At 6:30, my alarm clock went off… a loud, abrasive, annoying buzz.
There was a light haze over the City of Angels as the fog that had rolled in was slowly vanishing under the early morning sun. I brewed a cup of coffee, turned on the TV to catch the early news, looked out at the early morning traffic and thought:
I am so boned.
The flight down was fine. I had a nice dinner at the hotel that the Jeopardy! staff had recommended, reviewed my world capitals and vice presidents and gotten to bed early.
Was it nerves? I don’t think so. I didn’t feel nervous. Maybe it was all the facts crammed in there, or maybe it was sleeping in a strange bed, but the night before, my brain…wouldn’t…turn…off! Factoids kept ricocheting through my brain like pachinko balls. (Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection). Sleep? An impossibility.
I tried counting sheep (lanolin is derived from wool). I took hot showers (indoor plumbing was invented by the Romans…plumbing comes from plumbum, the Latin word for lead). Unfortunately, there was no mini-bar or I would have sprung for a $8.00 can of beer to help quell my thoughts (brewing beer was first done by the Mesopotamians).
Gah! Stop that! Stupid brain…
At best, I managed a few minutes of a chaotic half-sleep, my subconscious talking my brain off the ledge for a brief while. All too brief.
I was going to need my brain operating at 110% today, and doing it on less than an hour’s worth of sleep.
No use, I thought, in crying over spilt milk or worthless sheep. One light breakfast and one super-caffeinated latte (“make it a triple shot — do you have more than triple?”) and I was, well, about as ready as I could be under the circumstances. Shortly, other people came trickling to the front desk asking “Is this where the Jeopardy! shuttle is?” and making their way to the Starbucks’ kiosk. It was good to know that I wasn’t the only person desperately in need of caffeination.
We were met by Glenn Kagan at the Sony Studios, who congratulated us all for making it — and we got on another shuttle. I was hoping we’d transfer to an underground monorail for a Get Smart style entrance but we merely ended up at Jeopardy’s brand-new studio a few blocks away. Darn.
If you’ve ever wondered if the green room is actually green, the answer is yes — it’s kind of a gray sea-green, and it seats the baker’s dozen of us just well enough. There are more forms to fill out, anecdotes to confirm and Hometown Howdies to write and rehearse.
Unless you are a regular visitor to Jeopardy’s web site, you’ve probably never seen a Hometown Howdy. Sometimes they’ll appear as a bumper for the show when a local contestant is on, and they’re uniformly fairly lame, usually a pun based on your home/occupation, and they’re taped right before your taping begins.
Then it’s time for the Maggie Speak Show.
Maggie Speak is the Senior Contestant Coordinator for Jeopardy! and talks like a Jewish grandmother on speed. One sentence will lead to another topic, which leads to another topic, and you laugh along and think “How does she squeeze in a breath?”
Maggie’s job is twofold. One, she needs to get everyone excited and ready to have fun. Right now, the room is filled with thirteen would-be contestants who are sleep-deprived, nervous, and, let’s be honest, probably more than a little introverted. Her second job is get everyone ready to use that newfound energy and channel it towards playing a good game, as brain-dead zombies make for less-than-compelling TV. If you go out and have a miserable time on the show, it isn’t Maggie fault, let’s put it that way.
By the end of Maggie’s rapid fire, high-volume and slightly ribald spiel, we were a revved-up, factoid-spouting force, a Dirty Dozen of trivia experts. Much like the Dirty Dozen, though, there wouldn’t be many survivors. Out of this group, there’d only be one or two Charles Bronsons, and while nobody comes to lose, everyone does leave with something. Third place is guaranteed $1000 and second place $2000, so you will at least come out a few dollars ahead even if you finish the game in the red.
That was my first goal: don’t finish in red numbers.
The second goal was to actually win at least once.
I wasn’t worrying about the third just yet.
I had a brief chance to talk to the returning champion, Chris Mazurek. He’d won the final two Tuesday tapings and was one of the few male contestants to bring a jacket to go with the shirt-and-tie. I remembered him from the shuttle bus; he sat in the back rather quietly — not aloof, just quiet. He happily shared some advice about the buzzer and I thought, “Boy, if I was the champ, I don’t know if I’d be so free with hints about how to beat me,” but that, perhaps, is part of the charm of Jeopardy! Everyone I had an opportunity to talk to was, for lack of a better term, really nice. I admit, I was expecting there to be some trivia-smarty-pants types there (those who have played me at Trivial Pursuit have, on occasion, encountered The Insufferable Dave), but all the other contestants were affable, friendly sorts.
Once Maggie was finished and all our various forms were signed, we were taken out to the soundstage. It’s brand new for this, their 22nd season, as they had to widen it to accommodate HDTV. Stage Manager John Lauderdale, who, like most Jeopardy! staff, is a very old hand, showed us around — watch out for the cables and the tiered staging, people — and got our gaggle ready to play some practice games to warm up.
Warming up would be good. The studio, early in the morning, is freezing. Maybe trivia, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. Now I know why they ask you to bring a jacket, and it isn’t just to look professional. The studio is also much smaller than it looks on TV. The audience seats maybe 100 tops, and a good chunk of that is reserved for contestants and any family that’s come to watch.
