‘Jeopardy!’ hopefuls turn out in force
for tryouts at Yongsan Garrison
By Jan Wesner Childs,
Seoul bureau
Andy Dunaway / Stars and Stripes
Alex Trebek, host of the "Jeopardy!" game show, greets the crowd of potential
contestants at the Dragon Hill, Yongsan Garrison, Seoul Korea. |
YONGSAN GARRISON — They lost on “Jeopardy!,” but they
had fun trying.
An estimated 700 people showed up Wednesday night to either try out
for the television game show, play a mock version for prizes, or get host Alex
Trebek’s autograph.
All but three were eliminated as potential contestants.
Most of the hopefuls, like Army Capt. Marnie Kushner, were screened
out during an initial 10-question test.
“Darn, I missed it,” said Kushner, assigned to the 532nd
Military Intelligence Battalion. “I just thought I’d do it for fun. It’s
not a big deal. What the heck, huh?”
Samuel Bourke, a base librarian, took the tryouts a little more
seriously. So did Fred Newman, a civilian employee with the 1st Signal Brigade. Both were
here the last time “Jeopardy!” tryouts were held at Yongsan — 10 years ago.
“I just hope I do a little better than I did the first
time,” Newman said.
Sixty people were asked to stay and take a second test. Bourke and
Newman made that cut.
Andy Dunaway / Stars and Stripes
Fred Newman, a civilian employee with the 1st Signal Brigade is trying out for the second
time for the "Jeopardy!" game show. Newman was here last time tryouts for the
show were held 10 years ago. |
The second test consisted of 50 questions from 50 different
categories.
The test was harder than the show, producers said, asking that none
of the questions be revealed here because the same ones will be used at the other tryouts
across the Pacific.
People who got at least 35 questions correct were asked to stay to
play a mock game of “Jeopardy!” and be interviewed by the show’s staff.
Three people passed the test. Bourke was one of them. Newman
wasn’t.
“I’m happy, I’m excited,” Bourke said. “It
wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be.”
The other two finalists were Army Sgt. 1st Class Randy Hansen and
Duane Vorhees, a U.S. history professor at the University of Maryland. Of the 25,000
people who try out for “Jeopardy!” each year, only about 400 make it as far as
they did.
All three spent about 30 minutes with the producers and Trebek,
playing a mock game of the show. The idea was to let the staff evaluate their
personalities to see if they’d make good TV.
“They wanted to see if you would speak up, to make sure that you
didn’t mumble,” said Hansen, a military policeman. “Actually it was kind of
fun.”
Now the three men have to wait a month to find out if they’ll
actually be on the show.
The tryouts at Yongsan were the first of four on Pacific bases this
week. The tour, run by the USO and several commercial sponsors, was at Camp Casey in South
Korea on Thursday night, and was scheduled to be at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa on Sunday
and at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo on Monday.
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