It’s nearly impossible to keep up with all of the cameos and callbacks in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2, which has remained in Netflix’s top movies since premiering on the 2025 movie calendar. The sequel even pays tribute to the actors we’ve lost since the 1996 film, including Bob Barker, after The Price Is Right host’s iconic fight scene. This time around, Jeopardy! — another of the best game shows of all time — was represented, and Ken Jennings opened up about his appearance.
Ken Jennings went on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast to discuss his appearance in the new Netflix movie, in which Happy Gilmore’s daughter, Vienna (played by Adam Sandler’s daughter Sunny), is watching Jeopardy! and sees a clue pop up about her dad, whose name no one can remember. As outlandish as most of the movie is, it seems the scenario that Adam Sandler’s character faced isn’t actually that uncommon. Jennings said:
The premise is that nobody on Jeopardy! can remember Happy’s name, and he’s watching at home and he is bummed. Which is a real thing, by the way. I hear from people when we mention them in a clue and then nobody gets it right, like, there’s still some hurt feelings out there.
Nobody wants to be a triple-stumper. (I mean, imagine how then-77-year-old Diana Ross felt when two contestants named her for the clue looking for a 95-year-old singer.)
Since Happy watched all of this play out on a screen, it means Adam Sandler was not actually present when the Jeopardy! scene was filmed on the Alex Trebek Stage. However, Happy Gilmore 2’s star and co-writer was still involved in the scene in a really cool way, as Ken Jennings revealed:
We had Adam Sandler on speed dial suggesting joke alternatives.
Ken Jennings may not have gotten to meet the Sandman, but hearing him on the phone shout out different jokes must have been a priceless experience for the Jeopardy! crew. Producer Sarah Foss further described the shoot, saying:
You would do a take and the director was here, and then Adam would be like, ‘Let’s take this, let’s try this,’ because they wanted to have lots of funny reactions to people not getting ‘Who is Happy Gilmore?’
The clip is played pretty straight — it almost felt like it could have been lifted from a regular game of Jeopardy! — with none of three contestants being able to grasp the golfer's name:
'Who is Happy Goldberg?' ... 'Who is Happy Gudenstein?' ... 'Who is Skippy Goldenbaum?'
The way Ken rejected all of those answers before informing the players, “He IS Jewish, but we were looking for Happy Gilmore,” made me laugh out loud, and with Adam Sandler being on the phone feeding them lines, I just KNOW there is a supercut somewhere of all the different responses they tried. Release the outtakes, I’m begging you!
Ken Jennings said that he must have watched the first Happy Gilmore movie a hundred times, and he “could not be more honored” to have been included in the sequel, even for just a “tiny cameo.” As a Jeopardy! fan, I was certainly delighted to see it.
Happy Gilmore 2 is available to stream now with a Netflix subscription, and be sure to check out what other upcoming Adam Sandler movies are in the works.
