Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (56 page)

Arthur Phillips is a best-selling novelist and fellow
Jeopardy!
contestant whose modesty and encouragement made me imagine that maybe I could tell a decent story, too. He took a chance on me by introducing me to Marly.

Susanne Thurber, for many years the
Jeopardy!
contestant coordinator, was kind enough to laugh at my jokes and invite me to play in the first place. Without her, I never would have met Arthur.

Harry Friedman, the show’s executive producer, and many other people behind the scenes have created a lighthearted world in which I have met many bright people I like very much. Without them, I never would have met Susanne, or anyone mentioned below. I would also mention Merv and a long chain of others, but you get the point. This could turn into the
Jeopardy!
credits themselves, which would not be completely mistaken.

Twenty of my fellow players (including Arthur, above) generously agreed to share their own memories, either in person, over the phone, or via e-mail. You’ve met most of them in the previous pages, but unfortunately not all, and none of them as much as I wish were possible. So thanks here to Alan Bailey, Robin Carroll, Josh Den Hartog, Eugene Finerman, Chuck Forrest, Leslie Frates, Matt Mann, Dan Melia, Eric Newhouse, Fred Ramen, Michael Rooney, Brad Rutter, Rachael Schwartz, Leslie Shannon, Ben Tritle, Jerome Vered, Grace Veach, Kate Waits, and Kim Worth. My affection and gratitude is such that I can only hope that someday all of us may again not be allowed to speak to each other.

Finally, special thanks to Alex Trebek, without whom the resulting book would have been called
Prisoner of Stan.

RECOMMENDED READING

Consider the following a basic starter kit for those who want to try this at home. Some players have other books they’ve found most useful. These are mine. A few are out of print, but you can probably find them online with diligence.

Books by former players

Forrest, Chuck, and Mark Lowenthal.
Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions.
New York: Warner Books, 1992.

Or, as it is known in my house, the Holy Scroll.

Dupee, Michael.
How to Get on Jeopardy and Win!
Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1998.

A brief guide to game tactics and betting strategy, plus hundreds of things to study. Not mentioned in the story only because it came out after my first run through the show, and by then my apartment was pretty much a reference section anyway, so I didn’t use it as much as you might.

Jennings, Ken.
Brainiac.
New York: Villard Books, 2006.

No idea what’s in it, actually, since it will be released about the same time this book is. But Ken’s a bright guy—
this just in!
—and much funnier than a lot of folks may realize. I don’t know if it’s even about
Jeopardy!, but I bet it’s a good read.

About
Jeopardy! in general

Richmond, Ray.
This Is Jeopardy!
New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004.

More clues and history. Lots of neat color photos. The Final Jeopardy from my fifth game is on page 167.

Jeopardy!
producers.
Jeopardy!…What Is Quiz Book 1?
Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 2000.

Along with volumes 2–4, a massive collection of actual show clues. The fastest way in print to get a handle on what categories come up most often.

Trebek, Alex, and Peter Barsocchini.
The Jeopardy! Book.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

Show history, actual clues, and even sheet music for the
Jeopardy! theme, which contains key
signatures that will make your eyes cramp just looking at them. I believe the third chorus is in H-sharp.

Other books good for long nights alone with your practice buzzer

Wright, John W., ed.
The New York Times Almanac.
New York: Penguin Reference, 2006.

Dry as your bones and almost as worth owning. Vast amounts of basic material, conveniently packed into one spectacularly dull volume, published annually.

Barraclough, Geoffery, ed.
Atlas of World History.
Ann Arbor, MI: Borders Press, 2001.

This at least has bright colors and lots of arrows zipping all over the maps. Don’t go crazy, but this covers lots of history and geography in one neat lump. Good place for Hanseatic League stats, for you history rotisserie buffs.

Rubin, Louis D., ed.
A Writer’s Companion.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1995.

A fantastic source of raw material for making insane notebooks filled with lots and lots of cartoons you can never show anyone. More exciting than porn. OK, that was a complete lie. But still.

Gombrich, E. H.
The Story of Art.
London: Phaidon Press, 2004.

An unbelievable value. Incredible photos of significant stuff, and lots of them. Heavy enough to break a horse.

Jones, Judy, and William Wilson.
An Incomplete Education.
New York: Ballantine, 1995.

Whatever your worst subject is, there’s probably a chapter or two in here that will help. You’ll laugh, too. Fabulous.

Petras, Kathryn and Ross.
World Access.
New York: Fireside Books, 1996.

A good companion to the previous book. Some overlap.

Murray, Chris, ed.
Dictionary of the Arts.
New York: Gramercy Press, 1994.

If you don’t know Dickens, there’s a complete list of his works on page 149, next to Diaghilev,
The Dial, the diatonic scale, and the goddess Diana.

