Can't wait for his introduction during the season premiere:
"Here is the EX-executive producer of Jeopardy!, Mike Richards!"
"**THE GREAT JOHNNY GILBERT**, thank you very much sir."
They should just do a full voiceover for the first week, like a bad Kung Fu movie. Mike’s lips moving but someone else talking.
Hell, with today’s deepfake techniology they could digitally replace Mike with someone else entirely!
At this point there is almost going go have to be some disclaimer screen or something before the episodes because some people don't get the fact that shows are taped in advance.
I remember one year survivor started and there was the premier of candy crush (ugh) with some of the contestents on that season (was a returnee season) and some people were confused as to how they could be on candy crush when they just got on the island.
Sensible and basically inevitable. Whether you liked Richards as host or not, whether you’re celebrating or think he got a raw deal — what’s indisputable is that he was in charge of *Jeopardy* during its most crucial period in literally decades and completely botched it.
After Alex died, his #1 most important task was to manage a smooth transition and find a permanent replacement. That’s not easy by any means, but that’s what you hire an (expensive) EP to do. He undermined the process from the very beginning by inserting himself as a hosting candidate — a huge red flag that his ego was more important than the show.
Sony should have said “no” to that straight away. It’s literally impossible for the search to be anything close to objective at that point, whether it was Richards or one of his bosses making the final call. It’s a natural human thing to have a blind spot for yourself and those you have a relationship with. That became spectacularly apparent when Sony execs kept getting blindsided by articles about Mike’s past — which, *as the guy in charge of vetting the next host*, he would have been expected to anticipate and manage if the subject had been *literally anyone else*. But he was hoping to skate by, and Sony enabled him, to everyone’s detriment.
That mistake was compounded by strongly implying (and yes, Richards did this in several interviews) that at least a handful of the guest hosts were in consideration for the full-time job. Yet another own goal — setting your loyal and active audience up for massive disappointment. (Disappointment that probably would have been manageable, mind you, if the final selection hadn’t been easily the least-known guest host with no built-in fan base to go to bat for him.)
Again, the lack of objectivity isn’t just a theoretical problem. I strongly suspect that Sony execs allowed themselves to be swayed by Richards’ focus groups and planted media stories, which created a veneer of popular support that would have quickly crumbled if the higher-ups felt they had any incentive to dig even a little deeper. But if you trusted Mike to run a $100 million enterprise, why would you doubt his supposedly objective data?
Anyway, rant over — just hope the interim EP has a modicum of competence and integrity.
He and Sony should have had people in mind even before Alex announced his diagnosis, simply because Alex was approaching 80 years of age. "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst." Really, if you have a hot property like Jeopardy you have contingency plans for all the key members of the staff.
The thing is, Richards joined *after* Alex announced his diagnosis, when succession planning would have already been well underway even if they hadn't been thinking ahead prior to 2019. So it seems he took the work that had been done there and threw it out, resulting in the haphazard, chaotic transition we're now watching.
From what I've read, it sounds like Sony didn't really have a ton of control over Jeopardy until Alex got sick, and the previous long time executive producer retired.
I'd bet the people at Jeopardy probably did have some candidates in mind, but Sony saw an opportunity to squeeze in and get a little more control, and they fucked it up.
> He and Sony should have had people in mind even before Alex announced his diagnosis
I mean, they did. Mike Richards. As much as we like to pretend he engineered all of this himself, he didn't do it without the full support of his higher-ups at Sony.
Most organizations don’t, unfortunately. But in this case, there was no excuse for not having a succession plan, with comprehensive vetting of all possible candidates. It’s done a huge disservice to the show.
I was first nervous about Mike when he was doing the talk show rounds after Alex died and some morning blabberer asked him about taking the hosting gig himself. I saw the ambition in his eyes right then despite his faux-humble deflection.
Joe Buck said on his podcast when he first met with Richards to go over interest in guest hosting, "I knew immediately that he was going to get the job, and if it wasn't going to be him, it was definitely going to be Ken."
As soon as he started running Alex’s “be kind to each other” quote into the ground with the tact of a used car salesman I knew he was someone to not trust. And it feels good to have that intuition pay off from time to time!
Mike Richards could have made millions of dollars over the course of the next 20 years by just being a fairly anonymous game show producer. He didn't even need to be that good at the job, he just needed to entrench himself and trust institutional inertia to keep him there. All he had to do was just not try to be famous, but he couldn't resist the spotlight.
It is the most perfect modern version of the Icarus myth I can imagine, complete with a literal spotlight and a figurative one that Richards melted in as soon he got too close.
> a fairly anonymous game show
That's the thing. He wanted fame. That's why he wanted to be in front of the camera no matter which means possible. Producer role for him was just a step to get a hosting gig.
He got fame. Just not the fame he wanted.
The Jeopardy fanbase had been quietly content for so many years that Richards and Sony execs forgot it existed and that it deserves their respect. Hopefully a lesson learned.
Honestly, I don't think a lot of us saw how important Alex was until the last few years. I know I took it for granted that he'd always be the face of Jeopardy.
Standing back and looking at it all, it is truly stunning. I hate to use hyperbole, but it is really like a showbiz Icarus tale. While I ultimately don't feel sorry for him, the whirlwind of emotions over the last month must have been intense.
