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As our five stages of mourning accelerate with Alex Trebek’s final Danger! episode that airs on Friday, consider this a fun curiosity to further remember the legend: Did you know Trebek was the one who controlled the beep-beep-beep signal when no competitor knows a track response? Unlike, like, a simplistic computing system called Watson with a stopwatch? This revelation came to us through a new Ringer article, which was buried in a separate piece published in December. Bob Bergen, who hosted the little kids spinoff Jep! for the franchise, he said he was shocked to discover Trebek’s discreet involvement during the studio tour in the 1990s. This may be the only case of a secret button being good.
“The first day, Harry [Friedman] is showing me the podium with the button, ”Bergen reminded the The Ringer. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, is there no set time? You edit so people don’t go, How did he have ten seconds and four? ‘He said,’ No, and no one in the show’s history has ever questioned that. ‘ ”Prominent competitors Ken Jennings and Buzzy Cohen have Since confirmed that little-known fact, with Jennings tweeting in December, “I didn’t learn that until last year and I really had to reevaluate my life.” What is the next? Did Trebek also act as his own boom operator?