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Mike Richards

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Producer

The Resume

    (July 5, 1975- )
    Born in Burbank, California
    Producer or executive producer for 'Weakest Link,' 'Let's Make a Deal,' 'The Price Is Right,' 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' Wheel of Fortune,' and 'Jeopardy!'
    Named as Alex Trebek's successor as host of Jeopardy! (August 11, 2021)
    Announced his resignation as host after one day of taping (August 20, 2021)

Why he might be annoying:

    Along with the network and production company, he was the subject of a discrimination lawsuit filed by a Price Is Right model who had been fired after she became pregnant.
    On episodes of his podcast 'The Randumb Show,' he called his female cohost a 'booth ho' and 'booth slut.'
    When a podcast guest made a comment about big noses, he responded, 'Ix-nay on the ose-nay. She's not an ew-Jay.'
    The Answer: 'Mike Richards being both an executive deciding who the next Jeopardy host will be and a candidate for the job is an example of this.' The Question: 'What is a conflict of interest?'
    A Sony employee familiar with the host search reported, 'He was the one rehearsing and giving direction to all the guest hosts, who may not have realized they were competing with him for the job.'
    He alone determined which 'Jeopardy' guest host episodes were sent to focus groups for review.
    Ironically, one of the reasons Sony Pictures TV chose Richards was that they felt bringing in an established name as host might overshadow the show and the contestants.
    After his resignation, James Holzhauer quipped, 'I was really looking forward to the season premier, where after an exhaustive 61-clue search for the next Jeopardy champion, the show looks past the three obvious candidates and declares Mike Richards the winner.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He worked his way up from being an intern at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
    As producer, he won three Daytime Emmys for Best Game Show (two for 'The Price Is Right,' one for 'Jeopardy!').
    He hosted Beauty and the Geek and the GSN reboot of Pyramid, so he had more relevant experience than most of the guest hosts he beat out for the 'Jeopardy' gig.
    He got better ratings as guest host than anyone except Ken Jennings. (Although that may have been an artifact of Jennings and him being the first two guest hosts, when interest in who would follow Trebek was at its peak.)
    Despite the vocal opposition to him, he fared well in polls of which guest host viewers wanted to get the job permanently, usually ranking as one of the top five choices.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 11 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 110 Votes: 70.0% Annoying