Last Updated on July 16, 2016
Game show host Alex Trebeck suffered a mild heart attack Monday night and is recovering at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, according to news reports.
It has been a difficult few months for the Jeopardy family. The programs creator, Merv Griffin, passed away in August. On Monday, Roger King, the man who helped put the show on the syndicated map as head of King-World, died of a stroke. It’s a good thing that in this particular case, it didn’t happen “in threes.”
News reports say that Trebeck will stay in the hospital for a few days for observation and further tests. Some sources stress that the heart attack was “mild.” At least one insists that Trebeck is “fine.” I commented that I don’t think anyone who just suffered a heart attack of any size can reasonably be called “fine,” since even a mild heart attack is often a warning sign that real trouble could be around the corner if changes aren’t made.
I’ll confess that I am not a fan of Jeopardy. It is one of the most boring game shows I have ever seen. If I had been the guy who had to sit through the pitch of that show to decide whether to put it on the air, it would never have seen the light of day.
But Trebeck is great as the host of that show. I don’t mean that as a slight or to suggest that I find him boring; on the contrary, he balances the “high-brow” intellectualism with subtle, playful humor, and I can’t think of a host that would be a better fit for that format. I wish him a speedy recovery.
