'Jeopardy!' Champ Mocks Trebek

Jennings, Who's Hawking A Book, Defends Jibes As 'A Humor Piece'

(CBS/AP)  "Jeopardy!" ace Ken Jennings, who won $2.5 million during his 74-game winning streak two years ago, apparently has a few unkind words to say about the show — and dapper host Alex Trebek.

"I know, I know, the old folks love him," Jennings writes in a recent posting, titled "Dear Jeopardy!" in a blog on what is called his "official" web site. "Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can't get the mustache right, by the way)."

Jennings also takes aim at what he describes as the show's "effete, left-coast" categories and "same-old" format.

"You're like the Dorian Gray of syndication," he says. "You seem to think 'change' means replacing a blue polyethylene backdrop with a slightly different shade of blue polyethylene backdrop every presidential election or so."

A call by The Associated Press to "Jeopardy!" spokesman Jeff Ritter was not immediately returned Tuesday.

But those wondering about Jennings' motives in blasting the genial elder statesmen of game show hosts might keep in mind that it's been a while since the Utah software engineer has been in the news.

And he's got a reason to want to be: his book, "Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs," is due out in September.

Jennings snagged 74 wins on "Jeopardy!" in 2004 before he was beaten by challenger Nancy Zerg.

Trebek, 66, has hosted the show since 1984. In a "correction" posted Monday on his Web site, Jennings adds yet another remark.

"We regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek's robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a `cyborg,' not a 'robot.'"

Still later, he notes that he was just trying to be humorous and "for the record," has loved "Jeopardy!" ever since he was a kid.