Although he doesn’t come out and say it, Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer is seemingly pointing out the hypocrisy from the show’s executive producer’s plans to shoot its 40th season amid the writers’ strike.
Holzhauer, the third-biggest winner in the show’s history, posted a link to Michael Davies‘ recent comments to the Inside Jeopardy podcast, in which he outlined plans to use “a combination of material that our WGA writers wrote before the strike, which is still in the database, and material that has been re-deployed from multiple seasons of the show.”
Holzhauer noted, “If you don’t have time to listen, here’s the executive summary of today’s announcement,” before paraphrasing Davies. “1:00-2:00: Jeopardy’s writers are invaluable and we couldn’t produce the show without them 2:00-15:00: Here is how we will produce the upcoming season without them.”
As previously reported, Ray Lalonde, a Jeopardy! winner who won more than $386,000 on the game show in 2022, said he’s boycotting the show’s upcoming Tournament of Champions in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America strike.
The player bristled at using “recycled material” to make up for striking writers who are unable to write new questions.
Another veteran player, Dan Wohl, agreed, replying that although he qualified for a Wild Card slot, he “will certainly never cross the picket line for [it].”
At least eight other former players were spotted at the time replying in solidarity to Lalonde’s post.
Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik walked away from Jeopardy! in May in solidarity with the WGA strikers, leaving counterpart Ken Jennings to shoot the remaining episodes of season 39.
Season 40 of Jeopardy! is set to premiere on September 11, 2023.
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