Ken Jennings is bringing his quiz show to the digital masses with a new spinoff.
Photo: Sony Pictures Television

A new entry is joining the Jeopardy! quiz-show extended universe: Jeopardy! YouTube Edition will premiere March 31 on the streaming service — the “first step” of a larger expansion of the show’s channel on the platform, Jeopardy!’s producers announced today. Host Ken Jennings will anchor the new format in the same way he does Jeopardy!, but the YouTube version of the game will hand the buzzers to three digital creators — Monét X Change (of RuPaul’s and Traitors fame), Rebecca Black (of “Friday” ubiquity), and Brennan Lee Mulligan (you know him) — each playing for their charity of choice.

If that all sounds like Celebrity Jeopardy! for the extremely online, well, it is. The idea is to capture Gen-Z and digital eyeballs with YouTube-native creators while retaining the core gameplay that Jeopardy!’s been built on since 1964. “We’re incredibly excited to build on that legacy while connecting with new audiences in a way that feels fresh, interactive, and native to the platform,” says Suzanne Prete, Sony Pictures Television’s president of game-show programming. In addition to casting creators as the contestants, the new version of the show promises to include interactive elements and “digital-first clues” featuring even more YouTube creators.

In recent years and especially since the passing of beloved longtime host Alex Trebek, Jeopardy!’s whole thing has been expansion: Showrunner Michael Davies told Vulture in 2023 that his philosophy is to manage Jeopardy! “as a sport.” It’s the de facto professional league of quizzing, and that means putting on as many tournaments and cross-pollinations as are practicable, whether that’s this YouTube edition of the game, the newish Colin Jost–hosted Pop Culture Jeopardy! (which premiered on Prime Video but is shifting to Netflix for its second season), or the Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament. (Who doesn’t love the way Jennings stresses that hard T when he says, “The JIT!”) So far, the idea hasn’t worn thin, but — then again — nothing strikes more fear into the hearts of TV executives than the kids who grew up on YouTube, so we wish them luck.

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