Tales from the Battle of the Decades

For a game show fan, it was like getting the opportunity to see the Final Four, the Super Bowl AND the World Series.

Maybe even better than that: Because the Super Bowl cannot match up the 1989 49ers and the 2004 Patriots. You can only dream of seeing the New York Yankees of the 1930s and 1940s take on the Big Red Machine. And those UCLA teams of the late 1960s will never play Bob Knight’s 1976 Indiana Hooisers.

Yet Christina and I were lucky enough to be among the audience last month when Brad Rutter, Ken Jennings and Roger Craig faced off in the two-game final of the JEOPARDY! Battle of the Decades, which was shown Thursday and Friday night. We were guests of quarterfinalist Mark Dawson, who is a childhood friend of one of our Buzztime Trivia friends, Tom Michael.

I would say our only disappointment at the April 17 taping was that we did not get to root for Mark since he was eliminated in the fifth quarterfinal match the afternoon before. Because Mark was sitting on the other side of the spectator area with the other players, we did not know until they got ready to tape the third semifinal that he did not advance.

For the most part, the taping was the same as any other week of JEOPARDY! episodes, with three games played in the late morning/early afternoon, followed by a lunch break, and then the Thursday and Friday shows. Unlike the typical week of shows, however, tickets were not available for the general public, so everyone who was there had some affiliation with one of the players or the show.

Since the taping took place more than a month ago, I have a few stories I have been waiting to tell. There are some spoilers here, so if you still want to watch the finals, go read something else on my blog right now.

     * When we lined up in the parking garage before heading to the studio in the morning, a lady complimented Christina on her dress and asked where she got it. Turns out the lady was Brad Rutter’s mom. After we figured out who she was, Christina said that Brad’s mom can probably afford to buy her dresses at somewhere more upscale than Macy's.

     * There were a few technical issues. One was almost immediate, when the board for Monday’s first round did not completely fill in before the sound effects stopped. There were four or five boxes that still had no dollar figures in them. Alex Trebek joked that “this round should go faster since there are fewer answers.” Of course, that was edited out.

   * For the three semifinal matches, Christina and I sat on the front row, so after Wednesday’s episode was completed, I was able to get autographs from all three of the Clue Crew members: Jimmy, Kelly and Sarah, who was actually impressed that I had brought a Sharpie along. (Collecting autographs on baseball cards has taught me well.)

     * During the break between the semifinals and two-game final, Christina and I walked down to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf near Washington and Overland and saw a number of other folks wearing the same “contestant guest” stickers we had. We got back to the lot in time to see the JEOPARDY! 30^th anniversary cake being carried into the stage next door, where a post-show party was being set up.

     * When we returned to the studio for the finals, one of the stagehands pointed out that there were “cheater cams” in the rafters to keep the audience honest. These cameras, which are not usually present, looked similar to the small devices now in vogue in bars, casinos and department stores. 

     * Thankfully, Ken Jennings’ encouragement of Roger to bet it all on a Daily Double in Thursday’s Double Jeopardy round was not edited out. “Do it,” Ken said, turning toward Roger (although you cannot see that in the broadcast). “Yeah, everything. Why not.” Roger responded. Alex asked, “Everything?” and Roger said, “Sure.” When he could not come up with an answer, losing $10,200, Roger was somewhat nonplussed. “We have time to play,” he said. When he ended Thursday’s show $800 in the hole, Roger still displayed a great attitude, asking Alex rhetorically, “It’s a two-day final, right?”

     * Without any money to bet on Thursday’s Final Jeopardy, Roger had to sit it out. He, and many of the other vanquished contestants in the audience, wrote their responses to the Final Jeopardy (“One of the two movies in the last 30 years, one a drama and one a comedy, to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress”) on cards, and came up with either “Silence of the Lambs” or “As Good As It Gets.” Neither Ken nor Brad got it right.

     * On Friday, Roger bet it all on another Daily Double, and again missed, despite Brad calling back to Thursday, exclaiming “Don’t do it this time,” to the audience’s delight. Once again, the broadcast did not quite capture the atmosphere in the studio when Roger went for it.

      * Also on Friday’s show Brad told a story about how 1996 college champion Shane Whitlock’s son Declan was less than impressed when they met before the taping. The 5-year-old’s response to meeting Brad: “Where’s Ken?” After the championship was decided, Christina and I had a couple of minutes to talk to Shane and Declan.

      * The betting for Friday’s Final Jeopardy took a long time – probably 10 minutes. Roger, who was pretty much guaranteed third place, and Brad both responded correctly (Buchanan and Rice) to the clue (“Serving 160 years apart, these two Secretaries of State are the only ones who never married.”), but Brad did not bet anything. He later shared that it turned out the math was just too difficult and he finally decided to put down a zero. If Ken had answered correctly, he would have won the tournament’s $1 million top prize.

When the taping was done we waited outside so we could thank Mark for including us. He was actually the first alternate following the quarterfinals, so if for some reason one of the nine semifinalists could not play, he would have stepped in. As it was, it was neat to meet Mark when he was in town earlier in the week (along with Tom) for the 25th Annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge National Championship, a College Bowl competition for historically black colleges and universities. Mark was one of the moderators during the round-robin stage of the games, while Tom was working media relations. That’s an event we hope to attend again the next time it’s in Torrance, and I would not be surprised if some of the students we saw compete someday on JEOPARDY!

Christina said she was so nervous for everyone involved that she didn’t play along while we were in the studio, but spent her time observing how folks did their jobs, and also looked around the audience trying to figure out who some of the other spectators were. We saw Ken’s dad and “Team Roger” among others.

After seeing such high-powered, well-known players going at it, Christina said she is not sure she can go back again, because it could never be as thrilling as these five games.

Oddly, through a quirk in the production schedule, I don’t have to make that decision – I’m also in the audience for the episodes that run Monday-Wednesday this coming week, which were taped in March.