My Short, Happy Life In "Jeopardy!"

By Brendan DuBois

As a lifelong reader, fan of trivia and watcher of "Jeopardy!", award-winning mystery author Brendan DuBois tried twice to become a contestant on this Emmy-award winning show. But the third time proved to be a charm as he successfully auditioned for the program, and flew from his rural New Hampshire home to Los Angeles to tape his appearance and go head-to-head among some of the smartest people in America.

Along the way he reveals information such as:

-- The best way to prepare as a contestant.

-- Important websites you should visit, and books you should read.

-- What's it like to be "behind the stage" as the show is taped.

-- And hey, what's Alex Trebek really like?

This humorous, self-deprecating, informative and suspenseful book will provide even the most casual "Jeopardy!" viewer with a unique look at America's most well-known gameshow. His appearance on "Jeopardy!" proved to be one of the most thrilling and unforgettable moments in his life, and this affectionate tale is a tribute to the people who make the show work.

Author's note: This book is not authorized by "Jeopardy!", CBS, Sony Television or any other entity associated with "Jeopardy!" CBS, Sony Television and "Jeopardy!" are all registered trademarks, and this work is not intended to infringe on any of these trademarks or associated rights.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brendan DuBois of New Hampshire is the award-winning author of sixteen novels and more than 125 short stories. His novel, "Resurrection Day," won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternative History Novel of the Year. He is also a one-day "Jeopardy!" game show champion.

His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, nd numerous other magazines and anthologies including “The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century,” published in 2000 by Houghton-Mifflin. Another one of his short stories appeared in in "The Year's Best Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection" (St. Martin's Griffin, 2005) edited by Gardner Dozois

His short stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and have also earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Brendan DuBois
• Release date: Apr 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301655595

Book preview

My Short Happy Life in ‘Jeopardy!’

Copyright 2013 by Brendan DuBois

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

All Rights Reserved.

My Short, Happy Life in Jeopardy!

By

Brendan DuBois

Dedicated to the ‘Fantastic Four’ of Jeopardy!

Maggie Speak

Glenn Kagan

Robert James

Corina Nusu

And, of course, to the Great One

Alex Trebek

Author’s Note: This work is not authorized by Jeopardy!, CBS Television, Sony or any other company or entity associated with Jeopardy! Jeopardy!, CBS and Sony companies are all registered trademarks, and this work is not intended to infringe upon any of these trademarks.

1. Welcome Aboard!

"This… is… Jeopardy!"

How many times I’ve heard those very same words spoken by the famed Johnny Gilbert, whether on the couch at home with my wife, or at our weekend place on a lake in New Hampshire, or in a hotel room somewhere, traveling? Scores, if not hundreds of times. I’m sure you, dear reader, have had very similar experiences.

But today is so very, very different.

Today I’m three thousand miles from my home in Exeter, N.H., a rural town that’s home to the famed Phillips Academy prep school. I’m in a huge, cavernous and cubic soundstage on the Sony Entertainment lot in Los Angeles. I’m dressed in my best Navy blue blazer (okay, my only Navy blue blazer), light blue shirt, knotted Tartan bowtie, and my best brown loafers (okay, my only brown loafers). About twenty or so feet away is a huge display of video screens, six across and five deep. The familiar Jeopardy! logo is emblazoned across the top of the screen.

To the right of the screen is the podium that belongs to the one and only Alex Trebek, as well as a large video screen nearby that displays the Jeopardy! clues to the audience members. To the left is the usual and customary studio audience, and either sitting or standing in front of the audience is the scrum of producers, assistants, clue professionals and technicians who are the behind-the-scenes magicians that make this program work. Cameras and lights keep eye on all of us.

Overhead are metal bars, wiring, lights and microphones, with bare wood and black paint.

It has been an eventful, joyful, terrifying, bizarre and surreal day. It’s a Wednesday. At my home in Exeter, Wednesday is usually a laundry day, where I sort and do the household laundry while working on a novel or short story in my home office on the second floor.