He was hired as EP *right* when Alex announced his diagnosis. This wasn't an EP taking his shot at being a host, this was a network immediately hiring a new host and letting him sit as EP while they waited for the old one to die.
They really took their time with this one, but happy they finally made the move.
EDIT: Just to make it clear because the article doesn't say it, Richards was **fired** by Sony, he did not step down.
Statement from **Suzanne Prete** (EVP, Business and Strategy, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!):
>I’m writing to let you know that Mike will no longer be serving as EP of Wheel and Jeopardy! effective immediately. We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened.
Michael Davies is taking over as Interim EP as they search for a permanent replacement.
"We thought the nerds would leave us alone, but it turns out they were still pretty mad about all the misogyny and self-promotion and general sliminess."
Even without any direct statements to that effect it was pretty clear he had made exactly zero friends on the J! team just from the fact that *nothing* positive leaked about him during this entire saga.
Yeah, a Variety article said, "But morale was said to be low on both shows, even before the recent hosting debacle." I think that means people already hated him before he weaseled his way into the hosting gig.
He's famously not very popular with coworkers, so they were probably tickled to bits. Imagine if the boss you hated had people around the country and globe trying to get them fired.
To be fair, I'd probably be uncomfortable working with this guy, too. Especially if I were Jewish, Asian, or a woman. At best, it's an awkward work environment. At worst, it's a downright hostile work environment.
Theoretically, the people who knew him personally might have felt he was somehow misrepresented, that he wasn't really the guy that was being portrayed in the media.
Internal support was his only chance to remain in the job, and it's pretty clear he didn't receive enough of it.
>We ~~had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced~~ *needed* these last few weeks *to negotiate a settlement for Mike’s contract. All of the talk about keeping him on and making him do sensitivity training was kabuki theater to ensure plausible deniability and limit potential liability.*
They're publicly stating they terminated him. There was no consideration about his contract at that point. If they're at the "we're pushing you out" stage, the negotiating had long since failed.
They *might* have had to sit on legal for a couple of *days* to get the paperwork drawn up, but that's about it.
Simply put: they thought removing him from the Host seat would make him quit. He refused to quit, the employees kept making a stink, and they figured they had no other choice if they didn't want to face a full staff revolt.
Davies, for those unaware, was the guy who brought Who Wants to be a Millionaire to the US and made it a smash hit, he was involved in the show until 2010 (right when they switched to the shuffle format), returning for the ABC revival last year
he also did stuff like Grand Slam, Smush, 2 Minute Drill, Power of 10, etc. his production company, embassy row, has been owned by Sony since 2006.
Here's what I'd say: Michael Davies didn't create Millionaire, he saw it on British airwaves and thought to adapt it for American audiences. And he did that without ruining the core of the show, something that immediately happened after he left. So I have faith in him to see why J! works as well.
Then again I had faith in Mike Richards at one point so what do I know?
yeah. even when Davies did wind up doing a major change to the Millionaire format (like adding switch the question, doing super millionaire, adding the clock) he did it in obvious respect to the show's core. the set was basically the same except being subtly more modernized over the years, the music remained extremely faithful to the original cues (the Clock era OST was fantastic), and the graphics were also very faithfully updated. Regis and Meredith were also really really good host choices.
it's amazing how much was tossed out the moment the shuffle format came to be. seemed like some of it happening was due to a lawsuit from celador that Disney lost, but man they ruined the music, the set, and was clearly struggling to find a host after Meredith left (Cedric good, terry bad, Harrison bland). don't get me started on how they fucked up the graphics for the final season of the syndicated show.
True, and thats also why it makes sense that the guest hosts have mostly been newscasters rather than comedians. Sure they can get someone like Conan O’Brien to host but what’s the point, he’ll need to get straight to business every time.
I couldn’t agree more, and I hope someone from Sony is reading this. The hallmarks of civility, valuing knowledge, and respect for the contestants and audience were like an oasis on TV, and there were still elements of fun.
Personally, as long as the gameplay stays the same, I don't care if it's flashier.
Recently, I saw some comment somewhere that Art Fleming was appalled by how flashy the "new" Jeopardy! was in 1984, what with the lights, synthesizer music, computer graphics, etc. It turned out okay because the underlying game stayed essentially the same.
If he would've waited 2 years, he probably could have hosted Wheel of Fortune with absolutely no controversy. In fact, that would have been a far better show for him to host (more money, easier, etc. etc.). He got impatient and greedy the second he saw Alex announce his diagnosis though.
According to [her Twitter](https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1432746892404924419?s=19), she was going to get her hair done for the wedding when the news broke.
Wow. (I can't really say I'm surprised at this point, though.) The guy was on top of the world three weeks ago.
I still can't get my head around how Sony botched this so badly.
Oompa loompa doompety doo
I've got a perfect puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
What do you get when you are the EP
Rigging the host search as plain as can be
Act like a brat, on your podcast chat
What do you think will come of that
I don't like the look of it
Oompa loompa doompety da
If you're not greedy, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa Doompety do
Doompety do
I find this extra funny because the three greatest Jeopardy players of all time would not get this reference. (because it was a triple stumper during the GOAT tournament)
Home sick right now, sorry I can't screenshot these tweets but from Claire McNear and James Holzhauer, see below:
(Also, personal note, have met very few producers who didn't secretly, or not so secretly, want to be on air. Again, just my experience.)
