Since Prisoner of Trebekistan introduces a number of other players as eventual friends, I thought you might enjoy knowing some of them a little better. So I sent out a little game of Twenty Questions to a few of the champs I'm particularly fond of. (By the way, there are a few names here you might not recognize from the book; they're all big winners on the show, too.)

The following are some representative responses.  I was surprised by how often our stories are all very similar.  My thanks to all involved for sharing their experiences, and for allowing me to share their memories with you.

1. When did you first become a fan of the show, and when did you decide to try out?

Josh Den Hartog: My earliest Jeopardy memory is cheering fanatically for Eric Newhouse.  See, he was from Iowa, and we were from Iowa, and it felt good to have one of our own kick the rest of the country's butt.

Eric Newhouse: I first became interested right around the time Chuck Forrest came on and dominated the show like no one had before him.

Mike Rooney: When I got back from grad school and was unemployed in L.A., I had time to sit in front of the TV.  And that's when I first saw Dan Melia smile that jolly smile -- you know, the one that says "look, I'm kicking ass and having fun while simultaneously demonstrating my intellectual superiority."  So I decided to try out shortly thereafter.

Dan Melia: As things will happen with child/spousal support and the like, I was seriously upside-down financially for several years and flirting with bankruptcy as a serious option.  Dara & [son] Daniel (who was then 11) had urged me to try to get on the show, so I decided to go down to LA and give it a shot.  When I announced that I was going to do this, Dara said (with some irony) "So, your plan to get out of debt is to go on a TV show and win a lot of money?"  I replied, "You have a problem with that?"

Leslie Shannon: It got to be a family ritual that we would actually watch Jeopardy! while eating, and eventually our dinners got to starting right at 7:30 when the show did.

Fred Ramen: In college, people were telling me I should go on the show, but I never thought I was good enough.

Rachael Schwartz: I used to watch the old show with Art Fleming when I was in grade school.  I would go home for lunch and watch it with my grandmother.  Amazingly enough, as a six-year-old, I rarely knew any of the answers.

Leslie Frates: I started watching the show in 1964, during the Art Fleming days, when I was almost 10.  I even have a 1st edition Milton Bradley home version of the Jeopardy game that Santa left under the tree for me at Christmas 1964.  My parents were very accommodating of their complete nerd daughter.

Eugene Finerman: At age 11, I found myself immersed in questions that allowed me to test my wits against my vanity.  The onslaught of puberty did not dilute my devotion; I was perfectly capable of thinking about both naked cheerleaders and the Punic Wars.

Jerome Vered: I was doing a senior project at USC's film school, staying up and piddling around the editing rooms at all hours.  Another student project was a documentary on the first Tournament of Champions.  So I'm walking to my editing room and hearing clues being given by Alex and I'm calling out the answers... The director sticks his head out of the room and asks me if I've seen or heard the footage before.  No, say I.  Then he says, "You really should try out for this show. You'd do great."


2. How do you handle pre-show jitters?  Any green room tendencies you've developed?  Chatting with/avoiding other players?  Thinking/not thinking about the game? 

Fred Ramen: The first time I was on I was nervous as hell. I got maybe three or four hours of sleep the night before -- pure nerves -- and wired myself up on caffeine in the green room... After the practice game I was of course raring to go. However, Dan Melia was the returning champ... then they called out the players for his fifth game. Not me. Good.

Grace Veach: It's good that the staff keep us busy with contracts and stuff to do, or I'd probably be much more jittery.  That was the worst thing about the day we shared with Wes in the green room -- it lasted forever!  I felt a real bond with you by the time that we'd shared that whole day, and Wes was incredibly classy as well.

Kate Waits: For the Masters, I brought my crochet.  (I make blankets for our local battered women's shelter.)  I didn't feel all that nervous, but I kept messing up the pattern.

Leslie Frates: On my first appearance I was a nervous wreck.  When I walked out onto the stage and saw the lights come on and Alex walk out, my knees and hands were shaking, and my hands were so clammy they felt like they were coated with oil from a tuna can.   After the first break, when Alex interviews the contestants, I felt much more relaxed, and all the nervousness just oozed out of my fingers, just like when Novocaine wears off.  Really.

Eugene Finerman: Jitters?  Paranoia.  While in the Green Room, you will look at your fellow contestants and imagine which of them would slaughter you.  After all, they are real champions while you, in your innermost thoughts, know yourself to be only a lucky charlatan.

Jerome Vered: I tend to be chatty.  Not as big a class clown as some, but I guess I'm more effusive than many.  And bringing candy breaks the ice.

Ben Tritle: I don't handle pre-show jitters very well... I encountered a horrid case of flop sweat and nearly went on stage with an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.

