Dedicated to all of those in the Jeopardy! thread here
You know when Alex is doing the little interview segment with the contestants. You don’t have the time for any long drawn-out yarn. (My guess is that they get but 10 seconds.) Also there isn’t the need to provide your most inspiring tale of triumph -in fifty words or less- you have to save the good stuff for what to say as a returning champion.
Since the contestants obviously decide ahead of time what they want to share, what would you go with?
As for me, I think I would steer clear of talking about my profession -high school teacher. I think maybe I would riff on my status as an amateur musician. I own four guitars, a piano, and a banjo and can play them all as well as the harmonica and ukulele and I was a drummer in the marching band in high school.
There that would fill my ten seconds of exclusive air time.
I don’t know. That seems rather lame but as I said, I’d be saving the good stuff for my future appearances as returning champ.
Not that I’m expecting a call from them, but I have one dead easy story. My mom was on the show back in 1994, or thereabouts. Also not that Alex would probably remember her, though she did at least lose to the then highest-earning female contestant on said contestant’s fifth day (she tied for second!), but if I’d done better on the $%*# online test, maybe I could have bragged about her on national TV! Dangit.
There is also my gigantic-belch-in-choir story, but I wouldn’t let them hear about that!
Alex: Now, bouv, am I to understand that you were once attacked by a bear?
Me: That’s right, Alex. I was in the boy scouts, camping in New Mexico, when my tent-mate and I were woken in the middle of the night by a rustling sound. I suddenly felt a pain in my ankle and that corner of the tent suddenly collapsed. At first I thought a branch had fell, but then I see my tent-mates head whip back towards me and it’s covered in blood, and there are large gashes in the tent, and I realize there is a quite irate bear outside the tent. We were eventually able to scare it away, and my tent-mate has almost no scars from the attack.
Well, you have to provide the producers with three or four “fun” anecdotes, which they either a) decide which one to give to Alex, or b) Alex gets all of them and then he decides which to use. I think it’s the latter. Alex riffed on my love of Bruce Lee movies (which became philosophical rather than funny, as I intended) on my first day, and then the origins of my name the second. The common thread is him. He likes to have the fun facts connect to him in some way, I’ve noticed.
Alex: I understand that you once chased a giraffe off a runway?
Eureka: Yes. While in Botswana on safari with my grandmother, we stayed at a couple of small but luxurious camps which we reached by light aircraft. The runway was a long, level stretch of relatively short grass. It was common to see wildlife on the runway, because it gave them a better view to watch for predators. Our guide drove our jeep towards three giraffes to make them leave the runway. It took a while before the giraffes decided that it would be less annoying to just leave the runway.
Alex: Panache, it says here that you almost lost your life on the island of Guadeloupe.
Panache: Yes, I was driving through one of the national parks, and had to pull over onto the shoulder. Unfortunately, the shoulder wasn’t as flat as it had appeared, and there was a drop of several hundred feet to my right. The car started rolling toward the drop, reaching a 45-degree angle and literally teetering on the edge. Then I was rescued by a busload of French tourists. When I return tomorrow, ask me about Horseshoe Canyon.
Alex: Annie, I hear you once e-mailed a very ubusual photograph to a celebrity.
Annie: Yes, there was a photograph of Jesus on the cross, his body and uplifted arms forming a perfect “Y.” There were three guys next to it, forming the “M-C-A.” I e-mailed it to a member of the Village People.
I’ve been told that Ashton Kutcher, Dan Aykroyd and Marge Simpson also have webbed toes.
As it is, I use my webbed toes as the piece of ‘real trivia’ when ever I have to engage in the ‘icebreaker’ that requires people to list X facts, all lies, and one truth. (Or the opposite).