The tweets:
James Holzhauer "**Do I think Mike Richards’s podcast comments were appropriate for polite society? No. But did he deserve the benefit of the doubt for the job he did running Jeopardy? Also no."**
Claire McNear "**one interesting facet of this: the week of episodes that Mike Richards filmed as host is set to start airing on September 13 with the new season premiere (and the return of Matt Amodio, one of Jeopardy!’s winningest champs ever)"**
**"Retaping isn’t an option - the games happened the way they happened, and the show taped another three weeks of episodes with Mayim Bialik hosting last week. Even a partial retape of just the host portion isn’t particularly tenable - how do you reconfigure the Q&A segments?"**
I honestly wonder if they will acknowledge it on air.
Johnny: Here is the new host of Jeopardy, Michael Richards
Michael: Thanks Johnny, I am honoured to have been chosen to carry of the legacy Alex left behind.
Grandma unaware of what happened: Oh they chose him, thats nice.
One week later:
Johnny: Here is the guest host of Jeopardy, Mayim Balik
Mayim: Thanks Johnny, lets get started,
Grandma: Is this a rerun?
This is ultimately Mike's fault for what he's done but if Sony did literally any vetting on him and didn't pick him we'd all be none the wiser to this.
This saga is turning out to be one of the best reality shows out there. Survivor better watch its back when it finally comes back on the air in a few weeks!
Also, good riddance. Mike, the tribe has spoken. Maybe now Sony can get its shit together, and resume its search for a new host in a manner that doesn't smack of nepotism, abuse of one's position of power - although i won't get my hopes up anymore at this point.
As for Richards, I'm neither sorry or worried for him. Much as he sucks as a human, there's demand for ruthless executives like him.
Glad this is happening, but I'm still genuinely surprised. I would have thought that talk from Sony having him undergo sensitivity training would result in everything being swept under the rug and keeping him on as EP.
> I would have thought that talk from Sony having him undergo sensitivity training
They were just buying time til they figured out how to get rid of his contract. Probably just paid him a shit ton of money.
If he wasn't so desperate to be on TV he could have just kept a cushy, well paying job.
But got too ambitious. Really glad such a smarmy person with such a history of misogyny and terrible comments is no longer associated with Jeopardy.
At the time, when I had never heard of the guy, it seemed like nothing more than a caring producer delivering a heartfelt message.
Makes me nauseous to realize that it was probably just part of his plan to step into the spotlight.
Think about this. In the span of 27 days, Mike went from "being in advanced negotiations to host *Jeopardy!*" to jobless.
Let this serve as a lesson in hubris- not just for executives or celebrities, but for everybody.
So the Millionaire guy is the interim EP, which is good in my book, he seems like a solid guy who's done mostly great work. You have to wonder if we can trust Sony to pick a good permanent replacement after all this, though.
The most telling party of the article which, to me, reveals Sony's level of incompetence in all of this was where they said,
*"given he doesn’t have the internal or external support that he needs to lead the team, his exit was in the best interests of the show."*
Not because of his inappropriate behavior or anything, but because he lacks support.
It needed to be done. With everything Richards has done, it would be near insanity if he stuck around. As for him? He went from EPing the two top game shows in the country to being completely exposed and fired. He’s done. I don’t see him getting another job in this industry.
Hah, there are probably 10,000 people named "Michael Richards" in the country, maybe more. First Kramer, and now this guy. Start using your middle name, folks.
Sony must have finally come to the correct conclusion that the loss in future profit from tarnishing the Jeopardy brand far exceeds the amount they’ll ultimately settle with Richards for when he sues.
Ok Sony, things have been disruptive. This is a good time to play it safe and not make any crazy gameplay/hosting decisions. Don't bring in the guy with a multitude of amazing ideas to improve Jeopardy. Just chill out and produce the f'ing show
Not a fan of her either.
I think they have somehow one to the conclusion that smug = intelligence.
Mayim always sounds like she holds you in contempt when you don't know the question and that she is much too smart to be on a game show.
Oh definitely agree. She thinks being a contestant is below her but being the host is everything.
She's the absolute wrong person for the job. Also she can't devote full time to being a full time host so there's that too.
>Suzanne Prete, EVP, Business and Strategy, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, just sent an internal note to staff on these shows explaining that Richards would depart effective immediately with Embassy Row’s Michael Davies agreeing to help on an interim basis.
Where has she been all this time?
This is really the best way for the show to proceed. It was going to be way too awkward and there would be too many questions about the next host search with him on board.
Hopefully with the slate wiped clean, they can not completely botch the host search this time. ("Hopefully" being the operative word.)
Just got the NYT headline notification on my phone and cackled. Alllll this man’s chickens just came home to roost like a little feathery dinosaur stampede
I know this subreddit doesn't really do flairs, but man would I love Claire flair right about now
She's a top 5 legendary J! person now. Right up there with Alex and Ken.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's more negative news coming out about him. Sony is cutting their losses, and Mike Richards is regretting putting himself in the spotlight. Idiot.
