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Alex Trebek can't host "Jeopardy!" forever -- in fact, he says there's a good chance he'll retire from the show soon -- and he's already got a replacement in mind ... with a very fitting name.

Trebek talked to Harvey Levin on the latest episode of 'OBJECTified' Sunday night about his legendary career as a game show host. He says chances are more than 50/50 he'll leave "Jeopardy!" when his contract expires in 2020, and when he departs ... he thinks the LA Kings hockey announcer should take over.

Who is Alex Faust? CORRECT!

Trebek's support would obviously carry a lot of weight ... he's deeply involved in the production of the show and his blessing would clearly sit well with viewers. Plus, having the same first name has its benefits.

Faust, who is just 28, already has some experience replacing icons -- he was chosen to replace Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller after 44 seasons to do play-by-play for the Kings ... and has apparently impressed Trebek with his work.

The "Jeopardy!" host has one other option in mind -- CNN legal analyst Laura Coates. Obviously, she has less in common with Trebek than Faust ... but he thinks she'd be a good fit as well.

Roseanne's moving on from saying sorry after her latest attempt didn't go so well, and has a message for people who don't appreciate her jokes -- 'F**k off."

We spoke with Roseanne Friday -- after her TV apology to Valerie Jarrett ended with a diss on Jarrett's haircut -- and asked if her "joke" was distracting from other points she made on Sean Hannity's show Thursday night.

Roseanne's response -- "They hate jokes. They should f**k off."

As for whether she's going to lay off Jarrett now ... she tells us we'll have to wait and see.

Roseanne also spoke with Rabbi Shmuley more about being ousted from her ABC show ... and says the real tragedy is she had noble plans for Season 2 ... including hiring African-American writers.

As we reported ... Barr claims ABC fired her because she supports Donald Trump, and tells the Rabbi she was constantly outnumbered on "Roseanne" by a bunch of Trump-haters.

Roseanne Barr took a crack at an on-air apology to Valerie Jarrett for posting a racist tweet about her, but it didn't go too well ... especially at the very end.

Roseanne was speaking on Sean Hannity's show Thursday night about her notorious tweet and the fallout that came after, when Hannity gave her a chance to look at the camera and say sorry to Jarrett.

Barr used the opportunity to drop a sort of half-apology, but even that was better than how she decided to wrap it up -- by insulting Valerie's haircut.

Roseanne's TV appearance comes after she's been hard at work with her son to create her own content, with the mission being -- ironically -- to get her unfiltered and true story out there -- not the media's.

As you know ... Roseanne's hit ABC show was canned after she compared Valerie to an ape on Twitter. She's tried to excuse it away -- first by blaming Ambien, then by claiming she thought "the bitch was white" -- while also alleging ABC really fired her because she's a Donald Trump supporter.

ABC has since revived "Roseanne" with a reboot/spin-off centered around the Conner family ... but without Roseanne, of course.

Roseanne Barr let out a primal scream with one of her many explanations for the racist tweet targeted at Valerie Jarrett ... "I THOUGHT THE BITCH WAS WHITE!!!!!"

Roseanne was being interviewed about her comment, comparing former Obama White House staffer Valerie Jarrett to an ape. ABC quickly fired her, cancelled her show and then re-rebooted it as "The Connors."

The interviewer, Roseanne's 40-year-old-son Jake, is asking her about a prior video in which it sounds like Roseanne had worn multiple outfits. Roseanne listened to Jake as she manically puffed away on a cig, clearly agitated.

That's when she lets out the primal scream ... twice.

Up to now, she's tried apologizing to both Jarrett -- who is African-American -- and America for her comment, saying it was a stupid comment made while on Ambien and accepting the blame.

Good news for everyone who worked on the original reboot of "Roseanne" -- they've all been invited back for reboot 2.0 ... except for Roseanne, of course.

Sources close to production tell TMZ ... all crew members who worked on the show that got canceled, after Barr made a racist comment on Twitter, have been contacted about returning to join "The Conners" spin-off team.

