Attending a Jeopardy! taping, take six

To help celebrate the 44th anniversary of our first date (of course that's a thing!), Mrs Notthat and I headed back down to Culver City (motto: "What is not LA") to attend a Jeopardy taping day. As we did last time, we signed up for the morning session, which covers three shows and lasts until about 2 PM, then once we were escorted back to the parking garage, we got back in line to see if there were seats available for the afternoon session (two shows) - and there was! (When you sign up for tickets, they really don't want you to sign up for both of a day's sessions.)

So we ended up seeing a week's worth of shows taped in one day. It's a long day - the actual show taping goes fast, but you spend a lot of time before and after the shows just waiting. (The morning session has bonus waiting since the players are getting to practice on the stage and the audience isn't allowed in until that's over.)

I don't know why I thought this would be a great shot - I was just killing time while waiting to be let into the studio.

The shows themselves went great, as usual. It's always remarkable to see how polished the team is that puts these shows on, and how quick and smart Ken is as he banters and drives everything. 

At the end of each session, before we're escorted back to the parking garage, they do a raffle drawing (actually, two drawings). Each audience member gets a raffle ticket with a number on it. We've attended six sessions and never really come close to getting drawn (there are maybe 100 or so people with tickets). During the morning session, after the second show, the couple behind us had to leave, so they gave their tickets to Mrs Notthat. She now had four tickets to play with.

And wouldn't you know it - one of the four tickets hit! The odd thing was that she wasn't sure whether it was one of her tickets or one that the couple had given her. 

The prize was a home edition of Jeopardy, but what people seemed to really want was the bag!

As we were leaving, a couple that had been behind us in the check in line mentioned how close they had come to winning - their tickets were the ones right after ours, so the winning ticket was one of our legitimate ones and not the bonus ones from the people left early. (BTW, I had no idea leaving early was an option - I really don't know how that would work since they won't let you just randomly wander around the buildings.)

That was pretty cool, other than Mrs Notthat having to carry that bag all the way back to the parking garage, get it through security, hang on to it through the second session (we did not take any tickets for the afternoon session), and answer many questions about where she got that bag!

Cooler though, was when the second ticket was drawn - it went to the woman sitting directly in front of her!

So here is a hack showing basically how the seating works (the number of seats is not correct, but is good enough for my purposes).

You should be able to tap/click to see this bigger. The yellow seats with D and A are where we sat. The ? was the person who won the second drawing.

As I've mentioned before, as a general audience member, where you sit is completely controlled by the audience security team. Generally, if you are on the left side, you won't end up on TV in that opening swoop shot, but you will be around families and friends of the contestants, and sometimes will get to see/talk with those that lose an early game. (You can also often see them between games in the gallery area behind all the seating - it's a little wild seeing someone who just lost, standing around talking to their family.) If you are near the center or on the right side, you will likely get TV time. 

We've been seated in a lot of different areas - it really just depends on how many guests there are and the whims of the security people. (I used to think they would take how you were dressed into account, but I no longer believe that.)

Imagine our surprise when we came back for the second session and ended up in the same seats we had for the first one! (Small odd note, the guy sitting next to us said he thought I looked like Phil Jackson, super successful coach of the Bulls and Lakers. Weirdly, I've heard that before, but he's 12 years older and eight inches taller, so I have trouble seeing that. Mrs Notthat found him a bit annoying since he was pretty chatty, especially about sports.)

It's uncanny. Even Mrs Notthat can't tell the difference.

And now comes the coolest/weirdest of all; when they did the raffle drawing for the afternoon session, the first number drawn went to the woman sitting in the seat in front of Mrs Notthat! Again! 

And that's about it. The shows we watched should air the week of October 20th, during which time Mrs Notthat will be visiting the UK, so we won't get to watch them until she gets back, which is OK (I may take a peek or two just to see if we are recognizable in the opening swoop shot though). 

Ken always says just before he leaves a session that you shouldn't let people know that you were at the taping of the episode that's currently airing, and you'll seem like a genius since you'll know most of the questions. The trouble is, by then there's no way I'll remember much at all from the taping - I'll maybe recognize some of the players and one or two questions, but mostly it'll be like watching them for the first time. 

October is the taping of a bunch of Celebrity Jeopardy episodes. Sadly, we won't be able to go down to see any of that, but it's a style we have yet to see live. It's funny how many poo-poo Celebrity Jeopardy since the questions are easier and the celebrities are often people you've never heard of, but I think it would be fun to see live. (As I type this, I only see tickets available for one CJ taping though.) Here is the link if you want to see the taping schedule and possibly head down yourself.

That's it - move along…