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LeVar Burton was probably well aware of how beloved he was long before he was eyeing a potential position of hosting the long-running Jeopardy! game show series, but ultimately didn’t get the gig. While most fans balked at the choice the show’s producers made to hire someone that they had to ultimately fire over his behavior, Burton says he’s moving on and has his eyes on other plans.
Burton, handsome and suave at 64, sat down with The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for a chat that obviously honed in on the Jeopardy! ordeal, how Burton actively campaigned for the job with the help of fans, and how he was able to move on beyond it.
“The crazy thing is that when you set your sights on something, they say be careful of what you wish for, because what I found out is that it wasn’t the thing that I wanted after all,” Burton said this past Thursday (September 16). “What I wanted was to compete. I mean, I wanted the job, right, but then, when I didn’t get it, it was, like ‘Well, okay, what’s next?'”
Burton added, “The opportunities that have come my way as a result of not getting that gig, I couldn’t have dreamt it up. If you had given me a pen and paper and said, ‘Well, so what do you want this to really look like?’ If it doesn’t include Jeopardy, I wouldn’t have been this generous to myself.”
Burton also teased that he might have a game show situation in the works ut didn’t exactly go into detail. But, like anything else Burton is involved with, do know that the culture is behind him all the way.
Pretty certain that Alex Trebek is somewhere smiling between asking questions in the great beyond.
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Photo: Getty