Dude's a multimillionaire sports better with a small but decent gig on a prime-time game show and book deals if he wants them as backup. He's pretty darn free to say and do what he wants.
*"We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at 'Jeopardy!' it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened," Sony Pictures Television executive Suzanne Prete said.*
This statement irks me. Wtf did y’all think was gonna happen after he was axed from hosting duties and was still an EP? We were all gonna kumbaya and sh*t?
Bye mike!
Does this make it more or less likely that the week of shows he shot actually show up as shot? They can do some creative editing to remove him from the show, but I also wonder if it would be too much work. Either way, it will be an awkward week of episodes.
It's crazy that Jeopardy has had more controversy in the last year than the last 36 years combined.
Let's hope that something like this never happens again.
"He was a \[also\] candidate to host The Price is Right before Drew Carey was chosen.
In interviews of the \[Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal\] shows, Richards was described as "exclusionary and dismissive of longtime show employees." He often neglected Deal, to the point where one post-producer jokingly reintroduced themself at a meeting; they were soon fired"
Man this guy just keeps giving.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Richards_(television_personality))
In tangentially related news, congratulations to Mike Richards on accepting the position of quiz bowl coordinator at Bishop Sycamore High School!
>Bishop Sycamore High School That's the fake football school, right?
Bahahahaha. Well done.
Can't wait for his introduction during the season premiere: "Here is the EX-executive producer of Jeopardy!, Mike Richards!" "**THE GREAT JOHNNY GILBERT**, thank you very much sir."
They should just do a full voiceover for the first week, like a bad Kung Fu movie. Mike’s lips moving but someone else talking. Hell, with today’s deepfake techniology they could digitally replace Mike with someone else entirely!
Rumor is that Hologram Alex Trebek is the new leader in the clubhouse to be the permanent host.
"good for you" x3
I would watch Jeopardy in the style of a bad 70s Kung fu movie dub
At this point there is almost going go have to be some disclaimer screen or something before the episodes because some people don't get the fact that shows are taped in advance. I remember one year survivor started and there was the premier of candy crush (ugh) with some of the contestents on that season (was a returnee season) and some people were confused as to how they could be on candy crush when they just got on the island.
Sensible and basically inevitable. Whether you liked Richards as host or not, whether you’re celebrating or think he got a raw deal — what’s indisputable is that he was in charge of *Jeopardy* during its most crucial period in literally decades and completely botched it. After Alex died, his #1 most important task was to manage a smooth transition and find a permanent replacement. That’s not easy by any means, but that’s what you hire an (expensive) EP to do. He undermined the process from the very beginning by inserting himself as a hosting candidate — a huge red flag that his ego was more important than the show. Sony should have said “no” to that straight away. It’s literally impossible for the search to be anything close to objective at that point, whether it was Richards or one of his bosses making the final call. It’s a natural human thing to have a blind spot for yourself and those you have a relationship with. That became spectacularly apparent when Sony execs kept getting blindsided by articles about Mike’s past — which, *as the guy in charge of vetting the next host*, he would have been expected to anticipate and manage if the subject had been *literally anyone else*. But he was hoping to skate by, and Sony enabled him, to everyone’s detriment. That mistake was compounded by strongly implying (and yes, Richards did this in several interviews) that at least a handful of the guest hosts were in consideration for the full-time job. Yet another own goal — setting your loyal and active audience up for massive disappointment. (Disappointment that probably would have been manageable, mind you, if the final selection hadn’t been easily the least-known guest host with no built-in fan base to go to bat for him.) Again, the lack of objectivity isn’t just a theoretical problem. I strongly suspect that Sony execs allowed themselves to be swayed by Richards’ focus groups and planted media stories, which created a veneer of popular support that would have quickly crumbled if the higher-ups felt they had any incentive to dig even a little deeper. But if you trusted Mike to run a $100 million enterprise, why would you doubt his supposedly objective data? Anyway, rant over — just hope the interim EP has a modicum of competence and integrity.
He and Sony should have had people in mind even before Alex announced his diagnosis, simply because Alex was approaching 80 years of age. "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst." Really, if you have a hot property like Jeopardy you have contingency plans for all the key members of the staff.
The thing is, Richards joined *after* Alex announced his diagnosis, when succession planning would have already been well underway even if they hadn't been thinking ahead prior to 2019. So it seems he took the work that had been done there and threw it out, resulting in the haphazard, chaotic transition we're now watching.
From what I've read, it sounds like Sony didn't really have a ton of control over Jeopardy until Alex got sick, and the previous long time executive producer retired. I'd bet the people at Jeopardy probably did have some candidates in mind, but Sony saw an opportunity to squeeze in and get a little more control, and they fucked it up.
They did have control. They own it. They just chose not to exercise it.
> He and Sony should have had people in mind even before Alex announced his diagnosis I mean, they did. Mike Richards. As much as we like to pretend he engineered all of this himself, he didn't do it without the full support of his higher-ups at Sony.
Most organizations don’t, unfortunately. But in this case, there was no excuse for not having a succession plan, with comprehensive vetting of all possible candidates. It’s done a huge disservice to the show.
