Sapperton resident Chelsea Watt has been watching the International game show Jeopardy! ever since she was in her early teens. But an upcoming episode of the show that airs on Tuesday, July 18, will be different from the rest — this time, she will be both the audience and the contestant.
The game that reverses the traditional question-answer format by phrasing clues as answers and responses as questions is a wildly-popular one — as per Entertainment, it had an average 9.2 million viewership in the 2021-22 season.
Watt, a fan of pub trivia, loved the game for the fact that it gave ordinary people a real shot at fame.
"Everyone from bartenders to lawyers, software developers, doctors or retired teachers ... you never know who's going do well on Jeopardy! I think that's really cool.”
For Watt, a communications manager at BC Hydro and president of New West Farmers Market, it gave her a chance to shine.
Making it on to the game that has been entertaining people since 1964 was a big deal for Watt. It marked a successful end to a goal she had been working towards for a decade.
Watt had developed an interest in quiz games around the time she started university — eventually finding herself as part of a six-member trivia team called Lambda Lambda Lambda (which still continues to play at trivia nights in Vancouver).
As someone who got “really into” pub trivia, Jeopardy! was the “ultimate pub quiz.”
And she wanted to be part of it.
Jeopardy! a 10-year dream
Every year, for the last 10 years, Watt took a 50-question online test — the first step to making it to the game.
“They never tell you if you passed the test.”
All those who pass the test eventually just get invited to a two-stage audition — the first is another online test, and the second, a mock game of Jeopardy! on Zoom followed by an interview, explained Watt.
Depending on how you do on that ("which of course they don't tell you"), you might get put into a pool of potential candidates, she added.
“And then, they can call you anytime in the next 18 months.”
One-and-a-half years of suspense?
“I've been answering every spam call on my phone for a year because I'm like, ‘You never know who it might be,’” said Watt.
In 2017, Watt made it to the second round — "But nothing came of it."
Watt continued taking the online tests.
The March 2022 online test got her an audition call the following June. Though she hadn't expected anything to come of it this time around as well, Watt did get a second call.
In April 2023, almost 10 months later, "on the last working day before a long weekend" in April 2023, Watt's phone rang — “It's an unknown number from California."
"I fully expected a recording to start. But the person on the phone said, ‘Hi, is this Chelsea?’ Because I don't know anyone in California that would be calling me by my actual name, I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, it's happening!’”
Los Angeles calling
Between that call and the trip to Los Angeles in May 2023 to film for the show, Watt had just four weeks of prep time.
She used this time to watch episodes of Jeopardy! “over and over” focusing on the way they phrased the questions and noting the recurring categories (like “word puzzles”); she used a click pen to get her buzzer timing right and by-hearted the names of U.S. presidents and U.S. state capitals.
“There was obviously not enough time to learn all the facts in the world,” she said. “But I figured those were basic facts that would be embarrassing to get wrong.”
Finally, she hauled her luggage and her 10-year-old dream to the land of Hollywood, Los Angeles.
To be physically on the Jeopardy! set that she had seen multiple times on television, was “surreal” and “nerve wracking,” she said.
But, she got to meet her favourite Jeopardy! host, Ken Jennings, and other "Jeopardy! nerds" like herself.
“There was a person there who had first auditioned for the show in the 70s,” she said.
“I made it a little bit earlier than that person,” she added with a laugh.
I’ll take EXCITING NEWS FOR $200, Ken.
— Chelsea Watt (@chelsetron) June 27, 2023
I’m really proud and excited to tell you all that I will be appearing on @Jeopardy on Tuesday July 18.
I hope you will tune in and watch to see how I do! pic.twitter.com/ffUCT24svu
