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heartbreak if it wasnt for the shows liberal rules with certain answers.
(Pshh, like a first name is required for identifying a person.)
Thats me right now.
My family and I are doing well.
Ive been working from home for 15 years and I kind of like it, actually.
I dont want it to last forever, though.
I do hear a lot fromJeopardy!fans who want to see those shows, but I cant help.
The show is going to make me look like a .500Jeopardy!player!
But what are you going to do?
I was so surprised that your first episode isnt lurking anywhere on the internet to be watched for free.
Some fans you have!People are going to be shocked when they see my face from 2004.
I was a lot smoother back then, too, in other ways you wouldnt know.
Paint me a picture of 20-something Ken Jennings.
We were super bummed, but finally said, You know what?
Lets just come back.
We drove back home and came back.
My wife was all right with it.
I was a computer programmer at a small firm.
But a year goes by.
You cant play against somebody you know onJeopardy!because of FCC regulations and possibilities of collusion.
I have some Irish guilt about it.
What I said out loud was that I didnt want to be negative going into Final Jeopardy!
I mean, thats embarrassing if you disappear before the last of the show.
In my head, I thought it would be great to win.
You get to say youre aJeopardy!champion, and not that you just appeared on the show.
Its a big difference.
It was always my favorite show as a kid and I admired all of the really good players.
I knew them all by name.
So, I really wanted to win that first game.
That was my only goal.
I was happy with one, and everything after that was gravy.
He studies every clue before every show.
You dont see Alex until the top of the show.
Hes right there; hes in 3-D; hes talking.
That was the other thing I wanted to do, to not look like a tool in my interview.
Because they can bedumb.
Im gonna admit that sometimes Id make things up.
The show doesnt fact-check that stuff.
He has to tilt his head and look quizzically at you regardless of what you say.
PlayingJeopardy!for the first time just knocks your socks off.
Its a real experience.
You only put the last name for Marion Jones as your Final Jeopardy!
answer, which gave Alex pause.
We were in London the entire time, and I didnt see a single event.
It didnt really have the usualJeopardy!puzzle or problem-solving element.
Unless theres a weird trick I didnt realize, the answer was Marion Jones.
I knew the answer.
Because theres then an additional opportunity to introduce some kind of error.
Who is Williams?There was what seemed like an eternity of a pause.
He looked at the judges table.
It didnt take too long before he got a nod.
I dont think it was a tough judgment call.
Somehow, against all odds in these 20 minutes, I survived.
The perception of time was crazy.
It felt like 30 seconds.
I couldnt keep up what was going on.
After that initial win, what was your life like as a contestant?
We taped five shows in an afternoon.
She was always my first call when I got back to the Sony parking garage.
At first I stayed with a friend down in Orange County, but it was too far.
Just completely untouched since the 60s.
As the summer went on and I won millions of dollars, I was still staying at that motel.
I had my routine down!
At one point they recognized me and they were like, Why are you staying here, man?
For months and months nobody recognized me because I played about 50 games before they began airing.
But eventually when they aired, I started getting recognized at the rental-car place.
Thats when I knew things were changing.
TheJeopardy!contestants would always recognize me, which was a bummer.
I would walk into a room and Id see their faces fall.
They were hoping that I had lost in the interim.
I didnt want to hang out with those people!
Thats very courteous of you.I wasnt being a jerk and I wasnt playing games with anybody.
I was trying to be nice.
And thats fair enough.
You got three clues wrong in your first game.
Excuse me,GOAT?Its true!
Okay, Im ready.
The category is Country Time.
In April 1939 this country absorbed Albania.I bet I said Greece, but its Italy.
Wow, yes.Oh, yeah!
Now that I know Past Ken got it wrong, Im going with my second answer.
Thats a tough question.
Who knows much about Albanian history in the prewar era?
This is also from Country Time.
A child prodigy, violinist Yehudi Menuhin was born in this country.Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.
I get all those violinists confused.
Did I say the U.S.?
You didnt, but thats the right answer.I originally said Israel, didnt I?
That you did!It doesnt matter.
I got it now!
Yes, I swear!See, this is a teaching moment.
You should really keep your mouth shut onJeopardy!unless youre sure.
Its hard when youre in the trenches to remember that.
I think it might be Lindsey Graham?
Its Elizabeth Dole.Ah, of course.
Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina.
I took a shot at that, huh?
Im 66 percent better today than I was then.
