Jeopardy! |
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Jeopardy! |
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Between November 25 and November 29, the whole world (okay, just Dana, me, and the people I hounded about it personally) watched me on Jeopardy! Since November 29, I have successfully avoided recapping my experience. Why? Well, it WAS utterly faboo, the most fun ever, and stuff like that there. And yet every time I would sit down to write about it, I fell asleep while typing.
Rather than go chronologically ("and then blah blah blah, and THEN..." ad infinitum), I'm going to jump around. If I omit something that you want to know, tell me and I'll add it in.
I won four days, for a total of $40,801, plus an extra $1000 for the fifth day. Not bad for a day's work! I was also the first winner on their new set (Laura Innes was the first winner on the previous set).
I was drawn randomly to be in the first show taped, so most of my contact was with people working on that show, rather than the other contestants. Mitch and Barry took good care of me and made sure I was properly wired and had lipstick. I did get to bond a little with Brian (3rd show) and Frank and Karen (4th show) and Anne (beat the guy who beat me -- yay!) on the shuttle bus on the way over from the hotel, but for the most part I didn't spend much time with anyone else. The contestant coordinators (Susanne, Glenn and Maggie) were great -- Maggie in particular was SO much fun! I told her before Final Jeopardy on the fourth show that if I were to win, I would be out of clothes. She said "If you win, I'll give you my shirt." I did win (due to a major miracle), and so on the Friday show, I wore her shirt and she wore my sweater -- turns out we shop in the same stores. I maintain the REASON I lost the fifth day was because I wasn't wearing my own clothes. ;)
What's Alex like? Well, they keep him away from the contestants for the most part -- I think we didn't lay eyes on him until he was introduced for the Monday show -- so we didn't have a lot of one-on-one with him. From what I saw, though, he's a complete goof. He *does* sing the Chili's baby back ribs jingle. He *does* speak in silly accents. (at one point, he chided Jeff [one of the techs] for trying to kill me by throwing a bottle of water at my head. In a Scottish accent. Sean Connery would be proud.) He shook me by the shoulders during one of the after show interviews. And he and I riffed on the Music Man after my very first win.
At one point while we were in a tech hold, to my horror I heard my father heckling Alex. Turns out my father was wrong -- Alex had asked the audience a question about an old comic strip or something. While the audience was dickering over the answer, someone from the Crack Team Of Researchers came over and handed Alex a slip of paper with the answer on it. I need someone to follow me around and give me the answers to questions that crop up. How fabulous would *that* be?
In the 19 years that Jeopardy! has been broadcast in its current format, I am the first person to get five consecutive Final Jeopardy questions wrong. I would have loved to get any one of them right, but I take fierce pride in this rather dubious honor.
I had about 4 months from the time I passed the test to the time I was called to appear on the show, and then another four weeks until the taping. I didn't pay much attention to the show until after I got the call to tape -- and then I went into boot camp mode. NYDavey provided me with a tape of his four shows, and talked to me online lots about his experience. Dana and I sat every night and watched the shows, pausing every time a betting situation came up, to give me practice developing a strategy (Michael Dupee's book was helpful in this regard).
Did I study? Nope. I figured that, with four weeks to go, all I would do is work myself into a frenzy and nothing would stick in my brain. I did start TiVoing episodes of Connections, because that show has so many teeny tidbits of information on a diverse number of topics (although I forget the exact connection between Isaak Walton and Chateau d'Yquem, I was happy to see my favorite sauterne talked about).
I joked that I might want to study things about Canada, because the only thing I know about it is that both Alex and my brother-in-law Pierre, hail from there.
Game One. We got miked, signed in, and they started taping. "This....is....Jeopardy!" I've heard that a million times before, and hearing it live was SO COOL. Johnny Gilbert said my name! This was the moment when I discovered that the returning champ (Matthew) had one win under his belt -- I relaxed a bit when I heard that. I tensed right back up again when the categories were displayed.
"Canadian History." Well, it was nice being here.
After initial problems with the buzzer (read: I couldn't ring in to save my life), Glenn gave me some pointers, and I came back hard. I went into Final Jeopardy having locked up the lead ($15,600 to Tony's $4500 and Matthew's $1000). The category: "Potent Potables." Well, hell, how can I lose? I come from a long line of drinkers, I used to date a bartender, and I played trivia in a bar for years. I bet big...$6599.
"This brand won a top prize at the 1893 Chicago Expo and has carried the award in its name ever since."
This is where I discovered that the music they play during FJ is specially designed to completely erase your brain.
Award, award, think think THINK! All I can think of is medals, and that something is the "champagne of beers" and what the hell is it, no that's not right, WRITE SOMETHING DOWN. I hastily scribbled "Carling's Black Label," which was wrong, but was at least a passable guess.
Pabst Blue Ribbon. I spent $6599 on crappy beer, and I have no beer to show for it. To my eternal dismay, I have since discovered that the company that brews Carling Black Label is....Pabst. Shoot me.
Sadly, it turns out that my high school American History textbook must have been written in 1946, because Truman changed the order with the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Worse for me, Dana and I have been at brunch when Congressman Hastert was there. I'm just a girl...politics is hard. :) Still, my bet of $0 kept me safe for another day.
So...no Jaguar, but a big pile of cash, and some fabulous memories.
Had there been a TOC last season, I would definitely have played in this year's tourney. As it was, my relatively low 4-day total was not enough to get me back in front of the cameras, but I was asked to come back as the TOC alternate...just in case someone got sick or was deployed or otherwise couldn't perform. Sony paid for me to return to CA, put us up in Merv's hotel, and gave me some walking around cash. Despite all my best efforts to convince ANY of the other players to step aside and let me play (hey, they would've been asked back again...it's not like I'm completely heartless), I spent the day in the Green Room with the other contestants who were waiting to play. I was allowed to watch Game 5 of the preliminary round, though...and now that I've watched the entire tournament, I don't think I would have played well at all.
It was great seeing everyone again, and being able to meet the other contestants. There's a very small group of people in the world who have had the Jeopardy! experience, and it was neat to talk and compare notes and razz and talk trash with them. And I really hope that some day, they'll realize that I'm really a very nice person, and that usually I don't go around offering people tuna fish salad that's been sitting out all day. ;)
Backstory on the 2003 TOC can be found here.
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Last update: May 27, 2003