My middle son tried out 3 times - once for kids Jeopardy and twice for teen. I really thought he would be called the second time but when I saw the kids that were chosen who I recognized from his call, they were all so unique. My suburban Eagle Scout history buff seemed boring in comparison and he is fairly soft spoken in crowds. After that, I got the bug to audition.
I don’t want to go on the show, but I wanted to prove (to myself) that my brain still worked. I took the online test last year and went to a live audition last spring. It was fun and I think I did ok on the written test but I am introverted in real life and phobic about being photographed. I did ok with the buzzer, but I said I would travel and pay for S17’s college with my winnings (in my defense, my audition was shortly before commitment day and college cost was high on my mind). I also don’t have an interesting life. I was told I could not take this year’s online test. I doubt it will be called and I sort of hope I won’t, because my bucket list dream extended only as far as passing the test. In fact, this is the first time I am telling anyone that I even went to an audition. It was something I did for myself.
Being on Jeopardy was something I did for myself. I got annoyed at DH who told everyone he could that I was going to be on the show (I finished 2nd to a 5-time champ). I didn’t care if anyone saw me on the show. For awhile after the episode ran, all anyone wanted to talk to me about was being on Jeopardy. I got tired of repeating the same stories of my experience over and over. I did it for my own self-satisfaction, not for recognition. The experience, itself, was great.
I am impressed with each of you who has just taken the test. I am sure I am not nearly smart enough and certainly not fast enough to answer quickly. Who Wants to be a Millionaire would be more my speed. I might possibly be able to pick out the answer with multiple choices.
So far, there have been posts saying you are not supposed to answer “what will you do with the money if you win” with pay off bills, pay student debt, or travel. So what would be an acceptable answer?
I think I missed 8 questions on the online test this time. Several I just plain didn’t know, but others I didn’t think of the answer quickly enough to type it - 15 seconds isn’t very long, to read, think, and type - and I type fast.
Hoping to get another live audition. Ken Jennings didn’t get on the show until his second live audition!
Amazing, really, 330 million Americans and so much Jeopardy experience filtered into CC … must be the same types of personality. I could never succeed on a show like that as I have huge gaps in my knowledge. Music, movies, TV, give me an automatic zero.
I love Jeopardy. Watched it with my dad years ago and then my kids. If the categories lined up perfectly for me, I think I could be incredibly mediocre on the show. There are days I do very well. And other days when there are multiple categories that get blank stares from me (often even after the answer is revealed).
I have really come to enjoy the tournament of champions to see how well they do with very much ramped up difficulty. Teen tournament is more to my ability. At least if they stay away from current pop culture categories. LOL
Arthur Chu lives in the area. I went to a watch party for the second day of the final for the tournament of champions at a local bar. He was there with his family watching. He finished second. Julia Collins was fun to watch that season and she finished third in that ToC.
I think anyone who gets on the show should be very proud. No matter how you do.
I went to graduate school with a guy who lived for Jeopardy. Taped shows back when VHS was a thing and watched them with the remote in his hand. If he stopped the tape before the real contestants rang in and got the question right, he gave himself the points. He eventually made it on the show in the 90s but lost. There was some issue with the show (problem with a question maybe?). They invited him back on another show and he won one game.
If you get called in for an audition, you will be in a hotel conference room in a group of about 30, and I think they see three groups a day. The producers try to make it fun, explain how the buzzer works (you have to wait for lights to come on before you can ring in), take your photo, tell you Jeopardy! stories, and make sure you’ve done the paperwork, which is mainly to get you to think of something to say to Alex for those few seconds he talks to each contestant.
You take a written test that is a lot like the online one (quick and on many different subjects), and they correct it right away, while you wait. Then you will be called up to the front of the room, in groups of three, to play a short mock game from a screen. They talk to everybody for a minute or two before you play, and that’s your chance to make an impression. They haven’t looked at your paper, so they ask the same few questions over and over, most commonly something about what you would do with your winnings.
