JEOPARDY! fans were shocked as Ken Jennings made quite the NSFW joke.
He hosted his first game on Monday after a months-long hiatus.
Ken, 48, returned to Jeopardy! for his first game since May.
He earlier shocked his supporters when he announced that he'd be out for "months" – he's indeed now set to close out the season.
The permanent hosting slot between him and Mayim Bialik is still on the board with Season 38 ending on July 31st, 2022.
All that aside, however, the silver suit-clad alum-turned-host got a little casual at one point.
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The clue under "Active Bible Verses" during Double Jeopardy read:
"Since no one had done this for 40 years, God told Joshua to get a knife & do this to male Israelites."
Erica Weiner-Amanchi – a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania fourth grad teacher – buzzed in.
She responded "What is: Circumcise?"
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Ken replied, "That is correct. A painful $2000 for you!"
Erica slightly cringed in laughter as her competitors did the same, all visibly taken aback by the image – though some fans did enjoy it.
'HA!'
"A painful $2000 ha ha!" one viewer tweeted.
"Gotta laugh at Ken Jennings' quick quip," wrote another.
"We love a circumcision joke on Jeopardy," wrote a third tipping their hat off to him, so to speak.
"Ken Jennings just made a circumcision joke on Jeopardy," simply wrote a shocked fourth on the Biblically bold remark.
"'A painful $2,000 for you.' Thank you. Welcome back. You were missed," wrote a fifth.
Yet one more Ken fan simply enjoyed the game in general, writing, "So glad to see Ken back. Much smoother game no pauses between the answer and the acknowledgment of right or wrong."
"No question Ken is the better host. Hope it's permanent."
William Chou an Austin, Texas research fellow, went on to win the game in a wild tie-breaker scenario later on.
Ken famously once mixed up the terms "rake" with "h*e" in a quite infamous moment when the host was on his 74-game streak.
The incident landed him on lists for greatest Jeopardy! moments since.
WHO IS: PERMANENT HOST?
Ken and Mayim, 46, began filling in for the legendary Alex Trebek after his tragic 2020 passing and a fleet of Season 37 celebrity guest hosts, including now-disgraced Mike Richards.
The show's ratings nearly doubled to 9.7M viewers when Ken made his first appearance.
When Mayim took over her hosting duties the headcount dropped to 5.9 million viewers during a college championship and sadly, she hadn't bested Ken's ratings since.
From those telltale ratings to "cryptic hints," fans have collected clues that the former champion will be chosen over the actress.
For one, he sent his fans into meltdown when he bowed out of the new season of The Chase.
Another was that Ken accepted a 2022 Daytime Emmy award in June alone without Mayim, who also wasn't in its montage – and she has had her Fox sitcom renewed rendering her busier than him.
Fans had not been pleased with Mayim's stage presence, slamming her for errors and mishaps quite regularly during her past eight weeks.
They have nit-picked her “slow” reaction time to players' responses as well as her snippy interactions with players during the Q&A storytelling portions.
Last month, in a similar ad-lib to Ken's, she read a clue: “Marijuana issue sent to this ‘committee’ generally composed of both houses of houses of the legislature.”
One player was incorrect and she told the audience, "No. Joint committee, get it?”
Some critics felt Mayim's add on was a little on-the-nose and one tweeted, "Marijuana? Joint? Har de har har…."
Mayim – however subject to a tougher crowd given she wasn't a contestant on the show – also faced fan fury when a player's signature was ruled too sloppy in FJ though they had seemingly written "Harriet Tubman."
And last month – though not the actress-turned host's fault – there was ironically a typo in Final Jeopardy just days after the spelling snub which couldn't have come at a worse time.
That said, viewers have warmed up to the actress and would surely be fine with an ongoing co-host situation given the show is about the players not the host, as Alex once said.
Additionally, fans have found it refreshing to have a female host who is multi-talented on a game show that's been so dominated by male champs up until recently.
Ken surprisingly tweeted in May: “I'm handing the keys back to the talented actor-producer-writer-director (!) Mayim Bialik for a few months," adding, “We are lucky to have her! I'll be back before the end of the season.”
Since then, he's been laying low in Hawaii and at home in Seattle, Washington – though he's said he's already been tapped to tape more episodes for Season 39, another clue the job may be his.
One possibility that has been implied by execs is that the actress could simply host spinoffs soon, perhaps with Buzzy Cohen.
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If so, Ken would host the main show, with "multiple hosts for the franchise" altogether.
Jeopardy! airs on weeknights at 7 pm ET.
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