LeVar Burton tapped to host new game show after being 'duped' out of Jeopardy! job

LEVAR Burton has scored a major gig after being shut out of hosting Jeopardy!

LeVar, 66, is set to host and executive produce a new Trivial Pursuit game show on The CW.

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The Reading Rainbow icon's TV days are far from over, and he'll finally be venturing into trivia territory, sources told TMZ on Friday.

LeVar is "close to locking in terms on a new job" that's been in the works for "a couple of years now," the outlet reported.

Namely, he'll be the host and showrunner of an adaptation of the board game Trivial Pursuit.

Talks are "almost finalized," and the series has a 12-episode order.

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Not only that, but the board game's parent company, Hasbro, even had LeVar in mind because of what happened with Jeopardy!

Hasbro "thought of LeVar after he got snubbed by Sony execs for the highly-coveted Jeopardy! hosting job," TMZ claimed.

The premiere date for the exciting new venture is currently unknown.

Trivial Pursuit sees players answering a variety of trivia questions, touching on a bunch of categories, much like Jeopardy!

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“We’ve developed what I think is a really awesome game and I can’t wait to share it with ya’ll," LeVar recently shared.

'THE FIX WAS IN'

When Alex Trebek died, no Jeopardy! successor was named.

Actress Mayim Bialik and former champ Ken Jennings eventually replaced Alex in 2022, but first, there was a fleet of tryouts and Mike Richards.

During the 2020-2021 Jeopardy! season, a carousel of guest hosts tried out for weeklong periods including Anderson Cooper, Savannah Guthrie, and LeVar.

Richards was the executive producer of Jeopardy! at the time and tried out while serving as EP.

On August 11, 2021, he was introduced as the new permanent host from the inside in a swift-action decision.

But Mike's run behind the host podium lasted one week [or five episodes] he was forced to step down after controversial sexist comments he had made resurfaced.

Aside from calling his podcast co-host a "booth-stitute" Mike joked about a The Price Is Right presenter: "Go figure, I fire five models. What are the odds one of the ones that I keep gets pregnant?" - leading to a lawsuit.

Mike resigned as EP soon after - the bombshell comments were largely discovered by a report from The Ringer.

LeVar blamed Richards for his not getting the job and implied Richards lied to him in phone calls where he expressed interest in trying out.

He told The Ringer: "[Mike] told me later that he didn’t believe me. He didn’t sense in that call my passion.”

"The fix was always in."

LeVar was only granted a guest-host stab after calling Richards a second time and after fans created a massive online petition to back him.

At that point, LeVar called up Richards again to convince him that his “passion was genuine.”

This finally led to his guest spot a few days later, though the episodes aired during the Olympics, which many believe contributed to lower ratings.

LeVar agreed he was “duped by the process."

"It was not a competition to find a new host, really."

He added: “It was only scandal that forced Sony Pictures Television to go in a different direction. 

“In fact, they tried to keep him on. I mean, I don’t need to rehash the chain of events. 

“It really wasn’t what they said it was. And so my conclusion is I got what I asked for: I got a tryout, I got a chance to guest host.”

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During a later live Q&A LeVar said, "If I could do it all over again I would."

"Well, first, I would not believe the executive producer when he told me twice that he was not interested in the job, his job was to find someone to do the job. That's the guy who gave himself the job."

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