Tuleja, Tad.
The New York Public Library Book of Popular Americana.
New York: Macmillan, 1994.

More focused on the U.S.A. John Singer Sargent, William Saroyan, and Sasquatch, all in the same place—under
S, not under
THINGS THAT REALLY NEED A SHAVE
.

Moore, Bob and Maxine.
Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1997.

A good start on your derma. Not quite enough sclera. But you could do worse.

Baggaley, Anna, ed.
Human Body.
London: Dorling Kindersley, 2001.

Lots of anatomical and medical stuff. Also, the drawings will occasionally make you feel a little oogy. So that’s fun.

Murphy, Bruce, ed.
Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia.
New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

The mother ship. More here than you will ever need or read in your lifetime. Best to skim the 1,144 pages, just looking for half-familiar stuff you want to know. That said, I’ve seen both the first and last entries (Aaron and Zwingli) come up on the show. This is a good time to recoil in terror.

Smith, Nila Banton.
Speed Reading Made Easy.
New York: Warner Books, 1983.

This paperback edition is the right heft for tacks, finishing nails, and other small jobs. For masonry, cold chiseling, or any metalwork, you’ll need the bigger and heavier 1987 edition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WHO IS BOB?

Bob Harris has written for media ranging from the TV show
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
to
National Lampoon
magazine. In between, he has been a nationally syndicated radio humorist, an online columnist for
Mother Jones,
and a playful debunker of urban legends on the TLC reality series
Almost True Stories.

The
Hollywood Reporter
once described his work as “goofy and well-informed.” This seems about right.

He lives in Los Angeles.

For more of Bob’s work, visit
BobHarris.com
.

To spend more time in Trebekistan, visit
PrisonerOfTrebekistan.com
.

Copyright © 2006 by Bob Harris

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Crown is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harris, Bob, 1963–

Prisoner of Trebekistan: a decade in Jeopardy! / Bob Harris.—1st ed.

1. Jeopardy! (Television program) I. Title.

PN1992.77. J363H37 2006

791.45'72—dc22 2006006267

eISBN-13: 978-0-307-35150-0

eISBN-10: 0-307-35150-5

v1.0

*
Piano-shaped people throwing TVs at mountains (James Baldwin):

Baldwin is a brand of piano. The image of mountains, at least near Baldwin-shaped people, prompts the Baldwin novel
Go Tell It on the Mountain.
The throwing of TVs invokes the movie
Network,
in which Howard Beale inspired millions to hurl their TVs out the window, presumably after
Jeopardy!
had aired in their time zones. “Howard Beale” connected to
Go Tell It on the Mountain
leads to another Baldwin work,
If Beale Street Could Talk.

Remember, this is
my
mnemonic; yours may differ. These might seem random and hard to follow; yours will seem intuitive and obvious. You might connect the same words and images with Alec
Baldwin
and Jennifer
Beals
falling into a
mountainous
volcano. (A fiery volcano would even point to another Baldwin work,
The Fire Next Time.
) Or
bald twins
could chase Ally
McBeal
into the volcano. Or a dozen other possible variations. Whatever strikes your fancy.

Elmer Fudd shooting arrows at a dodging Bugs Bunny amid downtown buildings, while a slender green dinosaur looks on (Sinclair Lewis):

Elmer Fudd invokes
Elmer Gantry.
The arrows stand for
Arrowsmith,
while Bugs the rabbit, shortened, is
Babbitt.
The “dodging,” indicated by more arrows (zigzagging around his feet), means
Dodsworth,
although sometimes all I see here is more
Arrowsmith,
to be honest.

The buildings point to
Main Street,
although not particularly well because they’re not moving or eating or exploding. And the slender green dinosaur is the Sinclair Oil logo.

A near-death slalom skier in a bow tie being retrieved from a pile of sawdust after hitting it with explosive force in bright sunlight (William Faulkner):This is the Imperial Death Star of mnemonic cartoons, a demonstration of either what’s possible or how unhinged I can be. You decide.The near-death bit, drawn by giving the skier Xs for eyes, equals
As I Lay Dying.
Above this, a brutal Mr. Sun looks down, as
Light in August.
The explosion, drawn as explody-flashy-flamey triangles in the air, is
The Sound and the Fury.
The “slalom” skier, indicated by a series of flag thingies, invokes
Absalom, Absalom!
by sound. Two stick-figure guys retrieving the body: “retrievers” lead to
The Reivers.
The skier himself, buried in the sawdust, is
Intruder in the Dust.
The bow tie? It’s a sartorial touch. Thus,
Sartoris.

As for linking all this to the name “Faulkner”—what expletive would you say, if you were skiing out of control and about to hit a giant sawdust ball with explosive force? Just asking.
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