Ken relishes challenge

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Ken Jennings has a lot to lose and not a whole lot to win by agreeing to play in "Grand Slam."

(Well, the $100,000 prize isn't all that much to a guy who won more than $3 million on "Jeopardy!")

But, for Jennings — a self-confessed "game-show junky" — the chance to face off against 15 of the biggest winners in game-show history was irresistible.

"I'm the kind of guy who can't turn this down — even if there was no money on the line," he said. "Don't tell GSN, but if we were playing for Arby's coupons, I'd show up. It's so much fun."

"Grand Slam" is a single-elimination, 16-person tournament. In Round 1 (tonight at 8 on GSN), second-seeded Jennings takes on No. 15 Victor Lee (who won $83,333 on "World Series of Pop Culture").

Other contestants include big winners on game shows like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," "Twenty-One," "Card Sharks," "Wheel of Fortune," "Tic Tac Dough," "The Weakest Link" and "Lingo."

"These are all the unstoppable winners on their respective shows and it was a chance to see how I would stack up against them," Jennings said. "And that was sort of irresistible."

At the top of the list is Brad Rutter, who beat Jennings in the finals of the "Jeopardy! Ultimte Tournament of Champions" and edged him for No. 1 on the list of all-time game-show money winners. And it certainly hasn't escaped Jennings notice that, as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds on "Grand Slam," they could meet in the finals.

"I knew they were going to get him for this thing, too, so that was in the back of my mind — I might get a second chance at Brad Rutter," Jennings said.

But it seems that he, not Rutter, is the top target for the other 15 contestants.

"I can tell you in the 15 pre-interviews we did with them, everybody said that," said executive producer Michael Davies.

"I sort of was afraid there was going to be some Tonya Harding incident backstage," Jennings joked. "The funny thing to me was I didn't see myself as a favorite at all. ... These are all the unstoppable players in their own arena. So I didn't share everyone else's opinion that I should be a top seed."

"Grand Slam" contestants face off in rounds that include general knowledge, math and logic, words and letters and pop culture and current events, and questions must be answered with a countdown clock ticking.

"It's a very interesting situation," Jennings said. "If you're going on 'Jeopardy!' or 'Tic-Tac-Dough,' you can watch tape like a football coach and sort of analyze and figure out your strategy and try to cram for your weak spots. This show is something we had never seen before, something we had never done before.

"Just because you're good at 'Jeopardy!' or 'Tic-Tac-Dough' doesn't guarantee you're going to be able to cover the wide range of skills covered by 'Grand Slam.' It's like taking Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan or Derek Jeter, and they're all going to go play tennis."

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com