Jeopardy! memories - Part 1
I’ll write a little (ok a lot) here about the experience of being on Jeopardy. It’s properly styled Jeopardy! and I know that, but in this text I’ve just written Jeopardy. I’ll post Part 2 after the air date of Wednesday, May 13th.
My Jeopardy! contestant origin story
I’ve always watched Jeopardy. I can’t remember a period of my life where I didn’t watch it. And living outside the US for most of my adult life, it has often been complicated to find a way to watch it, but I’ve put in the effort. I’ve always been in awe of the contestants, and also - vaguely and passively - thought, “wouldn’t it be amazing to go on the show?” But I never pursued it. Why? All the normal reasons: intense self-doubt, of course. And also, the idea of appearing on TV is scary! And what if I answer a question wrong? Etc.
Well, in January 2023, my grandpa turned 100 years old. I flew from Finland to Los Angeles to go to his 100th birthday party. It was going to be a quick trip, but I knew I’d have half a day or so for something fun and I checked to see if there would be any Jeopardy tapings while I was there. As luck would have it, there was a taping day during my trip and I was able to get audience tickets for my mom and me for the morning session on the same day as my afternoon flight out of LAX to go back to Finland.
That taping session was an amazing experience, and I am so glad that my mom and I were able to go together. After my trip, I posted on Instagram about it and included a selfie of me in front of an Alex Trebek poster. An old childhood friend commented something like, “oh, good, you finally went on Jeopardy!” and her complete and unflinching confidence in me - like OF COURSE I would be on Jeopardy - made me think…what if?
Application timeline
There are two online knowledge tests (one independent and one live/proctored) and then an online mock game/audition that you have to pass to get on the contestant list. Being on the list is not a guarantee you will be on the show; your name expires off the list in two years and you have to re-apply from scratch to try to get back on.
I got on the show after two application rounds. The first time around, my independent test, then live test, then mock game all took place within February 2023 - a very fast process. But I never got “The Call” to be on the show. The second time around, I took the first test in March 2025 but didn’t get an invite to the live exam until August. The invitation for the mock game came in September. I got “The Call” in February 2026 and taped in March 2026.
The audition process
These days, the tests and auditions all take place online. Because of the time difference between Finland and the US West Coast, my live protctored exams and the mock games took place late at night. I wish I had a photo of my second mock game setup - the most sensible arrangement I could think of was my laptop propped up on the treadmill display board, with a living room lamp moved into the corner for light, and me standing on the treadmill. I was terrified that I would accidentally press a button and turn ON the treadmill and have to play while running; this did not happen. The treadmill setup did lend a certain homemade gravitas to the situation and I also realized that the treadmill was podium-like, which was a boost to getting in the right headspace for the mock game.
The thing about the audition process is that you basically go through it…and then you need to forget about it. You may never get The Call. In fact, odds are - overwhelmingly so - that you WON’T get The Call. Part of you will even hope that you don’t get The Call (or was that just me?). Schroedinger’s Jeopardy Contestant was, in some ways, a comfier role to inhabit. “I passed all the tests to get on Jeopardy. How would I actually do as a contestant? Who knows? But I could be a contestant, so.”
The Call
My call came somewhat circuitously since we have a weird phone number for boring living overseas logistical reasons. When I finally spoke with a producer, he was very coy about why he was calling - some nonsense about updating my contact info. Then he pivoted and informed me that they would like to invite me to come on the show and I immediately started screaming inside. (I don’t think I stopped screaming inside until my taping was over.) I was worried I couldn’t make it work with my work schedule, but the stars aligned and the proposed taping days were in an exact window where I could actually go.
There was a lot of paperwork back-and-forth, and travel arrangements to make over the next few weeks, but everything eventually fell into place. Every single day from the time I got The Call until I walked onto the studio lot was…sparkly? I could be doing the most mundane, everyday task but all around me was an aura of “I am going to go on Jeopardy!”
Also, can I just say: find yourself a family who, when you tell them you’re going on Jeopardy, immediately reply, on the home front: “go, we’ll take care of everything at home!”; and, in the US, “when is it so I can come support you as an audience member?” The level of support I received from my family was instrumental in making the travel plans/logistics work, but also in having the confidence to actually walk onto that stage when it was time. I had about 30 seconds to quietly ponder, standing at the podium after sound and camera checks but before filming started, and I was flooded with an almost overwhelming feeling of “there are people who love me who are showing up for me in all the ways and I am so grateful for that.”
