I wasn’t a Doper then, but I was on an episode that filmed in December of '04 and aired in the summer of '05 after the big tournament of everyone they could lure back to play against Jennings.
I came in 3rd, alas. All three of us got FJ wrong, but I was the sucker who bet everything but $1. It was such a close game that creative wagering meant that the second place finisher ended up taking home more money from the game than the champ, his final winnings were around $1,300 but second place is a guaranteed $2,000.
Looking at the dates on this therad I’m wondering (and this would be a huge coincidence) if I ended up taking TeaElle’s place. I was scheduled then they called me and asked if I could come sooner because they had someone drop out due to a family emergency. It doesn’t look like she posts here anymore, but I’d love to find out. It’d be weird if it were.
Kind of misleading, as KittenKat doesn’t get to take home $5,998, but rather only $2,000 (the second place prize), only the champ gets what’s on their scoreboard.
Doesn’t matter. Whenever someone has told me their final score, I’ve included it.
It was even worse early on, when second and third place only got prizes, not cash. Although I think the value of my 2nd-palce prize, a Bahamas-Disneyworld cruise/vacation for two, was probably worth a lot more than $2,000 in 1991 dollars.
I tried out for the Teen Tournament back in 1989. It was a fun experience although I didn’t make it past the first round. I got 40 out of 50 questions correct but the cut off was 45!! Anyway, my parents had gone with me to the Golden West Studios (I believe that was the name at the time…home of KTLA-TV) in Los Angeles. During the testing, all other visitors were kept in the studio set next door…where they filmed SOUL TRAIN. I recall my father saying that the iconic neon logo depicting the “soul train” looking a lot smaller than it did on TV. Hehehe.
Seaborgium won the last 5 games of last season and came in 2nd in the first game of this season:
7/20/2009 16200 winner
7/21/2009 17017 winner
7/22/2009 28801 winner
7/23/2009 20000 winner
7/24/2009 16400 winner
9/14/2009 2000 2nd place
Total $100,418 GilaB won 3,000 in her win, plus she got $2000 for her second place finish. A total of 5K
Since second and third place contestants formerly received prizes instead of cash, I haven’t been including the cash consolation prizes for those who actually won shows, just their winning game totals. For people who didn’t win a game, I list their actual final score.
1: $19,917
2: $17,017
3: $28,801
4: $2,735
5: $16,400
6: $13,199 ($2,000 for second place)
For a grand total of $84,870 from my victories. (notfrommensa, it looks like you mixed up some of my final scores with some of my Coryat scores.) I like to point out that if my fourth Final Jeopardy clue had been easier (or, assuming Emily wouldn’t have gotten it, just swapped with the one from my fifth game, which I wagered $0 on but got right), my total would have been exactly $125,000.
Elendil’s Heir: No horror stories. The worst thing for me was that I had to file and pay taxes to California, but I was able to deduct, or get a credit for (I forget which), that amount from my Maryland tax. And there was a minor hassle persuading Maryland about the value of my second-place prize for tax purposes. The nominal value included airfare to Florida from California, whereas I flew from Maryland, which was cheaper. A letter from the show straightened it out.
But I actually came out ahead, because I won one show and paid almost nothing for the trip: a friend let me use his frequent flier miles for my airplane ticket, and I stayed with friends in L.A., not in a hotel. But it seems to me that people who have to pay all their travel expenses and don’t win could actually lose money by appearing on the show. Even more so in the days when you didn’t get cash for second or third place, but received non-fungible gifts on which you had to pay taxes.
California withholds- I think it was 6%- of the check. I got most of it refunded, however. My California cousin was whining about CA high taxes- I said" Yeah, tell me about it.
Paying Federal Income Tax on my winnings was pretty tough, I had more than three times the income but paid close to ten times the income tax. Was almost enough to make me want to become a Repubican :eek: