Ken Jennings' podcast partner: 'Jeopardy!' host is no scab

“Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings’ podcast partner John Roderick, in a since-deleted Facebook post, defended Jennings from online criticism that continuing to host the syndicated game show during the ongoing actors and writers strikes constitutes the figurative crossing of picket lines.

“If you look at SAG-AFTRA rules there are contractual carve-outs for daytime television and game shows specifically,” Roderick, 54, wrote, in a screengrab posted by TVInsider.com. “Ken is a member of SAG in good standing.” He said Jennings, who also is replacing Mayim Bialik on ABC’s prime-time “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” "is not a scab and anyone who says so is ignorant of how unions work. It amazes me that so many people who think they are supporting labor by yelling scab on a public forum are just revealing they have no idea how organized labor functions.”

A SAG-AFTRA representative did not immediately respond to a Newsday request for confirmation of Roderick’s statement about union rules or a separate request to confirm Jennings' membership.

According to the trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter, SAG-AFTRA’s National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting, aka the Network Code, "covers daytime dramas, variety shows, game shows and other unscripted projects” and is in effect until June 2024. While that agreement includes both “Jeopardy!” and “Celebrity Jeopardy!,” those shows also are covered by the writers union, which remains on strike against the two shows. 

Roderick went on to disparage actor and “Celebrity Jeopardy!” veteran Wil Wheaton, who had called Jennings a “scab” in a May 14 Facebook post, and actor Bialik, who in May had stepped down as rotating “Jeopardy!” host in solidarity with the writers strike, later joined by the actors strike.

“I’m not going to say Mayim, or Wil Wheaton, are SHOWBOATING, and maybe Wil doesn’t know how labor works either, but there’s a lot of irrelevant virtue-signaling on this topic that, frankly, is both boring and idiotic,” wrote Roderick, who did not respond to Newsday queries on the reason for removing his post.

Wheaton, who has been in SAG-AFTRA since childhood, had written, “I don't have patience for people framing human and worker's rights as a simple matter of opinion. You stand with workers or you don't. You stand for human rights or you don't. You honor the sacrifices of generations that came before us, many of whom gave their lives, so we could have weekends, a 40 hour workweek, pensions, health care, and on and on and on.”

Roderick previously courted controversy in January 2021, when he apologized for a multitude of racist, homophobic and antisemitic tweets. While Roderick said he had deactivated his Twitter account in response, the company, now called X, states the account was suspended for “violat[ing] the Twitter Rules.”

Jennings, who in December 2020 had apologized for his own past tweets mocking the disabled, a terminally ill “Star Wars” fan and others, defended Roderick at the time. Neither his representative nor those for Bialik, Wheaton and “Jeopardy!” responded to Newsday requests for comment.