TVSquad

Via Digg comes ten YouTube clips featuring some of the most awkward television interviews ever conducted. Some of them are classic, such as Barbara Walters asking Katherine Hepburn what kind of a tree she'd like to be, but most of them are fairly recent: Michael Richards on Letterman, a seemingly spaced-out Paula Abdul, and Tom Cruise talking down to Matt Lauer. My favorite is the various clips of Mike Tyson being, well, Mike Tyson.

I don't have much interest in game shows, but I do try to catch Jeopardy! every day. First of all, it's a somewhat more intellectually stimulating than Wheel of Fortune, and it allows me to sit alone in my apartment and yell things out like, "What is 'Paul's letter to the Corinthians!'" and then sit back with an expression of smug self-satisfaction. Of course, that's usually after listening to twenty other answers whose questions I didn't know.

Most of all, however, I tune in for Alex Trebek and those always awkward exchanges between himself and the guests when he tries to learn a little more about them. Trebek has a tendency to say exactly the wrong thing, or to say things that don't quite make sense.  Yesterday during the Tournament of Champions, he had this exchange with a contestant, Mike, after Mike told him about a shower curtain he and his wife received which had a map of the world on it:

Alex: Do [you and your wife] shower together?

Mike [Smiling nervously]: I'm not gonna answer that.

Alex: You're husband and wife, it's okay.

Mike [Still smiling nervously]: I'm still not gonna answer that.

Ah, it's gems like that which keep me tuned in to this show every day.