Emcee Alex Trebek: A Brief Celebration of 'Jeopardy!'s Musical Categories with Raps from Its Iconic Host

Longtime television and radio voice personality Don Pardo passed away on August 18 at the age of 96 after years of voiceover work with some of the most successful and long-running programs in television history. Although best known for his work with Saturday Night Live, Pardo was also the original voice for Jeopardy! when it was hosted by Art Fleming. Alex Trebek has a solid voice man of his own in Johnny Gilbert, and the pair have been making us feel dumb since 1984.

One thing that's gotten better in recent years has been trivia categories revolving around music. Either Alex has gotten hipper or NBC has finally let him introduce his enjoyment of music into the competition more often. Check out some examples of music and America's favorite trivia competition below:

01) "THE 1990s RAP SONG"

This category was one of the first to introduce the now popular theme of Trebek reading hip-hop lyrics (more to come). This episode of Jeopardy! 's Battle of The Decades is noted for hosting record breaker Ken Jennings. The gameshow icon proved with topic "THE 1990s RAP SONG" that he wasn't a square either: He got three of the category's questions correct, although neither he nor his competition were able to identify the Beastie Boys song title "Sabotage!" Watch the clip below to hear Trebek drop bars from Cypress Hill, Notorious B.I.G., Digital Underground, MC Hammer and of course the Beastie Boys.

02) OPERA

Perhaps the opposite of mainstream popular music, opera has become somewhat of an inside joke on Jeopardy! The category became notorious for the difficulty of its questions (although we have no doubt that Trebek knew the answers to all). Show producers caught on to the joke and injected some humor into its still semi-impossible questions. Recent renditions of genre-based category have included "UH-OH, OPERA" and "THE DREADED OPERA CATEGORY."

03) "I GOT MAD HIP-HOP SKILLZ"

One would think that a younger generation would be much more in-tune to hip-hop music than other contestants but that turned out to not be the case during Jeopardy!'s College Championship Although contestants were able to identify bars from Kanye West and The Beastie Boys, lyrics from Snoop Dogg and LL Cool J were a mystery to them. In a particularly embarrassing moment, Jed from Tufts University incorrectly identified a line from Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" as being from Tupac Shakur. For shame young people. For shame.

04) "ALT"

This simply-titled category gave contestants the opportunity to identify alternative bands based on fairly simple hints. Nine Inch Nails, The White Stripes, Vampire Weekend, Daft Punk and Sigur Ros were among the acts included and only one was answered incorrectly, albeit embarrassingly by contestant Phil. When asked for a band with an undead theme who performed the titular pun "Diane Young," Phil responded "Hollywood Undead." Although a totally real band, he probably should have realized that a rap-metal act wasn't quite in theme.

05) "It's A Rap"

Once again we're treated to Canada's best emcee since Drake dropping logic to contestants. Grandmaster Flash, Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Public Enemy and, again, the Beastie Boys make lyrical appearances within the category. Contestant Mary does well, getting three questions correct, but can't keep a straight face as she answers "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar" to fill in a blank from Public Enemy's "Timebomb." Trebek dryly responds: "I don't know why that's making you laugh so much."

Tags

Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Cypress Hill, MC Hammer, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Tupac Shakur, LL Cool J, Nine Inch Nails, The White Stripes, Vampire Weekend, Daft Punk, Sigur Rós