Jeopardy! Tryout Screenings Go Online

KingSkippus writes "According to a CNN article, the television game show Jeopardy! is now offering online contestant screenings in addition to conducting contestant searches in various cities across the country. Potential contestants will still have to pass an interview and an additional test in person to be considered for the pool of 400 contestants each year, but now the next Ken Jennings can apply without leaving the comfort of his or her own chair. The first online screenings begin March 28."

Comments

Easier and Cheaper for People

[brian23]

Finally, a shift away from having to fly to California and waste about $500 on room and board for a chance that you may not get on the show.

All I hope...

[Heem]

I just hope that the website works cross platform. I'd hate to miss my chance to appear on Jeopardy (not that I have much of one) just because I refuse to run IE and/or Windows

Re:All I hope...

[JBReynolds]

Prepare to be disappointed, then. Their Web page states that it requires MSIE 5.0 or later and Flash 7.

i tried out for this once

[circletimessquare]

man was it hard. we assembled in a hotel conference room in midtown manhattan. the staff played a little intro tape of the talking head of trebek wishing us good luck and giving us the intructions, then it was off to questions: 50 fill-in-the-blank questions

you needed to get 35 right to move onward. stuff onvloving the minutiae of the battle of bull run, and various french names for certain foot movements in ballet. very hard

i would say out of a roomful of 200 people, 5 moved forward

no, i wasn't one of them ;-P

i can only wonder at what sort of cheating preventatives they'll employ for online: like a huge pool of questions (so repeating the test won't yeild value), and a 5 second countdown to answer questions... i hope

or we won't be seeing the next ken jennings from online jeopardy applications, we'll be seeing the next script kiddie

Re:i tried out for this once

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

I went to one near Central Park south (fail) and later they started doing tests at Merv Griffin's casino in AC (pass, not chosen), and then just a screening at the Pequot Sun casino in CT (pass), and finally again in Manhattan (PASS AND CHOSEN!)

I'll answer all the stupid questions now.

They do not pay for your flight or hotel. They do not give you the answers beforehand. Yes, you have to pay taxes on winnings. No, Alex is not cool, he is a jerk.

I was on three shows (two wins), you'll see me on Game Show network every year or so. No residuals.

Prediction

[Slightly Askew]

This will last all of 2 weeks before the list of questions and answers is published in its entirety on the Internet and the spike in successful entries causes Jeopardy to shut down the program.

On a side note, I took one of these tests when the Jeopardy bus was touring the US and thought the questions were very age-biased. There were a disproportionate number of questions about events about late 60's / early 70's pop culture. I wonder if they target those in their mid 30's to mid 50's, as this is probably their target viewing audience as well. As a child of the 80's, I could have told them who shot John Lennon or Ronald Reagan, but not who shot Andy Warhol. I also would have preferred they ask about bumbling superheros with suits from outer space and not superheros with the powers of an Egyptian goddess.