In particular, the story has endless details about Art Fleming, the quizzer's first host. I didn't know many of the factoids, such as Art's birth name of Fazzin. ("Fleming" was his middle name.) He spent a few years as a disc jockey in Akron before returning to his native New York City to seek bigger fame and fortune. Merv Griffin liked him for a new answer-and-question quizzer, and you know the rest of the story.
The grim irony in this entry's title is that Art Fleming died in 1995 of pancreatic cancer. Yes, the same disease that Alex Trebek is fighting right now.
Except for a few odd tweaks in a short-lived 1978-79 version, Jeopardy has used the same format since its inception with Art Fleming as the host in 1964. Not to mention that over all the decades the show has had only two hosts. A critic who saw the early days of Alex's version in 1984 turned out to be spectacularly wrong...
The new Jeopardy is a disgrace. It may get ratings, but it deserves no respect. The slicked-up new version of one of television's few intelligent game shows is aimed straight at a pinhead pop-culture mentality.
Hm, sounds like this critic would be right at home on today's game show Interwebs. Except nobody besides a few geeks had heard of the Internet in 1984.
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