NEW YORK (NEXSTAR) — When it comes to being immortalized by comedians on Saturday Night Live, Alex Trebek and Sean Connery will be forever linked together.
Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery and Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek created dozens of “laugh out loud” moments over the years with the Connery character constantly picking at Ferrell’s Trebek during Jeopardy! skits.
It became such a recurring gig that Trebek crashed one of Will Ferrell’s final SNL episodes to poke fun at the duo.
In reality, Trebek and Connery died just 8 days apart.
Speaking about being parodied by Ferrell, Trebek called it quite the honor.
“I loved them,” Trebek told the Television Academy in an interview. “It means you’ve arrived. If you do a take-off of somebody, it is a sign that you believe your audience will immediately recognize who you’re poking fun at. And if that’s the case, that means there must be a lot of people who have watched your show over the years or are watching now. So, they know immediately what the reference is. You’re popular not only because of your own show, but the take-offs and mentions on other shows.”
Even though Trebek loved the skits, he would say there was one actor who did an even better impersonation: Eugene Levy.
“Eugene Levy to this day I maintain did the best Alex Trebek ever, better than Will Ferrell. He looked more the part, too. He had the dark hair and he had the black mustache,” Trebek said.
All eyes will be on Saturday Night Live when they return to producing original episodes to see how they honor these media legends.