On November 8, 2020, Jeopardy! host, Alex Trebek died at the age of 80 from pancreatic cancer.

When Trebek first announced that he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer back in March of 2019 he told fans that despite the low survival-rate he intended to beat it, jokingly stating that he had to, due to being contractually obligated to host Jeopardy! for three more years.

In follow-up videos Trebek stated that he was responding well to treatment and that his cancer was in remission and he even made a video one year after his initial announcement, noting that during his initial prognosis he was only given an 18% chance to survive that long and stated that even though the 2-year survival rate was only 7%, his oncologist was certain that both he and Trebek would be celebrating his 2nd anniversary of survival the following year.

Despite his condition and age making him extremely susceptible to COVID-19, Trebek continued with his hosting duties on Jeopardy!, first hosting without a studio audience before production of the show was suspended altogether. When production resumed in August of 2020 Trebek returned as well before taking time off in October for surgery. Trebek returned from surgery two weeks later and despite being unable to handle his full workload he still continued to work in a somewhat reduced capacity filming his final episode of Jeopardy! on October 29, 2020.

Ever since his original cancer announcement, the world has shown Trebek nothing but support, while his death has been met with tributes from both colleagues and fans alike.

Out of the many tributes to Trebek that I came across online, the one that stuck out the most to me was this video compilation of outtakes of him swearing while trying to film promos for the Jeopardy! phone version. It’s a bit hard to believe that this is the same family-friendly Alex Trebek that we saw host Jeopardy! over 37 seasons as well as a number of other game shows, but it is. Despite what you may think based on the title, these clips don’t show Trebek’s darker, angrier side, but instead showcase a more casual light-hearted side of Trebek.

Trebek has always seemed like a good sport when it came to getting people to laugh as many of his appearances outside of game shows have him playing a fictionalized or parody version of himself.

Rest in Peace Alex Trebek, you will be missed.

https://youtu.be/JOwdLdmeqZs