“C’mon, Trebek, let the people see my work.”
Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.
When Jeopardy! came back on the air in 1984, with dashing mustachioed Canadian Alex Trebek as host, I was twelve years old. And when I was twelve years old, I watched an almighty whack-ton of TV. In 1984 my family didn’t have cable, or even a VCR yet, but we all managed to spend a lot of time in front of the television. Boy howdy did we love us some Jeopardy!
We watched together, shouting out answers at the TV, racing to beat each other to the answers. It was similar to another favorite family pastime, after all - playing Trivial Pursuit (which gained huge popularity in the U.S. in 1984 after having been created in Canada in 1979. Canada has graced the world with many great gifts to trivia!). One of the greatest days of my high school career was the day when I was recruited for the It’s Academic team, where I eventually made the on-air team and helped give my high school its best finish ever up to that time.
Clearly I have a thing for collecting relatively useless knowledge. And I’m kind of fond of buzzers.
Last week I reclined on my couch with my MacBook, little Katie curled up sleeping at my side, and took the Jeopardy! online test yet again. That makes my third time taking the online test, and I also took the in-person test once before the online ones were standard. Two out of those four times I wound up in the contestant pool for 18 months, so the next step is waiting to see if I am randomly selected from people who scored well enough on the online test to get an “audition” when the Jeopardy! crew comes to D.C. Maybe the they will, and then maybe the third time will be the charm!
The first time I made it into the contestant pool, my grandmother told everyone her granddaughter was going to be on the show, so that was a little embarrassing. Sometimes I wonder why I keep trying, basically asking for the chance to spend a bunch of money getting to Los Angeles for a few days of being terribly nervous, but then I’ll sit and watch. And I’ll know a bunch of stuff, and not know a bunch of stuff, but I’ll have a really good time. And I can already think of some funny stories to tell Alex Trebek…