"This is Jeopardy!" announcer Johnny Gilbert remembers Alex Trebek: "Part of me left here when Alex left"

People

The 96-year-old Gilbert has worked on numerous game shows in his 70-year career and was immediately impressed with Trebek when they first met in 1984. "I noticed that he wasn't the usual big-smiley-face emcee," Gilbert tells People magazine. "He was quiet and listening to everybody and everything." Gilbert adds that since Trebek's death last month, "everybody's walking around in a little bit of a fog, shaken from the whole thing. Part of me left here when Alex left, really." As for Trebek's successor, Gilbert has some advice: "Jeopardy! is a very special game," he says. "All that information that he gave out, aside from what was actually on the show, was in his mind. Somebody has to be able to handle that. If the person lets the show be the show, it will be fine."