Alex Trebek explains what bothers him on Jeopardy!, says media coverage of his retirement comments were overblown

Vulture

"I don’t understand the publicity around it," Trebek tells Vulture in a wide-ranging interview, referring to his chat last summer with Harvey Levin on his Fox News show about potentially retiring in 2020. "The same thing happened when I shaved my mustache off in 2001. It got so much play. Folks, get a life. There are more important things." Trebek also discussed what he doesn't like contestants to do. "What bothers me is when contestants jump all over the board even after the Daily Doubles have been dealt with," he says. "Why are they doing that? They’re doing themselves a disservice. When the show’s writers construct categories they do it so that there’s a flow in terms of difficulty, and if you jump to the bottom of the category you may get a clue that would be easier to understand if you’d begun at the top of the category and saw how the clues worked. I like there to be order on the show, but as the impartial host I accept disorder." ALSO: Why is Trebek's house entirely decorated in beige?