LeVar Burton. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Jeopardy! has hundreds of millions of fans around the world and many are still mourning the death of Alex Trebek the show’s long-term host who lost his fight at age 80 to pancreatic cancer on Nov. 8.
But now there’s a major campaign to draft LeVar Burton to succeed Trebek as the next host of the shore and an online petition has now garnered the support of over 76,000 people as of 5:45PM on December 14, 2020. Burton is best known to fans for his role in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” as Geordi La Forge. The star has also appeared on many PBS educational shows. Burton also played the iconic role of Kunta Kinte in Roots, the mini-series.
Burton himself tweeted, “Not gonna lie, I feel like I’ve been preparing my whole life to occupy the @Jeopardy host podium when Alex retires. #Jeopardy” in September.
Several other possible possible replacements who’ve been mentioned are: George Stephanopoulos, the ABC anchor, Ken Jennings, and Rosie Perez.
The petition, on change.org reads, “Between hosting 21 seasons of the educational Reading Rainbow, playing the brainiac engineer Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: the Next Generation, and filling the roll of Kunta Kinte in the ever important mini-series Roots, LeVar Burton has inspired and shaped the minds of several generations of trivia-loving nerds. This petition is to show Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and producers Mike Richards and Harry Friedman just how much love the public has for Burton, and how much we’d all love to see him as the next host of Jeopardy!”
