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THE NARRATIVE ARC | TV
I Attended a ‘Jeopardy!’ Taping and Witnessed What It Takes to Be Champ
It’s not just knowledge and buzzer prowess, but stamina
“I’m going to a taping of Jeopardy! Do you want to join and be in the studio audience with me?” Jim asked.
My mind whirled. I hesitated.
How fascinating. For 25 years I’d lived right there in Los Angeles, with all those opportunities to go to a taping, yet it had never crossed my mind to attend. Not once. Yeah, sure, I made a bee-line to watch The Price Is Right in person because it was a childhood favorite — (No, Rod didn’t call my name, dammit) — but I never even considered Jeopardy!
Why? It seemed too boring? Too similar to just watching it from home?
Nah, it was a gut-level, traumatic memory of too many bad studio-audience experiences during my early LA years. Those live sitcom tapings — think Two and a Half Men — where it seems like a good idea at the time and it’s very novel at first, but you’re treated like cattle and soon feel like a prisoner forced to fake-laugh and clap with unnatural giddiness for five hours, all while stuck in bleacher-seats with a floundering warm-up comedian who won’t stop talking.
