SMART ALEX: “Jeopardy” is auditioning a handful of hopefuls in New York this week. Anchorwoman Jodi Applegate (top) — who competed in the celeb version of the game show years ago — relives the thrill of the thumb and the agony of the heat. (
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‘Jeopardy!” is holding tryouts in a Midtown hotel this week for a few hundred selected people.
You don’t get invited to this session unless you already passed the online quiz.
I went to the audition. Turns out, the process is not about whether you know the presidents or geography.
None of that matters if you’re not good TV.
In my session — the first of about 16 this week — there are about 20 hopefuls. We get Polaroids taken. We fill out personal questionnaires.
These become the basis of the mini-bio moment in each show.
But on “Jeopardy!” it’s all about the buzzer. Plus you’re supposed to speak twice as loud as normal.
And for God’s sake, have a fascinating anecdote when Alex comes over.
Everyone files into a conference room with a huge Jeopardy board on the wall. Suddenly, this seems like a sacred space. Like a cathedral of barely useful knowledge.
The contestant coordinators give us their super-energetic spiel about how the clues often have other clues imbedded in them. And how the category names contain extra hints.
I am not allowed to give examples. Secrecy is a big deal at these tryouts.
At one point, a man in a trench coat appears at the back of the room . . . and everyone went quiet until he was made to leave.
Then we get a written 50-question quiz, which most describe as “harder than the online quiz.”
And they gave us “Jeopardy” pens to practice our buzzer technique.
Finally, we all play a mock round on camera, three at a time and — at last! — real buzzers.
We get a tutorial on thumb pressure and timing.
If you buzz in before Alex is done reading the question, you get locked out.
Buzz too late and you can’t prove that you actually know anything.
(Actually there’s a light — invisible to the home viewer — that comes on the nano-second Alex stops reading. That is your real cue to buzz.)
And if you thought the contestants on TV who hit their buzzers incessantly are off their meds, you’d be incorrect. (“Oh sore-y.”)
The producers tell us to keep hitting the button over and over because that increases the odds of getting through.
To my surprise, I buzzed through quite a few times. Though I didn’t try unless I was sure of the answer.
I auditioned over the weekend with the College Tournament group. (The adults are scheduled through the rest of the week.)
I rationalized that, even though I have some more life experience, they’re more accustomed to taking tests. That gives them an unfair advantage, I am convinced. (Mature, huh?)
After the mock round, a producer, standing in for Alex, asks us about our really, really interesting selves.
One young man from Toronto shares that he has eaten kangaroo, jellyfish and scorpion. If he wins, he says he’ll spend his windfall on a TransSiberian Railroad trip while reading “War and Peace.”
I blanked when mock-Alex got to me.
I muttered something lame about using the cash to “build a community garden.” (Wha’?)
So would I have made it onto the real show?
The producers absolutely will not tell you what score you got on the test. Though it’s widely believed you need to score at least 70 percent.
I think I got about that.
Full disclosure: I was a contestant once on “Celebrity Jeopardy” about 14 years ago.
They don’t make you audition for that.
Tens of thousands of wannabes take the online quiz every year, and that’s winnowed down to a few hundred slots who are going through “Jeopardy” Hell Week right now in Midtown.
They all dream of being the next Ken Jennings, the all-time “Jeopardy!” champ.
But even Jennings ultimately lost to an IBM Computer. So much for personality.