What do Weird Al Yankovich and I Have in Common? We Both "Lost on Jeopardy"!

One of the crazier challenging things I chose to do this year was to go on national (possibly international) TV and very probably make a fool of myself! Each year, over 100,000 people take the Jeopardy on-line test and of those, only 400 people are selected to be contestants on the show. I was, depending how you look at it, one of those fortunate or one of those deluded people who think they’ve got a chance. But, let me tell you, being a successful, winning contestant is not as easy as it looks at home. First of all, the people you’re playing against are no dummies and those darn buzzers are impossible to master – at least for me. I went in with a fear that I’d be one of those poor schleps that were in the red when the game got to Final Jeopardy and had to leave the stage. When the real game began I was totally challenged by not being able to ring in many times (you’ve seen those players going crazy with their thumbs – I think that was me), ringing in too quickly or hesitating just a millisecond too long and missing out on what should have been an easy answer.

Putting myself out there to be on this show was a bit of a risk, but, the way I look at this experience and, pretty much life in general is, “why the heck not?”. I’m proud that I tested well enough to qualify and performed strongly enough in the auditions to be selected. The taping day at the studio was a blast. My taping date was back in November of 2011. Let me tell you, you don't get any questions or study materials before you test, audition or tape. You bring in just what you happen to know and just hope that the categories are consistent with your personal data base.

Of course, I got to meet Alex Trebek and meet Jimmy from the Clue Crew. Those of us who taped in the afternoon got to eat lunch at the Sony Canteen and see a lot of behind the scenes studio happenings in the production of Jeopardy. I got to have my make-up done by an artist and, hey, even the runners up win some money.

Since moving to California in the mid 80’s, I’ve had the opportunity to be on several game shows including Scrabble, The Home Shopping Game, Joker’s Wild, Win Ben Stein’s Money, Shop ‘Til You Drop, Crosswords and now, Jeopardy. I actually did win Ben Stein’s money in 1997; and Heidi and I won a ton of prizes and a fun weeklong ski trip to Vermont in 2004. You win some and you lose some. I’ve found I do much better when I’m not focused on winning but just focus on enjoying the experience itself.

I apologize for not posting this earlier. I was feeling very insecure about not winning and didn't want to invite the world to watch me lose, but I realize now that was a mistake. Although, it was just slightly painful for me to watch -- I know that other people are not so critical (so I'll keep a copy and try to share it in the future).

By the way, I did stay in through final Jeopardy but still came in third. Now what to do with my big $1,000 prize? (I'll report on that in a future blog.)

http://www.swrnn.com/2012/03/02/local-game-show-veteran-to-take-on-jeopardy-tonight/