Night Duty
On Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, but mostly, my dad
I never watched sports growing up, so when my dad occasionally did, his loud reactions to wins, losses, fumbles, fake-outs startled me. I’ve never really understood the appeal and phenomenon of yelling at a TV, jumping up in vicarious victory, or bemoaning another loss and sinking further into the couch. There is one exception, however. Well, two exceptions if you also count the only day of the year I turn on ESPN for the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals – because *of course* I cheer for all the South Asian kids while trying to quell the faint twinge of FOMO rising in my own stomach. I digress. The far more common occurrence of audible and gestural reactions is directed, not at precocious spellers, but at a familiar game show host almost nightly. If you could hear more than one voice in the house yelling at the TV, it was certainly my dad and me during Jeopardy! because Alex Trebek had over-pronounced a French word in an attempt to never let the audience forget his French-Canadian background.
As you probably already know, Alex Trebek died on Sunday. It is incredibly strange to mourn the loss of someone you did not know, let alone someone famous. I’m not quite sure I’m mourning him, necessarily, but I am racked with grief over the presumed end of tradition, familiarity, consistency and the role he played in facilitating these feelings for me.
I watched Jeopardy with my dad just about every night while I was growing up, and even amidst the chaos of extracurriculars and homework and friendships, we always sat down to watch it together. We’d compete, obviously, and the older I got, the more I’d beat him during our weekday trivia session. This routine became so familiar that my dad, who had Jeopardy scheduled to record every night, would deliberately start it 6 or 7 minutes after the official start time, just so we could fast forward through the commercials but still finish the episode around 7:30. We’d jokingly argue about how many skip-ahead-button (not the fast-forward one — the one that skips ahead maybe 30 seconds at a time?) clicks it took to accurately gloss over the entire commercial break and high-five each other if the timing was perfect. We’d cheer when one of us knew an answer that stumped the contestants and heckle the screen in an ego-inflating moment of smarter-than-thou jeers.
The first time I went home after I started college in the fall of 2013, my dad’s initial question was if I wanted to watch some Zeo – one of his many affectionately silly names for Jeopardy. Other nonsensical names include: Night Duty Zeopardy and His Orchestra; Night Duty; and Howdy Doodie. I don’t think we had even managed to unload my suitcase before he brought up the show, the excitement visible in his bouncing walk. It took all of five minutes before we were squawking at the screen, lamenting the annoying way Trebek enunciated the word genre.
After the episode ended, my dad asked if I wanted to watch another, and when I nodded, he pulled up the DVR list. As he scrolled through the episodes, I noticed they dated back all the way to August. It was October. Later that evening, my mom mentioned how happy my dad seemed after we had watched Jeopardy together. She revealed that he hadn’t been watching Jeopardy at all since I left for school; it wasn’t the same unless we were watching together. Something about this information left me feeling sad, like I had inadvertently severed a part of my relationship with my dad. Jeopardy was what brought us together; it was what we bonded over.
Since 1984, with Sony Pictures newly at the helm of production, Alex Trebek has been the host of Jeopardy! During his time as host, his hair transformed from a fluffy dark brown into a sleeker silver, his facial hair took many forms and shapes, but every weeknight, without fail, Trebek took his post behind the lectern and quizzed his eager American audience.
Watching Jeopardy with my dad became synonymous with home. No matter where we lived, Jeopardy still aired at 7pm (except for when we lived in Tennessee, because whatever cable network we had made the egregious decision to air Wheel of Fortune BEFORE Jeopardy and upset the delicate balance of family-friendly weeknight gameshow viewing). Even now, when my dad knows I’ll be visiting, he’ll stop watching Jeopardy a couple weeks in advance of my arrival, letting the DVR accumulate 10 or 15 episodes. That way, we can watch 2 or 3 episodes at a time, lengthening the spans of time we sit together on the couch and share in our nerdy tradition.
Unsurprisingly, Jeopardy with a new host will not be the same. Sure, it’ll be the same game show and have the same structure and invite eager nerds to compete for prize money. But what is Jeopardy if my dad and I can’t poke fun at Alex Trebek’s Frenchification? I worry that whomever is chosen as the new host won’t ignite the same spark in both my dad and me that has consistently brought us together. Bonding over something you love is easy; bonding over something that irks you is fun; but bonding over both is love, is family, is tradition, is consistency, is home.
Rest in peace, Alex Trebek. You will be missed, so, so deeply.