But on this Wednesday in July, I’m at the Jeopardy! studios. I’m standing at the three-player podium, the furthest one to the right if you’re watching television. Next to me is Stephanie, a bubbly, laughing controller from San Diego with bright eyes and prominent dimples. We’re both up against the returning Jeopardy! champion, a well-dressed and professional looking high school English teacher from the Washington, D.C., area named Erica. She is polite, exquisitely dressed, well-mannered, and in the previous game, she easily crushed her competition, coming up with a Final Jeopardy question that I and others in the remaining contestant pool couldn’t even begin to answer.

She scares the wits out of me.

I hold the signaling device in my right hand. My mouth is dry. My heart is thumping right along.

This time, Johnny Gilbert’s voice isn’t coming from my television speakers. No, today, it’s coming from the man himself, about fifty feet away, standing behind his own well-lit podium, just beyond the group of technicians and writers.

I quickly recall what he has just said.

"This… is… Jeopardy!"

I swallow.

One thought comes to me:

How the hell did I get here?

2. Introduction

This is a short memoir of the time I spent auditioning for, preparing for, and taking part in probably the most well-known game show on the planet, Jeopardy! during the spring and summer of 2012. For those looking for a nasty, tell-all, behind-the-scenes account of being a small part of this famed program, sorry, you’re going to be disappointed. This isn’t that kind of work.

What I hope to do here is to tell others who have an interest in Jeopardy! of what it’s like to actually be there in the Sony studios, the funny and unusual incidents that occur during tape day, and the humorous, talented and dedicated people I met along the way who on Tuesdays and Wednesday most every week, corral about a couple dozen strangers from across the nation into taping ten separate and smoothly-running episodes. I also want to make note of the other contestants I met during this incredible journey, a unique collection of every day people who have incredible minds and talents, who came from all parts of the country with all sorts of fascinating backgrounds.

This memoir is based upon notes I took while out in Los Angeles, documents and e-mails from Jeopardy! producers, the actual game shows themselves, and my recollection of what happened. Any mistakes or errors are entirely my own.

3. Who I Am

A brief biographical sketch. I’m a professional author, having grown up in the mill city of Dover, N.H., one of six boys. My parents insisted that we all get library cards, and I remember weekly trips to the library, coming home with the limit of six books. Spent twelve years in Catholic schools, went to the University of New Hampshire in Durham, and graduated with a B.A. in English. After a brief career as a newspaper reporter and a longer career working in corporate communications, I started writing fiction professionally, selling short stories at first and then novels. As of this writing (April 2013) I’ve had sixteen novels and more than 120 short stories published.

Along the years, I read a lot. And when I mean a lot, I mean our home in Exeter is stuffed with bookshelves and books, at least several thousand of them. So perhaps I’ve been subconsciously training to be a Jeopardy! contestant all those years by reading volumes on history, science and biography.

I’ve read of other contestants and those who try out for the game, who really prep for the chance to be on the show. They do high school quiz tournaments, college Quiz Bowl games, and such over a span of a lifetime. They go to trivia tournaments, pub challenges, and play trivia games on a weekly basis.

Not me, I’m afraid. I’m just always had a thirst for reading, for learning new things, and a curiosity for why things happen the way they do. But over the years, there’s been a few times when the siren call of playing trivia against others called to me.

In college, I was on the staff of the university newspaper, called The New Hampshire. I recall that there was some sort of trivia challenge involving student organizations, and our newspaper set up a team, of which I was a member. Much to everyone’s surprise --- especially me --- we kicked butt and won our first round, and I remember one editor saying in awe, Great job, Brendan!

That was a good feeling. And in the next round of challenges, we got blown away by a competing team.

So much for my college trivia experiences.

In the early 1980s, the game Trivial Pursuit came out, and I took part in a number of games among friends and co-workers, and did pretty well, except for one category that to this today that still curses me: Sports. I can name the original Mercury astronauts, the names of the beaches for the June 1944 D-Day invasion, but when it comes to about 99 percent of sports trivia, I draw a blank. And I mean all sports. Football. Baseball. Basketball. Bocce. Australian Rules Football. Curling.