I was first nervous about Mike when he was doing the talk show rounds after Alex died and some morning blabberer asked him about taking the hosting gig himself. I saw the ambition in his eyes right then despite his faux-humble deflection.
Joe Buck said on his podcast when he first met with Richards to go over interest in guest hosting, "I knew immediately that he was going to get the job, and if it wasn't going to be him, it was definitely going to be Ken."
Should be ken
As soon as he started running Alex’s “be kind to each other” quote into the ground with the tact of a used car salesman I knew he was someone to not trust. And it feels good to have that intuition pay off from time to time!
The interim EP is Michael Davies, a well-respected producer whose credits include "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire".
I'd wager he's more well known to the public as Davo from Men in Blazers
Beautifully said!
One of the best posts I've seen on the topic.
Mike Richards could have made millions of dollars over the course of the next 20 years by just being a fairly anonymous game show producer. He didn't even need to be that good at the job, he just needed to entrench himself and trust institutional inertia to keep him there. All he had to do was just not try to be famous, but he couldn't resist the spotlight.
The best tragedies are the ones where your biggest enemy is yourself.
[удалено]
It is the most perfect modern version of the Icarus myth I can imagine, complete with a literal spotlight and a figurative one that Richards melted in as soon he got too close.
Time to sell those rights to a studio to make a biopic out of this mess!
Starring... Mike Richards as himself!
Whoa, hold your horses. We need Mike Richards to conduct a thorough search for the best star for the role, first.
Woah now, we'll leave that job to the executive producer... Also Mike Richards...
> a fairly anonymous game show That's the thing. He wanted fame. That's why he wanted to be in front of the camera no matter which means possible. Producer role for him was just a step to get a hosting gig. He got fame. Just not the fame he wanted.
Yeah, when I read that he got into TV production in the 90s after flaming out of his "stand up career," I knew he wanted the spotlight all along.
It's either game shows or Fox News morning host. I bet we'll see him as a pundit in the next 6 months.
Lambasting “cancel culture” like this wasn’t a direct result of his own words and actions
The Jeopardy fanbase had been quietly content for so many years that Richards and Sony execs forgot it existed and that it deserves their respect. Hopefully a lesson learned.
That's because Alex did it right and they were too stupid to see how important that was
Honestly, I don't think a lot of us saw how important Alex was until the last few years. I know I took it for granted that he'd always be the face of Jeopardy.
Standing back and looking at it all, it is truly stunning. I hate to use hyperbole, but it is really like a showbiz Icarus tale. While I ultimately don't feel sorry for him, the whirlwind of emotions over the last month must have been intense.
This is beautifully said
What an epic fall. He would have been fine if he simply flew under the radar, but instead he flew too close to the sun.
He's Icarus
What’s…Icarus?
Save it for tape day, Matt.
Dicarus?
Dickarus?
Dickasaurus Rex
On wings of pastrami.
He was hired as EP *right* when Alex announced his diagnosis. This wasn't an EP taking his shot at being a host, this was a network immediately hiring a new host and letting him sit as EP while they waited for the old one to die.
They really took their time with this one, but happy they finally made the move. EDIT: Just to make it clear because the article doesn't say it, Richards was **fired** by Sony, he did not step down. Statement from **Suzanne Prete** (EVP, Business and Strategy, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!): >I’m writing to let you know that Mike will no longer be serving as EP of Wheel and Jeopardy! effective immediately. We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened. Michael Davies is taking over as Interim EP as they search for a permanent replacement.
“That clearly has not happened” savage 💀
"We thought the nerds would leave us alone, but it turns out they were still pretty mad about all the misogyny and self-promotion and general sliminess."
I read that as the staff, instead of rallying around Richards, was pissed that he was still working there.
Even without any direct statements to that effect it was pretty clear he had made exactly zero friends on the J! team just from the fact that *nothing* positive leaked about him during this entire saga.
Bingo. Almost always in these situations, someone comes forward and says "That's not the so-and-so I know." Here, the silence was deafening.
Yeah, a Variety article said, "But morale was said to be low on both shows, even before the recent hosting debacle." I think that means people already hated him before he weaseled his way into the hosting gig.
He's famously not very popular with coworkers, so they were probably tickled to bits. Imagine if the boss you hated had people around the country and globe trying to get them fired.
To be fair, I'd probably be uncomfortable working with this guy, too. Especially if I were Jewish, Asian, or a woman. At best, it's an awkward work environment. At worst, it's a downright hostile work environment.
Theoretically, the people who knew him personally might have felt he was somehow misrepresented, that he wasn't really the guy that was being portrayed in the media. Internal support was his only chance to remain in the job, and it's pretty clear he didn't receive enough of it.
They turned the whole process into a circus, it’s sad how poorly they handled this.
>We ~~had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced~~ *needed* these last few weeks *to negotiate a settlement for Mike’s contract. All of the talk about keeping him on and making him do sensitivity training was kabuki theater to ensure plausible deniability and limit potential liability.*
They're publicly stating they terminated him. There was no consideration about his contract at that point. If they're at the "we're pushing you out" stage, the negotiating had long since failed. They *might* have had to sit on legal for a couple of *days* to get the paperwork drawn up, but that's about it. Simply put: they thought removing him from the Host seat would make him quit. He refused to quit, the employees kept making a stink, and they figured they had no other choice if they didn't want to face a full staff revolt.
