.
I got it.
But what I sometimes don't do, and honestly, if I don't do it, I don't penalize
myself for it.
I sometimes, to myself, I don't phrase my answer in the form of a question.
How dare you?
Are you trying to ruin a show that was created by Merv Griffin's wife?
Left her penniless?
Now, does Merv still, he has nothing to do with this show anymore, does he?
No.
Merv, as you know, is a big crossword puzzle fan.
So he sits up and dreams a lot of the puzzles up for Wheel of Fortune.
That's his pet.
He doesn't come around Jeopardy.
Yeah, but he, I mean, if you think about it, here's a man who has contributed
significantly
to modern culture, because these are two shows, this Wheel of Fortune thing, it's
been on
forever, and it still, I guess, dominates in syndication.
It's still number one in syndication.
We haven't been able to catch it in seven years.
But Jeopardy is number two.
We're number two.
We're the second most successful program ever in syndication.
And these are both of his...
Both from Merv Griffin, and so he's created some very successful programs.
He sold them, of course, to Coca-Cola years ago for a couple hundred million
dollars.
He is still the chairman of the board of Merv Griffin Enterprises, and that's
part of
the Sony Corporation, which produces the shows.
The Sony Corporation?
Merv has a deal with the Sony Corporation?
Well, yeah, he heads up Merv Griffin Enterprises.
Man, I think we all are now wishing we had been nicer to Merv.
I think so, because I heard him say the other day that he was planning a son of
Jeopardy,
and he wanted to ask you to host it.
No, I think not.
No?
Don't think you could pass that one?
Now, do you get people on there?
Now, the people who get on the show have to be really good.
They've passed some kind of screening test.
Yeah, they take a test, first of all, that is composed of 50 questions.
Yeah.
If you don't score at least 35 on that test, you go no further.
Yeah, absolutely.
But if you do, then you wind up playing in a mock version of Jeopardy against
other individuals.
And if you have personality, you might wind up on the program.
If you have no personality at all, you could wind up doing a talk show.
See, you're lucky.
You're lucky because I was about to say, no personality, you get to host.
That's what I was doing.
It was foolish of me.
May I?
I should not have tried to ad-lib with you.
But anyway, sometimes because of nerves or the heat of the moment, sometimes
they will say something, not dumb, but a misanswer that's sort of amusing.
And do you have trouble?
You can't really laugh at them.
Well, the game moves so quickly.
No, we don't laugh at our contestants.
It's a tough, tough game.
We do have fun with them.
We had one lady in our seniors tournament, and she was a forensic pathologist
here in the state of New York.
And I said, what do you do?
And she told me we examine tissue to find out what kind of disease is there.
So I said, you don't deal with me if I'm alive, right?
She says, no, Alex, we won't touch you if you're alive.
And I said, you're not the first woman to sit down.
But that's about as wild as we get on Jeopardy.
We're kind of a straight, you know.
Oh, those forensic pathologists.
They're nuts, yeah.
Well, congratulations on the success of this thing.
It shows no indication of slowing down.
And I do.
I think it's a great combination, you and the game.
It works perfectly.
Well, it's lucky.
I'm fortunate to be doi