After leaving newspaper work, I was employed for a number of years in Corporate Communications at Seabrook Station, a nuclear power plant in Seabrook, N.H. A local restaurant was offering Trivia Night on Friday nights in their lounge, and I started tagging along, and finding it was a huge blast. The teams included other local companies, or just groups of friends, and it was always a loud and wonderful time. One night stands out: our department had been effectively run by an outside contract communications group for a number of years, and on this particular night, a group of them were in the area and were going to play against us and clean our clock.

This particular trivia competition was divided into three segments: Round One (where points were awarded for most correct answers), a Raw Bar question (where one trivia question was tossed out and the first team to answer won a raw bar appetizer for the group) and Round Two, where points from the first round were added to the second round, and a winner was announced. That night our team won both rounds and the game, and we also added insult to injury by winning the raw bar question. (To this day I remember that question, because I answered it first: what’s the name of Moscow’s famous department store? Answer: GUM).

That had been one special night.

4. My First Try To Get On Jeopardy!

Feeling pretty cocky right about then, and finding Jeopardy! on one of the local cable channels, I saw a TV advertisement promoting an upcoming tryout in Boston. Back in those pre-computer days, you had to send in a postcard to register. Postcard was sent, and several weeks later, in June 1996, I received a nice form letter from Jeopardy!, inviting me to take part in an audition at the The Westin Hotel at Copley Place in Boston.

I remember passing the letter around at work, showing people what I was about to do, and so many expressed envy or encouragement. On the appointed day, I took time off from work and drove the hour into Boston. I walked through the luxurious mall that’s part of the Copley complex, and hung outside a function room with scores of other Jeopardy! would-be contestants. And before we knew it, the doors flew open and we filed in, sitting at long banquet-style tables with pencils and glasses of water.

A female Jeopardy! representative announced the day’s program. We would take a 50-question test, and those tests would be scored. Those passing a certain score would be asked to stay around to play a practice round, using signaling devices similar to the real game. Up ahead was a screen, and it was explained that an A/V system would shortly display typical Jeopardy! questions. We would have several seconds to answer the question --- and we didn’t have to do it in the form of a question --- and good luck to all.

Then it began, and my hands began sweating and I felt like I was back in high school, taking my SAT tests. The recorded A/V program began, with the voice of Johnny Gilbert reading off the questions, with one question dissolving into another.

I began writing down my answers. The first few questions were relatively easy, and I felt pretty good.

Then, a tough one.

Blank.

The seven seconds went on… I kept on answering… and

Disaster!

I quickly realized that instead of leaving a line blank when I didn’t know the answer, I had written in that line… meaning I had been putting the right answers in the wrong places!

I tried to scramble to recover by renumbering the lines, drawing arrows…

Then the test ended. With the other applicants, I passed over my results, and sat back in the chair, kicking myself for screwing up. What was I thinking? Could I have done well enough even after the screw-up? Some of the other would-be contestants in the room chatted with others, but I kept my mouth shut.

Quickly enough, one of the Jeopardy! coordinators came out and announced the names of those would be invited to stick behind.

I waited. And waited.

Then it was over.

I slunked out with the other losers, and killed some time hanging out in the mall, and drove home.

When asked by friends and co-workers how it went, I said, Didn’t work out, and quickly changed the subject.

Yet I still have this form letter in my files.

5. Years Later, My Second Try

A number of years passed. I got married. Short stories and books were written and published. With the support of my wife Mona, I jumped into writing fulltime. Along the way, we watched Jeopardy! on occasion, but to satisfy our mutual inner geek, more often than not, we watched Star Trek: The Next Generation or re-runs of Babylon Five.

But at some point our early evening television viewing options dried up. We went back to watching Jeopardy!, was amazed at Ken Jennings’ incredible run, and the series of victories by Eddie Timanus, the first blind contestant to play the game. Jeopardy! soon became a regular part of our evening television viewing.