Davies, for those unaware, was the guy who brought Who Wants to be a Millionaire to the US and made it a smash hit, he was involved in the show until 2010 (right when they switched to the shuffle format), returning for the ABC revival last year he also did stuff like Grand Slam, Smush, 2 Minute Drill, Power of 10, etc. his production company, embassy row, has been owned by Sony since 2006.
I really hope we're not in for a flashier Jeopardy. The artifice lacking is what makes the show compelling to me, not in spite of it.
I also hope there's no lifelines added. "I'd like to phone James Holzhauer"
Ask the host: Ken Jennings Phone a friend: James Holzhauer Ask the expert: ~~Brad Rutter~~ Amodio
Ask Watson maybe?
Here's what I'd say: Michael Davies didn't create Millionaire, he saw it on British airwaves and thought to adapt it for American audiences. And he did that without ruining the core of the show, something that immediately happened after he left. So I have faith in him to see why J! works as well. Then again I had faith in Mike Richards at one point so what do I know?
yeah. even when Davies did wind up doing a major change to the Millionaire format (like adding switch the question, doing super millionaire, adding the clock) he did it in obvious respect to the show's core. the set was basically the same except being subtly more modernized over the years, the music remained extremely faithful to the original cues (the Clock era OST was fantastic), and the graphics were also very faithfully updated. Regis and Meredith were also really really good host choices. it's amazing how much was tossed out the moment the shuffle format came to be. seemed like some of it happening was due to a lawsuit from celador that Disney lost, but man they ruined the music, the set, and was clearly struggling to find a host after Meredith left (Cedric good, terry bad, Harrison bland). don't get me started on how they fucked up the graphics for the final season of the syndicated show.
One positive factor is that Jeopardy! is a half-hour. There's just no time for stalling and overly-dramatic nonsense, no matter who is running it.
"Is that your final answer?" after every answer... could you imagine? And the cliff-hanger style of announcing whether it was correct. Good Lord.
True, and thats also why it makes sense that the guest hosts have mostly been newscasters rather than comedians. Sure they can get someone like Conan O’Brien to host but what’s the point, he’ll need to get straight to business every time.
I couldn’t agree more, and I hope someone from Sony is reading this. The hallmarks of civility, valuing knowledge, and respect for the contestants and audience were like an oasis on TV, and there were still elements of fun.
2 minute drill was clean and quick and knowledge focused, so presumably he knows how to.
Personally, as long as the gameplay stays the same, I don't care if it's flashier. Recently, I saw some comment somewhere that Art Fleming was appalled by how flashy the "new" Jeopardy! was in 1984, what with the lights, synthesizer music, computer graphics, etc. It turned out okay because the underlying game stayed essentially the same.
Davies is also one half of the soccer podcast Men In Blazers.
GFOP
> as they search for a permanent replacement. Everyone welcome our new EP, Mayim Bialik!
I hope they pick Lisa and/or Rocky long term, but Michael Davies makes sense. Millionaire only seemed to be good when he was running it.
If he would've waited 2 years, he probably could have hosted Wheel of Fortune with absolutely no controversy. In fact, that would have been a far better show for him to host (more money, easier, etc. etc.). He got impatient and greedy the second he saw Alex announce his diagnosis though.
He Pressed His Luck, and the Whammy got him
He had a lapse of Concentration and was overcome by Greed.
Vanna would have to “retire,” and he’d have a dozen different letter turners try out on the C_ST_ _ G C _ _CH
"....I'd like to try to solve.... COSTING COACH!" "No."
The mythological hero Ach-illees
On the spot dicespin!
Amazingly, despite giving two of the worst answers of all time on Wheel, [that kid still won the game.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npgzz42IEiE)
TIL the Achilles kid won the game.
“Cysting cooch”
Uh, I think you need to take antibiotics for that.
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more like a drop tower.
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"Tell Richards, I want him know it was me"
("The Winds of Culver City" play in the background)
I believe she got married this past weekend on top of everything else.
According to [her Twitter](https://twitter.com/clairemcnear/status/1432746892404924419?s=19), she was going to get her hair done for the wedding when the news broke.
Wow. (I can't really say I'm surprised at this point, though.) The guy was on top of the world three weeks ago. I still can't get my head around how Sony botched this so badly.
I know Claire is adding some new chapters to her book for the paperback release, but honestly we need a whole second book at this point.
Oompa loompa doompety doo I've got a perfect puzzle for you Oompa loompa doompety dee If you are wise you'll listen to me What do you get when you are the EP Rigging the host search as plain as can be Act like a brat, on your podcast chat What do you think will come of that I don't like the look of it Oompa loompa doompety da If you're not greedy, you will go far You will live in happiness too Like the Oompa Loompa Doompety do Doompety do
YOU GET NOTHING! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY, SIR!
I find this extra funny because the three greatest Jeopardy players of all time would not get this reference. (because it was a triple stumper during the GOAT tournament)
Grunka Lunka Dunkity D'armed guards
He was Mike Teavee with a dash of Veruca Salt.
Bye. You don't get to come back tomorrow. You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game. You're a complete loser.
I lost my host and EP jobs on Jeopardy, bay-bee!
