What is: "Oh My God, I Made It On Jeopardy!"?

Ilissa Gold '04
by Ilissa Gold '04

I have been a trivia buff for my entire life, even during my time at USN.  I represented USN in the state Geography Bee in 8th grade, joined the Quiz Bowl team the next year as the only freshman and the only girl on the team, and became captain of what had become a very successful team during my junior year.  Naturally, I have been a lifelong Jeopardy! watcher, and I had always dreamed about competing on the show and meeting Alex Trebek.  But until the day I arrived at Sony Studios in Los Angeles for my taping on October 9, 2013, I never thought it would happen to me.
 
Jeopardy! offers an online test from which they select contestants every January.  I had taken the test for several years, and took it again in January 2013.  A few months later, I received an email letting me know that I was one of approximately 3,000 people, out of hundreds of thousands who had taken the test, who had been selected for an in-person audition.  At the audition in April, I took another test, did a practice round with the buzzer, and answered interview questions on-camera.  Even then, I had no expectation of actually being selected for the show—I was told they only picked about 200 people to go into the contestant pool out of everyone who auditioned.  Imagine my surprise on getting a phone call in September letting me know I had been picked—I had actually forgotten all about auditioning by that point! 
 
I sprang into action to prepare.  I used the website j-archive.com, which has every clue from every single episode of Jeopardy!, to prepare for possible topics.  A friend of mine who had been on the show advised me to DVR Jeopardy! and practice buzzing in by using the pause button on the remote control, something I did every day for a month.  And of course, I had to spend plenty of time picking out possible outfits and thinking up anecdotes for Alex Trebek to ask me about.
 
Even though I was told to come to Sony Studios for that day’s taping on October 9, I didn’t know for sure if I would even be taped for the show that day.  I was told when they called me that they often pick Los Angeles locals to be standby contestants, and that’s what I would be.  That morning, there was one other local Los Angeles contestant, and we were told they would pick between the two of us for the final taping of the day.
 
Jeopardy! does five tapings—an entire week’s worth of episodes—in one day.  I sat with the other contestants in the studio audience for the first four tapings, going back into the green room with them in between tapings.  After the fourth taping, I was told that I would be competing on the final taping, and I had 15 minutes to prepare.  But nothing can prepare you for being on stage, having the lights on you, hearing the famous Jeopardy! music and Johnny Gilbert announcing “An attorney originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Ilissa Gold.”  I couldn’t stop grinning in that moment, knowing that it was actually happening. 

I should say at this point that I didn’t actually get to interact with Alex Trebek all that much.  I took a picture with him at the beginning and he gave my anecdote halfway through the show (about going scuba-diving with sharks in Bora Bora)—and that was it.  He did take questions from the audience during the commercial breaks, and I can report that he does appreciate the Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy! spoof.
 
I held my own during the first round and finished in a close second going into Double Jeopardy.  I had zeroed in on the “Change You Can Believe In” category, hoping it would be about President Obama, even though it was about coins.  In Double Jeopardy, I fell behind into third place—I knew the answers but was not buzzing in fast enough.  However, I was fortunate to get a Daily Double in a category about historical women.  Knowing that I’d have to make a large wager to get back into it and that it wouldn’t matter if I finished second or third, I said the magic words: “Let’s make it a true Daily Double.”  I immediately knew that the answer was “Who is Lucrezia Borgia?” and my wager paid off, catapulting me back into second place going into Final Jeopardy. 
 
The Final Jeopardy category was 20th century quotes.  As history was a strong subject for me, I decided to bet everything again.  The clue, “In 1947, Winston Churchill said that this form of government is the worst, except all of the others that have been tried,” was in my opinion one of the easier questions of the whole episode.  All three of us correctly answered, “What is democracy?”  Even though I had doubled my score, I still finished just short of first place, coming in second by $2.
 
Even though I didn’t win, I have no regrets—I played my heart out, I had a blast, and I got to live out one of my longest held dreams.  I would encourage anyone who loves trivia to take the Jeopardy! test—you never know if you might end up where I was!
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