August–September

After booking my flights and hotel (the latter with a nice Sony corporate discount), the next four weeks were a blur of boning up on my weak areas. Studying for Jeopardy! is bizarre; it’s not remotely like studying for an exam because the topics are so wide-ranging and yet surface-level; a knowledge pool that’s miles wide and a quarter-of-an-inch deep.

Geography

• US States, cities and capitals
• Nations and capitals
• Mountains, bodies of water, rivers, deserts
• Historic places of significance
• US National Parks

US politics

• US Presidents
• US Vice Presidents, cabinets, secretaries, Supreme Court judges
• US Constitution and Amendments

Note the emphasis on US-based facts. Jeopardy! loves those US politics questions, which put me at a distinct disadvantage since I was competing against a bunch of Americans who’ve memorized this stuff since grade school along with their daily Pledge of Allegiance. But deep down, my nightmare scenario has always been me getting a Daily Double or Final Jeopardy clue about Canada… and blowing it!!

History, especially wars

Yuck. Military history, my very least favourite subject at school. Aside from geography. No coincidence that they were both taught by the same (loathed) teacher. And who were the Carolingians, anyway? And what was that I vaguely remember about the Ottoman Empire?!

“Potent Potables”

In his book Brainiac, Jeopardy! all-time champion Ken Jennings mined great humour out of his not knowing anything about alcoholic drinks, being a Mormon. It wasn’t so funny to me any more, since I am hardly more knowledgable about alcohol than your average Mormon. I’ve had maybe two mixed drinks in my life, and couldn’t tell you much more about the wines in our fridge other than one’s red and one’s white, and both are probably too far gone by now even to cook with. And my show would be airing on New Year’s day, so there was a definite chance this category could come up.

The Bible

• Characters
• Books of

Not a category I am particularly interested in, but always useful for general literary knowledge.

Sports

• Olympic host cities
• Notable athletes
• Sports awards and MVPs
• Major-league sports teams
• US College teams

Because I couldn’t care less about this topic, this is where I finally drew the line. Aside from Olympics and sports team basics (names and cities), I had no intention to do a lick of research. I just figured I was going to wipe out on these—January 1’s Rose Bowl be damned.

My normally messy desk got even worse

Flash card hell

Final Jeopardy betting strategies

In Final Jeopardy the three contestants get the category provided to them and then have to bet all, some, or none of their earnings—keeping in mind the other people’s scores as well as their probable proficiency about the topic. Simple in theory; it gets more difficult when you only have a few minutes to make your calculations, taking into account your position (first, second and third), as well as how difficult you think the question is going to be. I could go into hideous detail—because Peter and I did—but I won’t here, lest your brain tries to crawl out of your skull to escape the tedium.

My makeshift signalling device

In addition to all this, every weeknight I played along with the show on TV, using an old novelty Captain Underpants pen as a reasonable stand-in for the signalling device. Peter acted as coach and scored my performance, using a complicated scoring system¹ that Jeopardy! aficionados use but I never quite got the hang of.

Fun Fact I learned studying for Jeopardy!

The mascots for the Washington Nationals baseball team are called the Presidents: George, Tom, Abe and Teddy (the four dudes on Mt. Rushmore), who race each other around the field during the fourth inning. Teddy always loses. Teddy finally won his first race at the end of the 2012 season.

In repeat Jeopardy! champion Bob Harris’s entertaining and thoughtful book Prisoner of Trebekistan, he recounted how while he was studying for the show he found himself descending into a bizarre headspace which he called “Trebekistan”: A place where unrelated facts started wrapping around each other in a great, miasmic tangle of knowledge. In early stages it was an exhilarating and fun state for a trivia geek; later on it started flirting dangerously close to madness.

I started wondering whether I was pushing too hard towards Trebekistan myself when I found someone’s blogpost about a Reddit thought experiment:

“In a mass knife fight to the death between every American President, who would win and why?”

