Andrew Harris Meets Alex Trebek

If you turn on your television to Channel 7 on Friday July 11, you might recognize Scarsdale's Andrew Harris as one of the contestants on Jeopardy. Harris, a 2007 grad of SHS and a 2011 graduate of Hamilton College competed on the show that will air next week. Harris majored in history at Hamilton and then worked for three years for a consulting company that specializes in corporate investigations. He plans to attend NYU Law School in the fall.

We asked Harris how he was selected to compete and what it was like and here is what he told us:

I've always liked Jeopardy, but I wouldn't say I was a big fan or every night watcher. In college, I started taking the online tests they offer each January, and I finally got an invitation to audition in June of 2012. The general thinking is that you need to answer at least 35 of the 50 questions correctly, and then they choose a random selection of the many people who pass to come in and audition in person.

My in-person audition was at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, and it was me and about 20 others in a room with 3 or 4 of the "contestant coordinators." We had to take another 50 question test to make sure we weren't cheating on the online one, and then played a mock game and had an interview session, to get a sense of our personalities for the show.

The thing that struck me most about the audition was how "TV" it felt; the coordinators were incredibly high energy and kept reminding us to display outsized happiness, enthusiasm, and energy. I had thought of Jeopardy as an academic contest, and it is, but it's also a game show, with all that entails. They're not only looking for people who know the answers, but also people who would be interesting to the viewers. They told us that after the audition we'd be in the contestant pool for 18 months -- if we didn't hear from them in that time we could re-take the online test. They said about 10-15% of people are chosen from the auditions to be on the show.

My 18 months, from June 2012 to December 2013, came and went with no call. I had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing. Then in the middle of February, I got a call from Culver City, CA, asking if I wanted to fly out there for a taping in exactly a month. I obviously said yes.

Then came the preparation. The first thing I did was actually to start watching the show regularly, to get a sense for the flow of the game, and what sorts of questions are asked. I started looking around online for the experiences of other contestants, so I knew what I could expect when I actually went out there. I'm hardly a math person by any means, but I started reading about wagering theories for daily doubles and final Jeopardy. And, finally and most importantly, my Dad went through a website that keeps records of every Jeopardy game ever played, J-archive.com , and determined some categories that they frequently ask about, like literature. He, amazingly, also put together a brief series of facts and questions about particularly famous events, movies, and books that Jeopardy seems to ask about with which I had little experience.

Going in, I knew my weakness would be in literature, especially British literature, which the show seems particularly fond of. My knowledge of 60s and 70s pop culture was also hilariously terrible, at least to my parents. There are certain things you can learn before going on the show, like books and authors or the presidents, but I wasn't going to spend time learning about 70s TV. I would say I didn't prepare an outrageous amount, particularly as I was working during the week, but I definitely spent more time on this than I did for most of my exams in high school and college, as my mom liked to remind me.

The night before the taping, all the potential contestants stay in the same hotel in LA, so we shared a nervous, mostly silent ride over to the Sony studios. Once there, we were debriefed on the rules and process for about an hour, and then we had makeup applied and rehearsed our stories for our brief talk with Alex after the first commercial break. You put down three potential talking points, and highlight one that you want to talk about most. The coordinators remind you however that it's ultimately Alex's decision on which one he chooses.

Then they brought us out to the actual set, which looks just about as it does on TV. We practiced on the buzzers for a bit, though I wasn't great with my timing, and didn't feel that confident at that point. They film five shows in a day, and film Tuesday and Wednesday of most weeks. The one thing I was most afraid of was being in the first game, before I had a chance to see how the whole thing worked.

Luckily, I wasn't one of the names randomly drawn first. As I watched the game from the audience with the rest of the other contestants for that day, I was struck by the timing of the show. It's basically shot on the same schedule as it's shown live, they take about 5 minute breaks for commercials when Alex talks with the audience while contestants have their make up retouched. Since contestants never actually talk with him until he walks around the screen before your game, it was nice to get a sense of his stage personality in between games.

And he's really a showman. He's been doing it long enough to know how to work the audience, and he would alternate between his musings on daily life,( i.e. how Ding Dongs have gotten smaller since he was a kid), and taking questions from the audience. He definitely comes off as a bit cynical and dismissive, though again that may be all part of his stage persona.

Given that my first game airs on a Friday, I was actually chosen for the last game of the day's taping. Having watched 4 games before me, I was definitely ready to go. Thinking back now, 4 months later, I only barely remember the questions or categories. Once I was up there, I was sort of in a state of disbelief; I was competing on Jeopardy, something I never thought I'd do. For me, I used the unlikeliness or uniqueness of the whole thing to adopt a "here goes nothing" approach, and I'd like to think I was legitimately comfortable up there. I'm not sure what it may have looked like on screen, but I can say 100% that I loved every minute of being up there.

The other thing you realize only after playing is how random the game actually is. The coordinators tell you this before you even start, but you don't believe it. You think that if you're smart, all you need to do is answer questions correctly and you'll win. But then you watch a previously unbeatable looking champion get some tough categories, or opponents, and you realize how fleeting the game is. Even people who win 3 or 4 or 5 games, legitimately long champions on Jeopardy, are only actually champions for 2 or 3 hours in actual filming time. The coordinators tell you all you can control is how you play the game and comport yourself, and that sounded wishy-washy to me, until I actually played.

Watch Jeopardy on Friday night to see how Andrew Harris fared!