Celebrity Jeopardy! refers to any one of a number of episodes or tournaments of the popular television game show Jeopardy in which the contestants are celebrities. Each celebrity chooses a charity to sponsor, and that charity is the recipient of the particular celebrity's winnings. Typically, the charity is guaranteed a certain amount (such as $10,000) unless the celebrity earns more than that amount. Also, the rules are usually relaxed so that, for example, celebrities are not penalized for forgetting to respond in the form of an answer.
Celebrity Jeopardy! also refers to a popular recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live which parodies the above. The cast members appearing mostly vary, but Will Ferrell (as Alex Trebek) and Darrell Hammond (as Sean Connery) are almost always featured.
The sketches always begin during what is apparently the second half of a round of Jeopardy, and two of the "contestants" have somehow attained very high negative scores while another "leads" with a score of zero. Trebek, being portrayed as the beleaguered straight man, attempts fruitlessly to manage the contestants, who are over-the-top caricatures of other celebrities. The contestants blatantly misinterpret questions, misread topic titles (S-Words becomes Swords, for example), and in general display high levels of neuroticism and incompetence. Meanwhile, Trebek insults the contestants, is bombarded with sophomoric insults from Connery, and eventually finishes with giving up on the scripted questions and delivers a childishly simple "Final Jeopardy!" question (e.g. "Things You Like", "Don't Do Anything"), which of course is always botched by the contestants.
The sketch was apparently retired on Will Ferrell's final SNL episode in 2002. The final sketch featured the real Alex Trebek in a cameo appearance.
