[CountDuckula]

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All I got was a two week timeshare in Palm Springs in the middle of the summer, some pants MC Hammer would have liked, and a case of Jolly Rancher candy.

I can say for a fact that the buzzers are NOT reliable, the damn things do not work 1/2 the time .....

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I assume from your post that you went on Jeopardy at some point. So my questions to you:

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I assume you're correct. But so have I (Oct., 1996), so I can help, too. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


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I heard that the buzzer only works after Alex has finished, can you elaborate on that?

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Yes, this is true. After Alex finishes talking, someone backstage hits a button, which activates everyone's buzzers and lights a neon light surrounding the board (it's invisible on TV). If you buzz in before the light comes on, your buzzer is locked out for 1 second, so jumping the gun is a bad idea (although the contestant coordinators claimed that it was better to start hitting the buzzer repeatedly just before the light came on). The way I played it was, I'd read the clue (I'm a speed-reader), decide whether I knew it and watch for the light (I pretty much ignored Alex' voice). As soon as it came on, I hit the buzzer, and the vast majority of the time I wanted to buzz in, I succeeded. There was one clue where I started to buzz in, but the buzzer failed; they could see that I was furiously pressing it, and the other contestants weren't, so they stopped the tape and had me give my response, fixed the buzzer, then replayed it so it looked natural on TV. I won 1 game, then lost the second due to nerves (I was ahead going into Final Jeopardy, but I blanked and couldn't come up with the right response; I should have figured it out*). I think it was because after I won the first game, we took a lunch break, and I had time to think about the fact that I was the defending champion; it felt good at first, but then I started to psych myself out. Oops.... [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]


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Why did you get pants?

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Heh.... Only the winner gets cash; the second and third place contestants get prizes instead. This is to prevent people from "playing it safe" to preserve the cash that they've won so far. Until the game is over, the cash is really just chips, like a poker tourney.

-Mike

* The clue (US States, which was a wheelhouse category for me) was: "This state was named by Capt. John Mason, former governor of Portsmouth, England". The response is below, after a bit of spoiler space:




















What is New Hampshire?

I should have got it, because I lived and worked close to there, and passed a sign daily on my way to work that read, "Portsmouth 60 mi.". Sigh.....