Preparation: studying and practicing
How do you study for Jeopardy? Well, you kind of don’t. The best way to “study” for Jeopardy is by cultivating curiosity over a lifetime. But of course, there are also specific, predictable categories of knowledge you can prepare for. Because I enjoy it, over the years I have kept up on geography to the extent that at any given time, I can usually name all or almost all the countries and capital cities of the world. Just as a baseline (I legitimately enjoy this, I promise). This gave me a huge head start on more focused studying once I knew I was going on the show.
When I sat down and had a look at the time remaining before my tape date (about 3-4 weeks), and factored in the demands of everyday life/work/family, I decided to focus on studying three subjects that were known weak spots for me: US presidents, Shakespeare, and Greek Mythology. I thought that would be all I had time for, but in the end I was able to also brush up on: poetry/poets/authors, the solar system/planets/moons, explorers, some ancient empires/civilizations (“P for Peru and I for Inca equals P-I-zarro”), Constitutional amendments, operas/composers, and English monarchs. What I noticed was that at a certain point, information wouldn’t stick anymore and I had to put down study materials and do something else. A fun studying-ish activity was watching random YouTube documentaries with the kids (lots of Useful Charts, plus a few about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union).
An unexpected gentle-studying-by-osmosis win was episodes of the TV show Timeless. Magdalena suggested it and I would say I learned 3-5 historical facts from each episode! That was a really nice way to sit with the family and relax, while also getting some stealth studying in.
The best way I can describe studying when you are actually preparing to go on the show is that you can’t let anything you encounter go unknown. Whatever reference you come across in any source that you don’t know, you have to look it up. My Wikipedia tabs were unhinged during this period. At one point on the flight to LAX, when I had messaging but not internet access, I suddenly couldn’t remember the difference between entente and detente and had to text Miriam to ask her to explain it via text message. You just have to know stuff!
I also thought it would be good to rehearse some of the practicalities of playing a live game of Jeopardy. On the weeknights before I went on the show, my family and I would turn on Jeopardy. I watched each episode standing behind the couch with a clicky pen in my hand to use as a buzzer, “ringing in,” and giving the answer in the form of a question. During the interview portion, we would pause the episode and Magdalena would act as Ken Jennings and go through one of my little anecdotes (I had to provide a list of topics to the show ahead of time, so she did her best Ken impression while asking me about one of them). Magdalena also helped me practice looking at the camera during the intro music.
Most of this practicing was done around 10pm, with me already showered for the night and in my pajamas and fluffy robe - and usually absolutely exhausted. I figured it was good practice for being jet-lagged during my taping (and it was). Another quirky handicap of these practice sessions was that the quality of the Jeopardy episode uploads on YouTube during this period was for some reason uniquely terrible - distorted audio that made it sound like a jet engine was constantly taking off in the background, plus a huge “like & subscribe” logo superimposed over half the screen with large bouncing arrows pointing at it, and poor resolution overall. It wasn’t exactly replicating real-world Jeopardy conditions but it did make the actual playing experience in the studio much, much clearer and crisper!
Time to go!
Eventually, in mid-March, I found myself on a flight to Los Angeles! I pared down my studying at this point to selected podcast episodes (mostly Totalus Rankium: US Presidents, and The Rest is History about Roman Emperors) and I took one of Sterling’s children’s atlases with me to read on the plane - maps with little pictures and fun facts. My parents and I arrived at LAX around the same time. I think for the rest of that day I just tried to stay awake (and failed - I went to bed around 6pm and woke up FOR THE DAY at 12.30am, an all-time worst jetlag outcome). The next day, we visited some family in the LA area, including my 103-year-old grandpa and my 100-year-old grandma. That afternoon, I studied wagering with my dad - he came up with scenario after scenario and timed me while I did the math, and then checked my answers - over and over again. Then my parents and I went out to the pool area and sat in the early evening sun while basically talking about all the stuff we didn’t know, and why, and also some stuff we did know - astronauts and California history…and operas, somehow, again. Then I let jet lag take over and went to try to get a few more hours of sleep before heading to the studio in the morning.