Then, one evening as we were watching in early 2011, there was a commercial break where Alex Trebek announced that a Jeopardy! on-line test would be taking place in February. If you passed this test, you had a chance to become a Jeopardy! contestant. I don’t know why it struck me then to try out. But I guess it seemed pretty easy, and best of all, I could do it from the proverbial privacy of my home. No chance of showing what a loser you were in a middle of a group of people, I thought. All you have to do is to go onto the Jeopardy! homepage on the Internet and sign up, which is what I do.

I got an e-mail back, saying I had successfully registered, and that the test was going to take place at 8 p.m., on Tuesday, February 8, 2011. This was going to be fun!

To get access to the "Jeopardy!’ site, I needed a code, and the code for me was TUCKER. I thought this was a good sign, was karma. Mona and I were blessed to have a liver-and-white English Springer Spaniel named Tucker, and even though I was raised a good Catholic boy (twelve years of Catholic education) I also have the old Irish Celtic superstition of signs and portents.

The

Reviews for My Short, Happy Life In "Jeopardy!"

[stewartry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This, here, is a review of this book - and also a recap of my short and happy life in Jeopardy so far. Two years ago (April 23) I had an email announcing that I had (somehow) passed the online Jeopardy! test I had taken in January, and they were pleased to invite me to an audition. Please RSVP within 48 hours. Seriously? Who’s going to wait longer than the time it takes to pick themselves up off the floor to respond? My audition was June 5 in NYC, and it was great fun, and ended up amounting to nothing. (All of which is described in excruciating detail in posts tagged – wait for it – “Jeopardy”.)A few weeks ago, the Saturday rerun of Jeopardy was one of Brendan Dubois’s episodes, and since my laptop was in front of me I headed to Amazon when Johnny Gilbert introduced him as a writer. And lo, there was ‘My Short, Happy Life In “Jeopardy!”‘, and I thought why not? and bought it. I had a blood drive soon after, and didn’t feel like schlepping the huge Wheel of Time volume I was in the middle of, so I went back to my late lamented Kindle Keyboard for the first time in a while, and spent the ridiculously long time they make a walk-in wait grinning like a complete fool reading Brendan’s account of his audition. If you put his side-by-side with mine, they’re almost identical – except that he remembered more names and details. (Robert James! That was the name of the man who took that dreadful headshot!)Then I broke my Kindle (yes, to those of you keeping score, again), and went without for a couple of weeks until payday.Then this past Thursday evening – coincidentally, as I was watching Jeopardy, and the return of Ken Jennings for the Battle of the Decades – I opened up my email. The fact that there was one from Jeopardy! didn’t fluster me too much – I’m on the mailing list, so I’ve learned not to get too excited after the last few turned out to be just reminders of the tournaments going on. And the subject line didn’t entirely give me pause: “Jeopardy! Contestant Auditions in Boston on May 12th at 11:30 am”. My thought was more “What about them?” It was when I opened it – abandoning my attempt to play against The Jennings – and read“Congratulations! You have been selected for a follow-up appointment at an upcoming Jeopardy! contestant search for the Boston area, exclusively for those who successfully passed the online test. This is the next step in becoming a Jeopardy! contestant”- that I started whooping.(Is anyone reading this near Boston?)And last night I went back to reading Brendan Dubois’s account of his experience. And it was fun. Up to a point it is so very much like mine – and where it diverges it’s so very instructive and enlightening. This book answered quite a few questions and concerns I had about the logistics of, say, being a New Englander called to Los Angeles for the show; Brendan Dubois was a New Englander called to LA for the show. The possibility of heading off into completely alien territory is less daunting with a really clear roadmap. And this book certainly gives an astonishing amount of detail, from an idea of what the Jeopardy studio smells like to exactly what you see from the player’s podium to exactly what happens in the Green Room and on the sidelines. It demystifies the possibilities without detracting at all from the excitement.And it was just a fun read, this tale of a man’s attempts to get on the show, his achievement, his success – and his downfall, and the epilogue of watching himself on tv (or trying to). Brendan’s buoyant enthusiasm over the whole adventure is contagious, and nothing like the rather jaded and cynical tone Ken Jennings adopts in his book about his experience. I can only hope to have as much fun as Brendan Dubois had – and at least as much success. (More would be nice…)