We've obtained an email sent to all the crew Thursday before ABC officially announced it was bringing back a Roseanne-free version of the show this fall. As you can see ... it's a pretty happy invite.

We're told producers especially want to get all the "Roseanne" writers back on board. Our sources say several crew members have signed back on and are excited to return ... to a fresh start.

As we reported ... "The Conners" is just a working title so far, but we're told it's getting a lot of great feedback from fans and could end up being the show's name for good.

Filming is expected to begin in late August/early September.

ABC just made it official -- as TMZ first reported ... it's giving the greenlight to a new Roseanne Barr-free version of 'Roseanne,' and it's coming back this fall.

The network says the show's working title is "The Conners" and it will be in the Tuesday night, 8 PM slot. We broke the story ... negotiations with Barr were the only hold-up in going forward with the show. ABC says Tom Werner, of production company Carsey-Werner, reached a settlement with Barr ... and she'll have no financial or creative stake in the new sitcom.

All the other actors from the smash hit reboot are coming back. The show was TV's highest rated sitcom in over three years after its premiere in March -- but ABC pulled the plug after Barr's racist tweet aimed at former Obama aide, Valerie Jarrett.

The only remaining loose end appears to be how Roseanne will be written out of the show ... something we asked former executive producer, Whitney Cummings about a couple weeks ago.

JoJo Fletcher's runner-up on her season of "The Bachelorette" can't figure out how Lincoln Adim got on the show, because the screening process probes for past crimes.

We got Robby Hayes Wednesday in Venice and asked if 'Bachelorette' producers need to do better background checks on their contestants ... in light of the fact Adim's sex crime arrest 2 years ago didn't raise any flags.

As we reported ... Adim had been convicted of and sentenced for indecent assault and battery days before Becca Kufrin's season premiered in May. He'd been accused of groping and grinding on a woman during a 2016 cruise. He must now register as a sex offender.

Robby is dumbfounded on how Lincoln slipped through the cracks. He's been through the process, and told us the pointed questions every contestant has to answer ... including the ones about arrests. He says Becca deserved to know about Lincoln and producers need to tighten up the background checks.

ABC is still all-in on moving forward with a second "Roseanne" reboot -- this one revolving around Sara Gilbert's character -- but there's a major issue to resolve ... ownership.

Sources close to the production tell TMZ ... because Roseanne Barr created the show with the original executive producers, she has a financial stake in it and its characters. It's unclear which specific ones she created, but we're told the network is doing its due diligence to avoid a lawsuit.

It's very possible, we're told, that Roseanne could put her foot down and say there will be no revamped reboot unless she gets a piece of the pie. However, if she's making dough off the new version, it defeats the purpose of canceling the show after her racist comment.

Pretty sure Roseanne Barr would rather be in a writers' room working on season 2 of her show, but instead she's got tons of time to smell roses ... and scowl.

Roseanne's retreated to her Salt Lake City home, and Thursday morning she was looking pretty down and out while clipping rosebuds. Gardening is probably a wiser pastime for her than tweeting ... considering that's what led to her hit ABC sitcom being canceled.

TMZ broke the story ... there's potential good news for her former coworkers. ABC wants to revive "Roseanne," but center it around Sara Gilbert's character.

The show revival could be announced this week. Of course, the new version wouldn't bear Roseanne's name.

John Goodman's looking like he means business ... as in the "Roseanne" reboot business.

John was out in New Orleans Tuesday, and was spotted on a call that seemed more serious than lighthearted -- and ya gotta wonder if that's ABC or "Roseanne" producers on the line.

As we previously reported, Goodman is "very interested" in being a part of a second "Roseanne" reboot ... which we're told will be centered around Sara Gilbert's character, Darlene, instead of Roseanne Barr. All of this is the fallout from the show being immediately canceled after Barr took a racially-charged shot on Twitter at a former Obama aid.

