Attending a Jeopardy! taping session - take four

Back in December, we decided to join a group that was going to run the Ryan Bonaminio parkrun in Riverside CA on January 25th. Mrs Notthat and I decided to tack on a Jeopardy viewing the following Monday (the 27th). What made this especially fun was that it was to be the first day of taping of the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament (JIT). We had no idea who would in the JIT, but it would likely be people that we've seen before - it would be a blast!

And then early January happened in the LA area. The devastating wildfires put this trip in, well, jeopardy.

When Jeopardy cancelled the tapings for the week of Jan 6th, it made our date seem pretty fragile. The wildfire news just seemed to get worse and worse. The group trip to Riverside was cancelled. It was all pretty grim.

Then we started hearing that local businesses that were not directly affected by the fires were suffering due to the lack of people wiling to visit the area - LA is a HUGE area and most of the city was operating as usual.

Also, there was rain predicted for the weekend we would be there. We kept checking the Jeopardy On-Camera website and the taping was still on, although it did look like they were moving the regular shows that were to be taped earlier in the month to our week, so, likely no JIT for us. That was a little disappointing, but still, even normal Jeopardy tape days are a lot of fun.

In the end, we headed to Riverside on Friday and on Saturday ran the parkrun, then headed to Playa del Ray to enjoy the weekend while waiting for Monday. Saturday stayed mostly dry, but Sunday was pretty damp - not huge dumps of rain, which would have caused their own issues, but scattered showers. That night, on top of the rain showers, there was lightning and thunder (and new worries about what the lightning might do, which was apparently nothing bad).

On Monday, we headed to the Sony Pictures lot, determined to not be late arriving (see the post from our last time attending a taping). We still were not sure whether we were going to be seeing a regular set of shows or JIT shows, but one thing made us feel like there was something special about these shows - James Holzhauer and a number of other Jeopardy veterans we recognized were all in the same check-in area as us!

I wish I knew what book that was - likely not Sudoku for Dummies.

When you check in as an audience member, you are given a wrist band. One thing that we had not seen before was that, in addition to the purple bands (that friends and family of contestants get) and blue bands (that us normal people get), there were a few people with gold bands! I don't know who these people were, but they went to the front of the line, even ahead of James!

The person wearing #18 is Rowan, who most of you will likely remember from their appearance in last year's Second Chance Tournament, where they did exceptionally well! And it was kind of sunny!

It turned out that the shows were indeed regular Jeopardy shows, and that the JIT shows had been pushed back a week. And the explanation for why James, Rowan, and a few other Jeopardy vets were there was because they had friends playing. (In James' case, he had been coaching a guy that you will likely really like once these episodes air.)

A slightly unusual thing is that we have no idea when these episodes will air - they will be the first shows after the JIT, and since those shows haven't been recorded yet, they don't know how long that tournament is going to go. (As viewers, we also don't know how long the Tournament of Champions is going to go either, although they obviously already know that.)

And that's about it. I got to talk with Rowan for a bit during a break (I teased them that Ken had made a big deal about James being in the audience but failed to mention that they were there too - all Jeopardy royalty should be acknowledged!). The three shows we got to attend were entertaining, as always. The banter between Janes and Ken between shows was also entertaining.

This makes five regular shows total that we've been able to watch (two in Feb of 2023), along with three Masters (in April 2024) and three 2024 Tournament of Champions shows (in Dec of 2024) we've been able to attend.

From the Department of Odd Timing

The three TOC shows we saw in early December 2024 were set to air starting on Jan 27 - the same date that we were attending this taping! Once we made it home, we were able to watch those shows (we have a Tivo to record broadcast TV shows).

I took this picture off our TV screen. Best thing - there is Sam!

It's amazing how much we had already forgotten about those shows, including not being all that sure who won each of them. Certain moments and comments were pretty memorable, but for the most part, it was like watching the shows for the first time!

If you are curious about what's involved in attending a taping, you can see my earlier posts for some details. It's free, but there's a LOT of waiting around until you finally get into the studio. 

The waiting is worth it.

That's it - move along…