A week after taking over temporary hosting duties from Mayim Bialik, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings is feeling right at home on the beloved quiz show. So much so, in fact, that he's now gotten used to cracking punny jokes left and right.
In particular, viewers saw Ken's sense of humor come out on Monday's episode when returning Jeopardy! champion Andrew He chose the “National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey” category for $800. The Double Jeopardy clue read, “A very brave cleaner shrimp gets a meal of parasites and dead skin from the mouth of one of these scary predators.”
Without skipping a beat, contestant Jeff Meyers buzzed in first and said, “What is an eel?” Ken then asked him to be more specific and Jeff replied, “Electric eel?” But it still wasn’t correct. After neither Andrew nor Molly Karol came up with the right answer, Ken revealed the right answer, moray eel, using a bit of word play.
“As Dean Martin might’ve said, ‘That’s Amore,’” Ken quipped.
Shortly after the latest episode of Jeopardy! aired on the East Coast, the show’s official Twitter account posted a GIF of this moment with the caption: “Dad joke alert! @KenJennings.” Before the night was through, Ken caught wind of the tweet and took the opportunity to share another joke — this time, about himself. “I will be coming to your homes individually to apologize for this,” he wrote alongside a retweet.
But Jeopardy! fans on Twitter didn’t want to hear any of it. “If you’re coming to my house for anything, it’s for more dad jokes, Ken,” one person wrote. “Don’t bother stopping by my place, I thought it was funny,” another added. “It was even funnier because it was so unexpected!” a different fan said. “Best line of the show!” a follower commented. “I laughed so it’s all good 🤣👍,” someone else tweeted.
What's more, Jeopardy! champion Matt Amodio also chimed in with his own comment. "Everybody loves somebody who is willing to apologize," he wrote back to Ken.
Sounds like no one minds the light-hearted dad joke after all!
Selena is the entertainment and news editor for Good Housekeeping, where she covers the latest on TV, movies and celebrities. In addition to writing and editing entertainment news, she also spotlights the Hispanic and Latinx community through her work. She is a graduate of CUNY Hunter College with a B.A. in journalism and creative writing.
