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Alex Trebek Didn't Understand Hilarious Jeopardy! Contestant's Turd Ferguson Joke

Talia Lavin pays respects to classic SNL skit

By Kendall Fisher Sep 17, 2015 5:53 PMTags
Jeopardy, Turd Ferguson, SNLJeopardy!

For those of you who are huge Saturday Night Live fans, you know one of the greatest skits of all time is undoubtedly the old Celebrity Jeopardy! one in which Norm Macdonald's impression of Burt Reynolds made Turd Ferguson a household name and still manages to leave us crying with laughter.

Well, the planets aligned Wednesday night thanks to Jeopardy! contestant Talia Lavin who was able to get Alex Trebek to actually say "Turd Ferguson" aloud.

During the "Final Jeopardy!" round contestants were given the clue, "This song from a 1999 animated film about censorship had a word censored from its Oscar performance."

Though Lavin had no idea what the answer was and thus lost the game, she managed to win over our hearts with her hilarious response: "What is the Love Ballad of Turd Ferguson?" Trebek read her answer aloud, and you could clearly hear the audience unsuccessfully trying to hold back fits of laughter.

However, it seems Trebek didn't quite understand the joke. E! News spoke exclusively to Lavin who told us, "He was really deadpan and then actually afterwards there is this moment when Alex talks to the contestants, and he asked me who Turd Furgeson was."

Of course she had to tell him.

"I was like, 'They are from the SNL skits about you.' He has seen them, but said, 'I haven't seen them in a number of years' and I was like, 'If I were you I would watch them every day.' I was like, 'Come on Trebek.' He just shook my hand… So I don't think he got the joke."

Saturday Night Live

Though we sort of hoped the whole thing was a setup, Lavin—a fact checker at The New Yorker—says she didn't plan her response before coming on the show.

"If I had been winning going into 'Final Jeopardy,' I probably would have not made the joke," she tells us. "But I had $600 and I knew I was losing so if I'm going to go down it is going to be in the most beautiful way."

She explains, "The first thing I thought of, the category was censored songs, so I was going to say 'F—k the Police,' but I was worried that wouldn't make the air. So this was the best joke I could think of in 30 seconds and I am extremely happy that it struck a chord."

It did indeed! In fact, #Talia began trending on Twitter, and her hilarious moment was all over Facebook.

"Apparently a lot of people live tweet Jeopardy, which I was not aware of," Lavin tells us. "People were commenting on how I was such a spaz and that I took too long and I was nervous. Then with Final Jeopardy it was #Talia and it made my life… I woke up this morning and I was trending on Facebook! That doesn't happen unless you are a kitten or a Kardashian."

LOL!

—Reporting by Baker Machado.