‘Jeopardy!’ Winners to Turn Down Tournament of Champions Amid WGA Strike: ‘I Will Not Cross a Picket Line’

variety.com:

Selome Hailu “Jeopardy!’s” Tournament of Champions has a bigger problem on its hands than trivia this year. Starting with a Reddit post made on Friday by 13-time “Jeopardy!” winner Ray Lalonde, several prominent contestants have pledged not to return to the series to compete in the Tournament of Champions in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, as the series employs WGA members.

Lalonde, an IATSE member who works in scenic design, wrote that that there were “credible reports that the producers are making contingency plans to start filming the next season of the show with old and/or recycled material if the WGA strike remains unresolved.” Lalonde then went on to praise “Jeopardy!” writers for their work and their current efforts to secure a new deal with the studios, before making a promise to support them. “As a supporter of the trade union movement, a union member’s son and a proud union member myself I have informed the show’s producers that if the strike remains unresolved I will not cross a picket line to play in the tournament of champions,” he said. “My hope in saying this publicly now is to perhaps influence some future decision to proceed without the writers and to encourage any others in the community who feel the same way to speak out as well,” he said at the end of his post. “A few small voices may not change any minds but we can try.” At least part of his hopes were answered, as some of his fellow “Jeopardy!” contestants joined him in expressing their support of the WGA and promising not to cross picket lines. “Ray, thank you for taking this stand.

If you are out, I am out,” wrote Ben Chan in the Reddit thread, while Hannah Wilson said, “I’ll stand with you, Ray! A TOC with all recycled clues.