Leslie Shannon: For my first five shows, I was so terrified that I was almost trembling with adrenaline.  But once each game started, I was able to focus absolutely on the questions... However, for my ToC return, I was much calmer.  In fact, too calm.  I was very aware of the supporting role that my adrenaline rush had played in my five wins, and I started getting worried that I wasn't freaking out at all.  So in the Green Room, I tried to make myself nervous.

John Den Hartog: The best advice I have for others on pre-show routine is: don't drink ANYTHING that day, or you will have to pee about a BILLION times.  I learned this the hard way.  Luckily, I was able to survive it and have been fine ever since. 

Eric Newhouse: Watch out for the coffee in the green room.  The very first time I taped I'd probably downed about half the urn.

Mike Rooney: Frequent bathroom visits.  And Power Bars.


3. How were you lucky?

Fred Ramen: in my first game, I got left off the hook by the first place contestant, and ended up a co-champ.

Leslie Shannon: In one of my tournament games, the clue was something along the lines of: "He became governor of Louisiana in 1704 after being the first mayor of Detroit."  Miraculously, I had just read about this very thing while preparing for the Tournament, and so I actually knew that the response was "Who was Cadillac?"   Otherwise I would have had no idea.

Grace Veach: I had an important clue about Gen. George McClellan running for president against Lincoln.  I had just been reading about elections and thought it was unusual he would run against the man who had promoted him.

Josh Den Hartog: I had $3500 riding on a Daily Double once.  And then it asks some question about a gland that causes some particular disease.  I have never heard of said disease.  Time starts to run out... I panic, and start to say in my head, over and over..."Think of a gland, think of a gland..."  Finally, I just spit out "What is the thyroid?"  It was right.  Without that money, I lose the tourney going away.  I've been fond of the thyroid ever since.


4. What's your one big question that got away?

Arthur Phillips: Oh, dear God, the Oranjestad Incident.  We shall not speak of it further.  Everlasting shame.  I can barely say the name William of Orange without feeling nauseous.

Fred Ramen: I totally whiffed on a Sylvia Plath question despite having had three consecutive lectures on her the previous semsester at NYU.  Also, not being able to get in on the Quotable Coolidge categories that I could have crushed.

Leslie Frates: In the Masters, in a Final Jeopardy to reach the finals, they wanted President Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning book.  I knew it instantly (Profiles in Courage), and it was the easiest FJ I ever got in any game I played.   But I had bet puny, and lost.

Leslie Shannon: Bob Verini beat me to a question about the composer of "Finlandia" (Sibelius, of course) in the Masters Tournament that had me fuming -- I work for Nokia, a Finnish company, and knew that my colleagues would never forgive me!  However, later in the same game, I got a question about the SATs, which Bob V. wished he had gotten, since he used to work for the SAT board.

Jerome Vered: I was playing against Frank Spangenberg and Pam Mueller... up comes the category "Rossini Operas."  The last one was about an opera involving the Venetian army.  I ring in immediately, and then -- too fast, too fast -- blurt out "Daughter Of The Regiment."  And I blanch immediately.  I know that was by Donizetti.  I know I'm f'ed.  Out comes the correct response -- "Otello."  I am so pissed.  I own only one opera on audio cassette.  One.  That opera?  Rossini's "Otello."

Kim Worth: Elijah! But I must say; if you're going to miss a clue, miss one you could never answer. There's none of that lying awake in bed thinking, "I KNEW that!"  No, this was more like stepping off the curb and getting hit by a cement truck. Fast, quick and painless.

Mike Rooney:  !@#$ing "Crete" Garfield.  And before that, I was bounced from the 2000 ToC on another FJ, asking for the advisor of Odysseus's son, who was of course named Mentor.  I knew what they wanted there, but drew a hugely frustrating blank.  A few weeks ago, I saw a biography of James Garfield at the bookstore.  So I flip to the index and the first reference to Lucretia "Crete" Garfield not only mentions her nickname but also the fact that before being elected to the Presidency, the Garfields made their home in... Mentor, Ohio.  And now you, Bob, who are from Mentor, Ohio, are asking me this.  You bastard.


5. What question did you pull the furthest out of your nether regions?  And how did you get to the answer?

Arthur Phillips: I've never seen "The Last Picture Show" and did not know it was the film that Cybill Shepherd debuted in, so how did I know from a random video clip that that's what the movie was?  When you're on, you're on, and knowledge apparently is sent to you from the cosmos.

Leslie Frates: A "Before & After" question, something like "the dueling vice-president who became the puppeteer who worked with Kukla, Fran and Ollie."  I remembered once seeing a grainy photo of Kukla, Fran and Ollie standing next to their creator, Burr Tillstrom.  It hit me so fast that on the tape my body physically jerks before I ring in:  "Who is Aaron Burr Tillstrom?".  I'm mighty proud of that one, mighty proud.

Eugene Finerman: In my second game, I actually was trailing as we went into Final Jeopardy.  The clue was