You’ll only have those precious few minutes to show how clever, unique and personable you are (it is a game show, after all). If you can think of something that makes you stand out, gets them to talk to you for an extra minute, maybe write something good on your photo, it helps your chances to get that amazing phone call to go to Los Angeles.
IIRC, they told my group that about 100,000 people typically take the online test, 30,000 pass, and they audition 3,000 to get 300 contestants. So a unique answer helps!
My kids were on an academic quiz team in high school. When we went to a watch party for the TV show when the team was on, the team had been at a regional competition that day (and qualified for states). Teacher who was the team coach told everyone that lucked out that they didn’t get a sports category. They didn’t have even one kid on the team who knew any sports of any kind.
Was a little like these recent Jeopardy contestants who didn’t even respond (much less get a question right) in a football category (Alex’s reactions were priceless):
I thought I was golden after my live audition, because I made a quip that made the contestant coordinator laugh, and later I overheard her repeating it to one of her colleagues. Alas, I never got The Call.
Meanwhile, while I waited, I boned up on presidents, capitals, and Canada. (My other weaknesses, pop music and sports, are irremediable.) If I get another try, I am more prepared.
The video is classic! I’d look like the deer in the headlights too, although I always surprise myself when I watch at home how many sports questions I get right because I’m sports illiterate.
“I have really come to enjoy the tournament of champions to see how well they do with very much ramped up difficulty.”
The material is definitely harder in the TOC, but even more challenging than that is that the level of the competition is higher. In the regular season games I won four of my five wins by runaway - an unbeatable lead going into FJ. But when I played my first TOC game against my fellow 5-time champs I felt like I had been hit by a truck. It felt like desperate hand-to-hand combat the whole way. I won that quarterfinal match, but instead of a runaway I had to pull out a close win in FJ. And then in the next round one of the others pulled out a close win in FJ and I got the lovely parting gifts.
“I’m curious. They occasionally make corrections. Do contestants have any way to request that a question be reviewed?”
Yes, if you have doubts you can bring them up at the next commercial break and the judges will consider it. Sometimes the judges themselves will realize that an incorrect answer should have been accepted and will stop the game and get the score corrected.
I don’t know if this made any difference in getting picked for the show, but after my tryout I was waiting in the hallway (just outside the conference room where we tried out) for DH and S2 (we had to travel for the tryout) to meet me, when one of the contestant coordinators passed me, said hello, to which I replied “That was really fun”. My enthusiasm for the game must’ve been apparent from both that encounter and the mock game.
Someone up thread asked about what other than tuition/travel…for me it was being able to start my small business. They liked that. One of my anecdotes was having lived in 5 countries during my teens (not as a military family) and learning 2 foreign languages during that time. They liked that as well.
Another Jeopardy fan here. I’ve taken the online test several times, never called. Missed it this week. I doubt I could ever be on the show–too much anxiety. I’m pretty good in my living room, though! I recently started recording the shows – I skip the interviews because they are usually awkward and I have sympathetic embarrassment for the contestants.
I am watching Jeopardy right now and am shocked that I got all of the baseball questions right. Of course, they were baseball history, but still… My weaknesses are things like classical music (I wasn’t exposed to it as a child because it was considered “church music” in my Orthodox Jewish school so I really only know the obvious things like The Nutcracker), math and geography with pictures. I am good at things like names of countries and cities but I can’t do maps.
Like many others on this thread, I read voraciously. I try to read various newspapers and periodicals, including things like People Magazine (a source of info on pop music and culture in doses small enough that this baby boomer can tolerate), I scroll through IMDB.com whenever I watch a movie or TV show and I often Google something that catches my attention with the thought that if it catches my interest, it may catch that of the clue writers.
Honestly, if I had to do any other career but the one I already have, I would love to be a clue writer on Jeopardy.
My greatest moment of Jeopardy irony: in my fifth and final regular season game I missed the 3rd Daily Double in the category Colleges and Universities.
The Clue: “This is the only school in the Ivy league known as a college and not a University.” I didn’t know and guessed Brown, losing $3000 in the process.
The Irony: About two decades later my younger daughter graduated from Dartmouth COLLEGE.