The blogger had posted reasons for every one of the 44 US presidents, and I got a little disturbed when:

1. I read the entire article (I mean, a month ago I didn’t even know who William Harrison was, let alone anything about him!)
2. I understood the blogger’s reasoning and amusing observations behind each president’s chances
3. I largely agreed with the outcome (though I had some doubts about Lincoln being among the top three finalists), and
4. I found the post very funny

Fun Fact I learned studying for Jeopardy!

Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, was also a respected lepidopterist. In addition, he, his wife and son all had synesthesia.

1. The number one resource for things Jeopardy! is the J! Archive website run by and contributed to by whom I presume must be fanatical Jeopardy! fans. It features in text form every clue and answer to every Jeopardy! show ever aired; all contestants’ names and how they did; and a huge glossary of betting strategies with names like “Falk’s Law” or “Shore’s Conjecture” as well as the useful scoring system called the “Coryat score” (all named after notable past champions). ↩

August

In my office in front of the computer. Jon had been back from overnight camp for about half a week and was still a happy, Chatty Cathy, sitting beside me at his computer. The phone rang and I picked it up. I didn’t quite make out what the guy on the other line was saying at first because of the chatter two feet from my ear—but then I realized that it was Glenn from the audition, and he was asking me if I wanted to be a contestant on Jeopardy! in September. I was getting “the call”!

My first thought was, “Boy, that was quick.”

After that I don’t remember what Glenn said for the rest of the phone call because my brain froze up.

It was the weirdest thing—I literally couldn’t string two sentences together; it was as if my tongue and brain were working at different gear speeds. I apologized for my incoherence, but Glenn reassured me: “Actually we get this kind of response a lot”. It was a longish call with lots of information getting passed on. He assured me that he was emailing the info as well, since he knew too well that not much of the info was actually penetrating my skull at that moment.

Then, when I calmed down a bit, my next thought was: I’ve only got a month and I still have huge voids in my knowledge base! Gaaah, time to start studying!!

The next day, as promised, I got an email with all the info: where to stay; date of taping/air date (New Years day, 2013); how to dress (no green or fine patterns); pages and pages of rules and regs to sign and send back; tips for a creating a good anecdote (Uh oh. I kind of exhausted my store of stories for New York. Maybe I’ll just reuse them); US tax info, etc. etc. Gaaah, they want the form faxed and I don’t have a fax machine! Scans in email were okay, though—but scanning 10 pages and emailing them was taking precious study time away from me!!

I had a month to cram.

June

The Jeopardy! auditions are held once a year in five US cities, for a week. Mine was on a Thursday morning in June, one of three sessions that day.

The auditions took place in a small, plain conference room in a swishy midtown hotel. A battered little foam-core sign on an easel outside the room was the only clue of what was going on.

Not very high-tech!

My sole souvenir.

As the candidates milled around, we were handed a Jeopardy! pen, along with an information sheet and release form to fill out. The pen turned out to be our sole souvenir of the audition—nothing more but our memories. It was the usual type of release form: I release Sony Corp from any claims blah blah blah I won’t sue them blah blah personal injury blahblah indemnify blah blah, etc. The usual sign-here-in-blood contractual stuff.

We also had to list any relatives or acquaintances who work for the show, the production company, Sony Studios, or any television stations broadcasting the show.

Uh oh… I expect the CBC counts as a “television station” ¹, and having a father who hosts one of the most respected shows in the country might count as “works for”. I dutifully filled that in, and upon asking, was told that that wouldn’t be a problem; they were more concerned about people who actually worked or appeared on Jeopardy! itself. We also had our pictures taken, and had to provide five cute facts/stories about ourselves (the kind that Alex Trebek makes contestants blab about during the most squirm-inducing part of the show.)

Once inside the conference room I surveyed my competition as we chit-chatted amongst ourselves. There were 18 of us. Six women. Over half of the participants were youngish (30s), clean-shaven, nerdy-looking men, with the occasional older professor-type, or matronly woman sprinkled into the mixture. Mostly white-collar professionals (accountants, academics, teachers). A South Asian fellow (the only visible minority other than me) was scruffily dressed in a tee and cutoff jeans (we were told to dress business casual, as you would on the show); it turned out he was a pediatrician, so obviously he wasn’t too fussed about the whole business!