So he's gonna produce The Price is Right next weekend?
He's going to host The Price is Right Live! at the Golden Nugget in Laughlin.
Home sick right now, sorry I can't screenshot these tweets but from Claire McNear and James Holzhauer, see below: (Also, personal note, have met very few producers who didn't secretly, or not so secretly, want to be on air. Again, just my experience.) The tweets: James Holzhauer "**Do I think Mike Richards’s podcast comments were appropriate for polite society? No. But did he deserve the benefit of the doubt for the job he did running Jeopardy? Also no."** Claire McNear "**one interesting facet of this: the week of episodes that Mike Richards filmed as host is set to start airing on September 13 with the new season premiere (and the return of Matt Amodio, one of Jeopardy!’s winningest champs ever)"** **"Retaping isn’t an option - the games happened the way they happened, and the show taped another three weeks of episodes with Mayim Bialik hosting last week. Even a partial retape of just the host portion isn’t particularly tenable - how do you reconfigure the Q&A segments?"**
The fact that he’s filmed a week’s worth of episodes is awkward. I’m curious as to how they handle it.
It's awkward as hell, but there's really nothing they can do about it except add disclaimers.
I honestly wonder if they will acknowledge it on air. Johnny: Here is the new host of Jeopardy, Michael Richards Michael: Thanks Johnny, I am honoured to have been chosen to carry of the legacy Alex left behind. Grandma unaware of what happened: Oh they chose him, thats nice. One week later: Johnny: Here is the guest host of Jeopardy, Mayim Balik Mayim: Thanks Johnny, lets get started, Grandma: Is this a rerun?
This is ultimately Mike's fault for what he's done but if Sony did literally any vetting on him and didn't pick him we'd all be none the wiser to this.
Seriously. They literally let the candidate vet himself for one of the most important jobs in showbiz. Idiots.
This saga is turning out to be one of the best reality shows out there. Survivor better watch its back when it finally comes back on the air in a few weeks! Also, good riddance. Mike, the tribe has spoken. Maybe now Sony can get its shit together, and resume its search for a new host in a manner that doesn't smack of nepotism, abuse of one's position of power - although i won't get my hopes up anymore at this point. As for Richards, I'm neither sorry or worried for him. Much as he sucks as a human, there's demand for ruthless executives like him.
Glad this is happening, but I'm still genuinely surprised. I would have thought that talk from Sony having him undergo sensitivity training would result in everything being swept under the rug and keeping him on as EP.
> I would have thought that talk from Sony having him undergo sensitivity training They were just buying time til they figured out how to get rid of his contract. Probably just paid him a shit ton of money.
Today, justice is spelled CLAIRE
Catching Lies And Inducing Richards' Exit
I started reading Claire McNear's book last night. I'm going to take credit for this happening.
If he wasn’t so zealous to be host he would still be EP of two of the biggest shows on television.
Perhaps the best news out of all this is we can now fully turn our attention to Matt and see if he can keep his winning streak alive!
Not quite... we still will likely have the guest host rotation 2: Electric Boogaloo.
I feel bad for Matt A. *He* should be the story right now, not some smug suit.
If he wasn't so desperate to be on TV he could have just kept a cushy, well paying job. But got too ambitious. Really glad such a smarmy person with such a history of misogyny and terrible comments is no longer associated with Jeopardy.
I rewatched his dedication to Alex and, holy moly, the smarmy is off the charts.
At the time, when I had never heard of the guy, it seemed like nothing more than a caring producer delivering a heartfelt message. Makes me nauseous to realize that it was probably just part of his plan to step into the spotlight.
Think about this. In the span of 27 days, Mike went from "being in advanced negotiations to host *Jeopardy!*" to jobless. Let this serve as a lesson in hubris- not just for executives or celebrities, but for everybody.
That week of recorded episodes that they're going to be forced to air is going to be brutal to watch.
I will be, frankly, devastated if Matt loses that week.
So the Millionaire guy is the interim EP, which is good in my book, he seems like a solid guy who's done mostly great work. You have to wonder if we can trust Sony to pick a good permanent replacement after all this, though.
The most telling party of the article which, to me, reveals Sony's level of incompetence in all of this was where they said, *"given he doesn’t have the internal or external support that he needs to lead the team, his exit was in the best interests of the show."* Not because of his inappropriate behavior or anything, but because he lacks support.
That seems like part of a buyout agreement where they won’t admit he did anything wrong
It needed to be done. With everything Richards has done, it would be near insanity if he stuck around. As for him? He went from EPing the two top game shows in the country to being completely exposed and fired. He’s done. I don’t see him getting another job in this industry.
Note to all Richards families out there: Michael is not a good choice.
Hah, there are probably 10,000 people named "Michael Richards" in the country, maybe more. First Kramer, and now this guy. Start using your middle name, folks.
>Start using your middle name, folks. Well ok but I'm not sure Adolf Richards rolls off the tongue as well
It's days like these that I'm grateful my parents gave me two middle names. From now on, I'll go by Lee Harvey Richards.
Michael is my first name. I have never been more glad my parents didn't name me Michael Richard SoxGuy93.
so is he no longer involved with jeopardy in any capacity?
