Of the more than 225,000 people who try out for "Jeopardy!" each year, only 400 make it on the show. I won't be one of them.
Earlier this month, I went through the audition process and discovered I had a huge disadvantage compared with the other wannabes: I'm not nuts. I don't sit at home and scream out the answers when no one else is in the room. I'm not obsessed with Alex Trebek's personal life. I don't automatically press down on an imaginary buzzer every time someone poses an answer and I've got the question. (Any suspicion that these observations are based wholly on jealously should be immediately dashed.)
Of course, being nuts can make you rich and somewhat famous, at least for an afternoon or two. That's what happens when you become part of a show with a history almost as old as the ultimate Q&A man, "Wink" Socrates.
"Jeopardy!" premiered in the 1960s under the guidance of Merv Griffin, whose other significant contribution to high art was the musical number "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts." But it wasn't until the game show went into syndication in 1984 with Trebek as emcee that the show became a phenomenon. Since then, it has taken home 27 Emmys and is KARE's most popular syndicated daytime show.
But enough from the history category. Let's get back to how I got ripped off.
I started with what I thought was a significant edge over the other wannabes in that I got to skip over the online test or a massive cattle call at the Mall of America, the first stages for almost everyone else. I probably got the pass in hopes of some good publicity, but it's just as likely that producers had heard about my Mensa-worthy brain and telegenic good looks and had to see the package in person. Boy, were they in for a disappointment.
Successfully finding the testing location at the Minneapolis Convention Center must have been step one in weeding out the dummies.
I quickly figured out that it wasn't being held as part of the auto show upstairs and barely avoided taking my seat in the bleachers for a martial-arts tournament. Just across the aisle from Karate Central were about 70 very quiet, very intense adults, most dressed shockingly well for a Saturday morning, all avoiding eye contact with each other. I was home.