The contestant coordinators were Corina and Glenn, and what consummate pros they were! Corina briskly went through the rules and regs of the game (as if anyone in that room wouldn’t know them off by heart), in a loud, firm voice, punctuated by the occasional corny joke or wry comment. She was likeable in a slightly terrifying way. Glenn was more laid-back, and had a friendly, understated way of talking to all these wannabe contestants without seeming condescending or jaded.

The session started chattily with the coordinators asking us who came from furthest away. My being from Toronto, Canada elicited a few “ooohs” (because, apparently, we live among the polar bears). But a guy from Texas had everyone beat, so he won a Jeopardy! Wii game. (He said when he did the online test in February he thought he was going to get a job in New York, but ended up in Dallas instead.)

We were exhorted many times to “have fun! This is NOT an exam; it’s a game show!”, which we all mentally registered and then promptly ignored. Then we all took another 50-question test. The questions were projected (in Korinna, the typeface used for Jeopardy! clues) on an old-fashioned slideshow screen, and read out by a recording of a Clue Crew member.² Like the online test we were given 15 seconds to write down our answers, so the test went quickly.

We were told not to divulge any of the questions to outsiders because they are reused, but were encouraged to talk about them amongst ourselves while the tests were being marked. On chatting with everyone else I didn’t think I did any worse than the others, and I was quite sure of some of answers that others blew. It seemed a smart bunch, though; not a dummy in the lot.

After the tests were marked—we weren’t told our scores—we went up to the front of the room in threes to play a mock Jeopardy! game with buzzers. In order to forestall a competitive nerd panic the coordinators took care to tell us that the order they called our names was only a function of where our answer sheets happened to be in the pile, and not an indication of how well we did. I happened to be in the first group, so I went to the front with queasy insides and sweaty hands.

I needn’t have been so nervous; the coordinators didn’t care whether or not we got right answers (and I do remember getting at least one wrong). They were looking for confidence, an ability to speak strongly and clearly, and reasonable poise. (As other threesomes performed I was happy to see that many of them were asked to “speak louder!”, whereas I hadn’t been.)

After the short game (probably only about 10–12 questions for each threesome), each of us were encouraged to talk about ourselves, or asked about one of our prepared stories. My story was about how Photon had once gotten “ottered” (sort of like getting skunked, but not nearly as bad) at the cottage, and I think I blathered something vaguely coherent. Glenn was kind, and made sure to smile warmly and thank every person after their stories.

About the “buzzers”: They don’t actually buzz. Or click, or ring, or do anything that lets you know if you got there first. They feel a bit like a faulty ball-point pen (except twice the size and several times as heavy), where the button-spring is still firmly springy, but nothing goes click. Officially they’re called “signalling devices”. When you play along to Jeopardy! in front of the TV you usually yell out the answer while Alex is still reading the question. In the real game (or our audition mock games) you have to stifle that impulse. You wait until the whole question is read, then look for some signal lights to flash on. As soon as they’re on, you mash your signalling device as many times as is humanly possible. The key to winning Jeopardy! is in the split-second timing between when those lights go on and you mash your button. Mash too soon and you’re locked out for a split-second period—enough for someone else to beat you to the answer.

After the mock games the coordinators answered every question we could come up with.

How long after taping is the show broadcast?
It ranges, from 2 months to 4 months, depending on when in the season it is.

When do you get paid your prize money?
120 days after air date.

I asked something along the lines of: Do you plan the games so that you don’t have people with the same first name, and what happened when Ken Jennings had his streak? No other Ken could appear? They never did give me a straight answer, but Corina told an entertaining story about how intimidating it was for new contestants to see Jennings on TV (remember, shows air 2–4 months after they’re taped), then go to their taping and find out that he was still on! A lot of his competitors pretty much gave up on the spot.