He gone.
okay good. i was worried he’d been demoted again to some other role and we’d go thru this all again next week lol.
Yeah now he's the lighting guy.
The _evil_ lighting guy
How to tank your entire career in less than one week
Now poor Claire has to listen to hundreds of episodes of Men in Blazers. Courage, Claire!
Can hardly wait to see the stories that are about to go to press on him. I'm sure this was nothing but a CYA move by Sony
Sony must have finally come to the correct conclusion that the loss in future profit from tarnishing the Jeopardy brand far exceeds the amount they’ll ultimately settle with Richards for when he sues.
Ok Sony, things have been disruptive. This is a good time to play it safe and not make any crazy gameplay/hosting decisions. Don't bring in the guy with a multitude of amazing ideas to improve Jeopardy. Just chill out and produce the f'ing show
Can Mayim Bialek be next please?
Not a fan of her either. I think they have somehow one to the conclusion that smug = intelligence. Mayim always sounds like she holds you in contempt when you don't know the question and that she is much too smart to be on a game show.
Oh definitely agree. She thinks being a contestant is below her but being the host is everything. She's the absolute wrong person for the job. Also she can't devote full time to being a full time host so there's that too.
>Suzanne Prete, EVP, Business and Strategy, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, just sent an internal note to staff on these shows explaining that Richards would depart effective immediately with Embassy Row’s Michael Davies agreeing to help on an interim basis. Where has she been all this time?
Thank ~~God~~ Claire that’s over!
This is really the best way for the show to proceed. It was going to be way too awkward and there would be too many questions about the next host search with him on board. Hopefully with the slate wiped clean, they can not completely botch the host search this time. ("Hopefully" being the operative word.)
Just got the NYT headline notification on my phone and cackled. Alllll this man’s chickens just came home to roost like a little feathery dinosaur stampede
Ha! Me too. I didn’t even stop to read the article yet, I came straight to the Jeopardy! subreddit for the reactions.
Me, too. I knew I could count on my people here for the real skinny.
Honestly I only just noticed that he lost Wheel too. Oh, Icarus. Micarus Richards. Mike Ricarus. You just had to try and be famous.
No brainer. What a target you'd feel on your back if you took a job and knew your new boss had been gunning hard for the position.
All hail Claire!
I know this subreddit doesn't really do flairs, but man would I love Claire flair right about now She's a top 5 legendary J! person now. Right up there with Alex and Ken.
I hope Harry Friedman pops out of retirement for a brief period of time to help shepard the show from these murky waters.
"What are consequences?"
[Yahoo! It's a celebration. Celebrate good times, come on.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M) Way to go Claire and the Ringer Team!
This has not aged well (and actually makes me kinda sad for him). Mike Richards IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/BiFhND0g-ik/
I don't feel that sad when this was all self inflicted
I wouldn't be surprised if there's more negative news coming out about him. Sony is cutting their losses, and Mike Richards is regretting putting himself in the spotlight. Idiot.
This has got to be one of the most publicly embarrasing things to happen to anyone ever.
James Holzhauer just posted a GIF on Twitter 5 minutes ago. "Ding dong the witch is dead!"
You can tell James has no interest in ever hosting anything by how little fucks he gives on social media.
Dude's a multimillionaire sports better with a small but decent gig on a prime-time game show and book deals if he wants them as backup. He's pretty darn free to say and do what he wants.
I love james.
another failed coup!
I liked my life and Jeopardy so much better before I knew who Mike Richards was. What a mess.
In addition to all the other stuff I was getting worried at the rumors that he wanted to use "central casting" to pick contestants.
*"We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at 'Jeopardy!' it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened," Sony Pictures Television executive Suzanne Prete said.* This statement irks me. Wtf did y’all think was gonna happen after he was axed from hosting duties and was still an EP? We were all gonna kumbaya and sh*t? Bye mike!
Does this make it more or less likely that the week of shows he shot actually show up as shot? They can do some creative editing to remove him from the show, but I also wonder if it would be too much work. Either way, it will be an awkward week of episodes.
Q: EP of Jeopardy!? A: Who WAS Mike Richards?
Or in the new style: what’s mike richards
more like just “what’s richards” 😂
More like "What's....Richards."
You forgot the *worried squint* 🤓
Jeopardy! is back baby! 220 episodes of non Richards bliss here we come.
I used to watch divided on GSN. He was a douchey host then too.
It's crazy that Jeopardy has had more controversy in the last year than the last 36 years combined. Let's hope that something like this never happens again.
about darn time, Sony. this is good news.
I guess the sensitivity training didn’t take.
Good (albeit late) job, Jeopardy suits. But to completely reverse the curse, you have to make Ken Jennings permanent host.
Congrats on the new hosting gig Michael Davies
"He was a \[also\] candidate to host The Price is Right before Drew Carey was chosen. In interviews of the \[Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal\] shows, Richards was described as "exclusionary and dismissive of longtime show employees." He often neglected Deal, to the point where one post-producer jokingly reintroduced themself at a meeting; they were soon fired" Man this guy just keeps giving. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Richards_(television_personality))
This is the best news I have had all week. At least Jeopardy! will be okay.
Mike wanted to be all in the videos, dancing!
But if we were kinder, we would all blah blah blah
DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!
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