He's still quite present on the show itself.

The massive spike of applause and cheers in Pop Culture J! ep 1 when Colin mentioned that Johnny was announcing the show sounded very legitimate, and appeared to catch Colin a tiny bit by surprise (but delighted). He also for the same episode had a delightful and hilarious category, Johnny Gilbert: Film Thespian, where he voiced an entire category of deliberately hammy and over the top line reads from movies, and it was magnificent.

Even if he's no longer always present in the studio itself, Johnny Gilbert is just as if not more of a part of the show than he's ever been.  There aren't very many folks from the classic era of the genre left, but he's still going strong at 96 and I plan to cherish and be grateful for every episode we still have with him.

You forget, nowadays he's not quite present at the Trebek stage anymore.

I mean...Don Pardo spent the last few years of his life announcing SNL from his home in Arizona but he was still an active crew member. The show paid tribute to Johnny a few months ago - complete with a standing ovation from the audience - and his name still appears in the credits.

He's still quite present on the show itself.

Something that blows my mind: he hosted Music Bingo in the 1950s. I believe that makes him the last person still in the business to have hosted a show that far back.

You forget, nowadays he's not quite present at the Trebek stage anymore.

Cordially,
Tammy

Over at buzzerblog.com, they are showing a set-shot of what Final Jeopardy! will apparently be like:

https://www.buzzerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screen-Shot-2024-12-04-at-9.19.16-AM-1024x558.png

I wonder if they will eventually do something like this on regular J! and other versions.  The way they currently do FJ! all started when Alex injured his foot severely years ago, and after that, he only stood in front of the game board during a week-long road show in D.C.  (Maybe a "Power Players" tournament)

Dick Van Dyke had “Mother’s Day” around the same time and is still going strong.