So a little more than two hours after we started we were sent off with a cheery reminder that we were in their files and could get “the call” to appear on the show any time during the next year and a half. After that time we could try out again. It turns out this was the most likely fate of all of us, and some in my group had auditioned previously. As we filed out of the conference room, the next group of people waiting outside were already filling out their information forms.

I walked around Midtown uncomfortably for a few hours in the 37°C heatwave, grabbed a deli lunch, took the train back to Newark, and flew home.

End of my adventure.

…or was it?

The Jeopardy! Clue Crew
1. Actually, not any more. CBC declined to pick up Jeopardy! as of this season, in order to better fulfill its Canadian-content-only mandate. Somehow, they hadn’t noticed that Coronation Street is also not Canadian… ↩
2. The Clue Crew are an attractive, fresh-scrubbed bunch of young roving correspondents that Jeopardy! added to the show in 2001 to add some visual pizzazz to the otherwise staid show. They tape video clues in exotic places, which gives the audience something more interesting to look at than Alex and three dumpy contestants. ↩

February

I never used to watch Jeopardy! much. It was just that game show hosted by that genial Canadian guy with the silly moustache. However, ever since Jon discovered a few years ago that he liked game shows (mainly because of the sound effects, music and the host’s “ooohhh” when someone gets a question wrong), we’ve started watching it fairly regularly. (Alex Trebek shaved off his moustache years ago.)

Alex, sans ‘stache

Jeopardy! has the cachet of being the brainiest of the (North American) knowledge-based shows, with somewhat less of the luck component than in the revamped Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (another game show title with a punctuation mark, as well as Jon’s favourite game show – of which he’s seen an ersatz version live at Disney World.)

Once a year Jeopardy! holds an online test that anyone is welcome to take, whether or not they want to be on the show. Since I love online quizzes (and I wanted to see how hard it would be) I signed up to take the test last year. The test consists of a timed 50-question quiz. You get 15 seconds to type the answer to each question, which speeds by pretty quickly. Unfortunately they don’t tell you how you did. I figured I did very badly; at any rate I never heard from them, and I forgot about it.

When this year’s online test rolled around in February, for kicks and giggles I took it again. (Which shows what a total nerd I am—taking a test for fun where I don’t even get to find out my score!) This time the test seemed easier—or maybe it was just that I was familiar with the process—anyway, it seemed to go better. This was all for fun, so again I didn’t think much about it.

Months pass.

May

It seems I did well enough. In May I received an email telling me I was selected to go on to the second-stage auditions. The email was in plain, unadorned text, with no corporate logos or other graphics; at first I almost overlooked it as spam.

Jeopardy! certainly has the most daunting sign-up process of any of the TV game shows. It’s a multi-stage application, winnowing down candidates from tens of thousands of online applicants to the few hundred contestants who appear on the show yearly. I had never seriously considered applying, putting it in the same daytime fantasy category as telling off an old boss, or winning the lottery (the one we never actually buy tickets for).

In the online test it’s mandatory that you pick one of five US cities where you would like to audition; I picked New York City, since it was the closest. Now that I was invited to NYC I had to seriously think about whether I should actually do this or not! Time to do some research on the Internet. Here’s what I came up with:

• Of the approximately 100,000 people who take the online test, about 2.5%—2,000 to 3,000 people—get randomly picked from the top scorers to do the auditions.
• Only 400 of those make it past the auditions to appear on TV.

Now to the serious thinking:

Why I should not do it:
I made it into the top 2.5% of scorers, so I was lucky to get this far. But would I make it any further? My chances of getting on the show seemed pretty slim. It would be a moderately large expense (airfare, hotel) just to do an audition that would most likely lead to nowhere. And even if I did eventually end up on the show, every contestant on that show is smart—and every night there are two losers. Two-thirds chance that I’d only win $2,000 or $1,000 (second and third place, respectively), which certainly wouldn’t be enough to cover total expenses.

Why I should do it:
It’d be a really cool adventure!

It was no contest.

I booked the plane.