It’s a great time to be a Jeopardy! fan, as the postseason tournaments have concluded, and Ken Jennings has Season 42 rolling right along on the 2026 TV schedule. But for those of us who could never get enough of one of the best game shows of all time, Celebrity Jeopardy! is back for Season 4. This time around, the primetime tournament will welcome back All Stars from the previous three seasons, and Jennings spoke with CinemaBlend about that decision.
It will be great to see previous winners Ike Barinholtz, Lisa Ann Walter and W. Kamau Bell defend their titles against other worthy opponents, but some fans may argue that with just three seasons of Celebrity Jeopardy! under their belt, it’s a bit early to have an All-Star season. We asked Ken Jennings why they decided to bring back these fan favorites rather than find new famous faces, and there’s actually a smart reason. He said:
That's above my pay grade. Candidly, it's very hard to cast Celebrity Jeopardy! All Stars. It's not Celebrity Wheel. We can't just invite everybody who thinks it would be fun. You know, you actually have to be legitimately good at Jeopardy!, and that means trying to find a crop of celebrities every year who have mentioned their Jeopardy! fandom in an interview, or who look good in glasses, or whatever it is. [Laughs.] And in this case, we knew we had a lot of great players from the past three years, and we thought this way, no question marks. Everybody here is a pro. You're going to see very high-level Celebrity Jeopardy! play.
No shade to Wheel of Fortune, but I think Kathy Hilton’s exasperating appearance proved that you don’t have to actually know anything about the game to play Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. Celebrity Jeopardy!, on the other hand, requires at least basic trivia knowledge and the ability to keep cool during a fairly fast-paced game.
One would assume that booking a season’s worth of celebrities also poses a challenge for the Jeopardy! team because of their busy schedules, and Ken Jennings confirmed, saying:
That is true. There's a lot of that. A fun behind-the-scenes fact is Celebrity Jeopardy! is the only thing that ever tapes on a weekend, because that's when all these actors can get off from their show.
Wow, talk about dedication. The crew and the Celebrity Jeopardy! contestants are even working on the weekend to make that money for charity. You have to respect that!
As much as I love to see which new batch of celebrities the game show has been able to pull each year, I think Ken Jennings makes a great point that this will be a very high-level season of Celebrity Jeopardy! (despite the weirdly touched-up poster of Ken Jennings used to promote it).
Viewers won’t have to worry as much about the stars’ trivia acumen, since they’ve already proven themselves, and there likely won’t be anyone as polarizing as comedian Hasan Minhaj to throw fans into a tizzy. So who will appear over Season 4’s 10 episodes? Check out the All-Star cast below:
- Ike Barinholtz (seeded into Semifinals)
- Lisa Ann Walter (seeded into Semifinals)
- W. Kamau Bell (seeded into Semifinals)
- Mark Duplass
- Rachel Dratch
- Andy Richter
- Macaulay Culkin
- Cynthia Nixon
- Margaret Cho
- Ray Romano
- Katie Nolan
- Mina Kimes
- Steven Weber
- Sean Gunn
- Roy Wood Jr.
- Patton Oswalt
- Robin Thede
- Mo Rocca
- Mira Sorvino
- Jackie Tohn
- Tim Simons
They may not be new, but it’s a great lineup all the same. Tune in when Celebrity Jeopardy! All Stars kicks off at 8 p.m. ET Friday, March 13, on ABC and streaming the next day with a Hulu subscription.
