My Jeopardy! Appearance
Most people that know me know that I was on Jeopardy! within moments of meeting me. This isn't any of my doing, but without fail, it's very easy to go "Hey, meet my friend Chris, he's my friend that was on Jeopardy!". Being born in Florida, I know there are way worse things that one could be known for, so I'll gladly take this introduction.
However, most of my friends haven't seen the full videos of my episodes. This seems like the most reasonable place to resolve that.
Day 1: Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
Fun notes:
- Yes, I almost swore on my first response. It was great.
- So the way interviewing works is that before you show up, you fill out a good 12-page questionnaire asking you questions like "bring 5 things to a desert island" and "what's something unusual about you that no one else has done". Then, before your episode, the contestant coordinators will select a few topics from that questionnaire and practice an interview on each one. They then circle the one that is the most interesting for Alex to read, but Alex is allowed to go off and choose anything on the card if he wants. The contestant coordinator and I both decided me talking about eggs was the opposite of interesting, and me talking about tennis was way better. Alex decided to go rogue, and that's why I have probably one of the worst interview topics in Jeopardy! history.
- My Final Jeopardy answer was basically a guess. I could remember a TV ad at the time for Chicago and I could remember a prison cell. I had no idea about any of the other hints in that Final Jeopardy. I've watched it since, I promise.
- They tape five episodes in a day, and between the Wednesday and Thursday episodes was the lunch break on the Sony Studios lot. I had so much adrenaline rushing through me for a good 20 minutes after this game that I couldn't even fathom eating, and I've never seen my hands shaking as much as they did then.
Day 2: Thursday, March 4th, 2004
Fun notes:
- I have no idea why I went dressier this episode.
- I almost went true daily double for $10k, and got spooked by muskellunge. I talked myself out of it, and I knew exactly what an archaeopteryx was, which is why I sounded annoyed. I was, indeed, annoyed.
- Matt asked me if I wanted to go out drinking after the last episode taped since we both had all of the sudden won a fair amount of money. I was 20 so I had to pass. Matt, if somehow you ever read this, I would 100% go drinking with you now. You name the place and bar.