I flew out to LA on April 21 to tape my appearance on Jeopardy! I haven’t said anything about it in the various Jeopardy threads, because of eligibility issues. The mere fact that I had read some of those threads raised eyebrows.
Also, you don’t collect your winnings until 120 days after the show airs. You sign an ironclad non-disclosure agreement, and the 120 day deferral is the stick they use to keep you from telliing people in advance what happened.
Rather than field a bunch of questions and reply with “I can’t say,” I figured it was best just to keep mum until the show airs.
But, July 11 is the air date. Following that, I’ll answer all questions about the show and my appearance on it.
For those of you who have passed the test and are waiting to hear from the show about an appearance, my best advice is don’t say anything on message boards or chat rooms. It may not disqualify you, but I promise, you’ll have to explain to someone what you’ve said.
Yep - I did. Figured it was better to tell the truth than lie about it and have them find out about it on their own. That would disqualify me for sure.
When I got the phone call to come out, that was one of the questions the contestant coordinator asked me. I told him that there were threads about the show on the Dope that I’d been reading. He said, “You’re not going to do that any more, are you?”
Then, a thick pakage of material was FedExed that I had to fill out. One of the questions was whether I had had any discussions, or read anything posted by previous contestants on the show. My wife said to me, “You already told the guy on the phone. Better make full disclosure.” So I did. I explained what the Straight Dope is, I printed out a couple of the threads, I told them I had read the threads but hadn’t posted to them, and that I was not personally acquainted with any of the people who had posted to the threads.
That satisfied the powers that be, but it was still a dicey few minutes out there in the green room of the studio while I explained all this. It would have really been a bummer to have flown out there, only to be told I couldn’t appear on the show because of a message board!
Yep - but I was out in the audience watching the show (they keep the contestants segregated from the rest of the audience. You can’t even go to the bathroom without an escort!). I didn’t know Canada, either. I’m from Georgia, for cryin’ out loud!
The contestant sitting next to me was from Canada - HE knew the answer of course!