Now that producer Tom Werner's gotten involved in negotiations to relaunch the show ... we're told an announcement could come as soon as this week.

Sara Gilbert is finally speaking out about Roseanne Barr and ABC pulling the plug on the "Roseanne" reboot ... and she's in complete agreement with the network.

Sara made her first on-camera remarks Monday on her other show, "The Talk," and right off the bat admitted, it's "been a very difficult week." She also talked about how hurtful Roseanne's tweets were to everyone, cast and crew, who worked on the show.

TMZ broke the story ... there are talks going on about possibly bringing the show back, but having it center around Sara's character. She did not talk about that.

The creator of "The Larry Sanders Show" is baffled at everyone's reaction to Roseanne's racist tweet, because he says it was just a case of art imitating life.

We got Dennis Klein Friday night in WeHo leaving Craig's, and he was quick to say Roseanne's character is a woman who's a "pig and a slob" and he thinks that character embodies the person ... and everyone including ABC knew it from the get-go.

That said, Dennis thinks ABC always had a backup plan in case Roseanne went off the rails.

"Roseanne" may be on the verge of rising from the dead with a second reboot, but this time centered around Sara Gilbert's character ... TMZ has learned.

Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ ... the powers that be at ABC are exploring the possibility of re-branding the show and focusing on the character Darlene instead of Roseanne.

We're told Sara's been calling cast members to gauge their interest in the event ABC gives the reboot the green light. We're told John Goodman is "very interested."

Our sources say Tom Werner, who produced "Roseanne" through his company Carsey-Werner, is involved in the effort to reboot the show around Sara.

What's more ... ABC is desperately trying to salvage the jobs of those who were affected by its swift decision to cancel the show earlier this week ... especially for the writers and crew.

Lena Dunham was apparently yanking our chain when she said she'd be down to write a new show for the remaining characters on "Roseanne." Joke's on us.

We got the "Girls" creator -- who acted in and wrote for the HBO show -- at LAX Thursday, where we asked if she was serious about her Twitter offer to "do the spin off of your show starring Darlene's cool kids."

Lena had retweeted Mindy Kaling, who offered to "write things" for John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf -- just a couple of the many folks who are now out of a job after ABC pulled the plug. As you might've heard, Roseanne's racist tweet completely tanked the show.

Welp ... turns out Lena is NOT actually interested at the moment. She tells our photog, on a scale of 0-10 as far as seriousness ... it's at the very bottom.

Larry King seems baffled by everyone he's known for decades ... and yes, you can add Roseanne Barr to that list.

The ex-CNN talk show host was out Wednesday in Bev Hills reflecting on Roseanne's swift nose dive following her extremely racist tweet, saying he didn't think that was the woman he's known for 30 years ... calling her recent pivot into extreme bigotry "bizarre."

Sounds like the people he was once chummy with have changed A LOT since the good ol' days, including President Trump ... whom Larry also said he didn't know anymore.

Roseanne Barr's TV son, Michael Fishman, says he fears the sudden cancellation of their show might have left a lot of people without a job -- and he's right ... TMZ has learned.

Fishman, who plays D.J. Conner on "Roseanne," tells us, "I worry most for our crew and writers who passed on jobs this year to stay with us." As we reported ... ABC axed the show hours after Roseanne's racist tweet.

Welp, Mike's concerns are indeed valid. A production source who was working on "Roseanne" tells us about 300 people are now unemployed after the cancellation. We're told most production gigs for the fall were filled in the last few weeks during network upfronts.

The source says a lot of the "Roseanne" crew -- including writers and others -- are hoping to land jobs during mid-season replacements this year to help pay for their life expenses, which we're told can be ... well, expensive! One crew member has 2 kids in grad school, and says they couldn't afford the show getting tanked out of nowhere like it did.

A 2nd source tied directly to the show also tells us people might've overextended themselves financially considering the show's massive ratings, and might've had a false sense of job security.

It's unclear whether writers and crew will get paid for the scrapped upcoming season.