“What is: I’m excited,” the veteran SNL writer said of his new post
Colin Jost is coming to Jeopardy, Amazon’s Prime Video announced Wednesday, with Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update co-anchor slated to host the streamer’s upcoming Pop Culture Jeopardy! spinoff.
“What is: I’m excited,” Jost said in a statement.
The classic gameshow’s spinoff program was announced in May, and as its title suggests, rather than focusing on the more typical Jeopardy categories, the new program will hone in more specifically on pop culture like movies, TV, music, and broadway. The contestants on the show will paired off in teams of three and will “need to be experts in categories from Alternative Rock to The Avengers; Broadway to MMA; Gen Z to Zendaya,” according to the show’s press release. The show is expected to start filming in August.
Jost has expanded his duties from beyond the Weekend Update desk this year to emcee an increasing array of events. He hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner back in February, replacing a string of Daily Show stars and becoming the first SNL cast member to host the annual dinner since Cecily Strong in 2015. Jost has gone viral in recent days serving as an Olympic surfing correspondent out in Tahiti, posting a photo on his Instagram this week of his injured toes.
“We’re thrilled to welcome the multi-talented Colin Jost as the host of Pop Culture Jeopardy!,” Lauren Anderson, head of brand and content innovation at Amazon MGM Studios, said in a statement. “Colin’s wry affability and pop culture fluency make him uniquely qualified as the perfect host for this new iteration of the beloved franchise.”
Jost, a Harvard alum, joined SNL as a writer in 2005, and he’s co-anchored the Weekend Update since 2014 alongside his fellow co-anchor Michael Che.