We all got a turn or two at the podium to practice writing our names with the light pen (harder than it looks) and to play a practice game with Glenn Kagan doing his Alex Trebek impression. The buzzer is large and heavy and fits your hand well.
From the podium, you see several things that the home viewer can’t. In addition to the giant fifteen-foot tall bank of televisions that comprises the game board, there’s an additional big screen television to the left which contestants watch for video clues.
Also, if you’ve ever noticed that when a contestant is trying to determine how much to bet on a Daily Double, their eyes go up and to the left, that’s because all the players scores are kept on small screens about twenty feet up from the stage, above the camera placements.
The other thing you don’t see at home — and they’re important — are the “Go Lights.” There is a bank of lights on either side of the Jeopardy! board. When they go on, Alex has finished reading the question, the buzzers are unlocked and you can ring in.
One hint I picked up from just about every Jeopardy! book I read: Never go by the Go Lights. Always go by the beat of Alex’s voice, wait for the end, add a beat, ring in. If you wait for the lights, you’ll never get in. During the mock game, I discover that this is true and get a feel for the correct timing.
By 10:30, we’d all had a few rounds of practice and were carted back to the green room for makeup. The caffeine was kicking in, so if I was picked first, I felt I was ready to go.
The first two contestants are selected randomly, and survey says!: Not me. Susana Turi and Monica Sousa are selected. During the practice games, I’d observed Monica as one of the people who seemed most natural at the podium and would most likely be a formidable opponent.
While Chris and his two challengers remain in the green room to get miked up and a final pep talk, the rest of us are shuttled out to the audience, where we will sit and watch the action from our own little section of the audience.
I stake out a corner seat and whisper along the answers along with everyone else in our group. In the first game, Chris, having the champion’s advantage of having played the game a few times, roars out to a big lead in the Jeopardy! round, but Susan closes the gap in Double Jeopardy! and takes a big but not insurmountable lead heading into Final Jeopardy! Unfortunately, she misses the one-or-the-other question in Geography and Chris, by virtue of being in second and betting big, remains champion.
As soon as the lights go down, Alex leaves the stage, the losers sign a few forms and get their Jeopardy! gift bag (just a cheap briefcase and Jeopardy! picture frame to put the picture they take of you and Alex in — not even a home game anymore) for all parting contestants, and the rest of us are shuttled back to the green room.
Will it be my turn to face down the mild-mannered Chris?
That’d be a no. Our reduced number is escorted back out to the not-quite-so-cold audience section. Chris once again roars out to an early lead, and makes it a runaway.
By the time the third game comes, I’m getting a little tired — my caffeine high is beginning to fade. Once again, I’m not picked. I’m starting to feel like it was third grade kickball all over again. Jim Spilman and Liz get the call this time. Jim had been sitting next to me for the past few tapings, and we’d been bouncing answers off one another sotto voce. Once again, Chris runs out to a big lead, but Jim recovers nicely in Double Jeopardy!, hitting and answering two key Daily Doubles to take a small lead going into the final. The category is: Historic Phrases.
The question is: This phrase linking two entities was in Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, elaborating on the 1st Amendment.
Immediately, I think, “It’s gotta be ‘separation of church and state.'” Sure enough, when they start with Liz, she answered “church and state.” Chris, in second, answers “separation of church and state,” and doubles his score.
Right before they get to Jim, the stage manager halts the proceedings… apparently there was a problem with one of the answers; I’m assuming it was Liz’s answer of “church and state.” I’m guessing that the judges were looking for “separation of church and state,” not just “church and state.” This does happen occasionally, if there’s a problem with an answer, they’ll stop the tape, the judges will discuss and through the miracle of editing, the show will flow on perfectly.
After ten minutes, dispute resolved — I never did find out if I was right or not, but the game state was not changed — they came to Jim, who also answered “separation of church and state,” covered Chris’ bet plus one dollar, and was the new Jeopardy! champion, and most likely the owner of a new ulcer or two.
Our shrinking band of would-be contestants was once again led to the green room. Chris said his goodbyes and wished the rest of us good luck, and he was gone, just like everyone else. You can win as much as you like, but you only get one loss. $78K, though, makes for a very nice parting gift.
The bad news was that I was really starting to crash. The good news was it was time for the lunch break, and lunch was on Jeopardy! at the Sony commissary.
Please tell me you have Red Bull. You do? Make it a double, and throw in some Mountain Dew, too.
Over lunch, Jim gets to recount his ten-minute ordeal, where he was left twisting in the wind, and tells us that his lucky daughter, who came out with him for the trip, is getting to go for a very nice dinner tonight. With 25 grand in the bank, it’d better be darn nice.
Now, I’m hoping I get picked. I won’t be facing a return champion, I’m fed and re-caffeinated and ready to go. I hope. There’s only so long one can go on no sleep and caffeine, and the older I get, the shorter that time gets.
While Jim gets a touchup in the makeup chair, the few of us remaining in the contestant pool gather ’round to hear who will play in the Thursday game. Maggie informs us that it will be Catherine… and Dave!
To be continued in Part III: Edith? Bear with me, we’re getting to the exciting stuff now.