Eight years later, the bride emailed me and asked if I remembered her.<\/p>\n
Yes.\u00a0 And I remembered the bridal dance we had played, and how we opened for a soul band (a good band), and how I announced the bridal party individually; one groomsman was Billy Wisse.<\/p>\n
I had said<\/strong><\/span> Billy Weiss<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0He thanked me. \u00a0I explained to him, \u201cThere\u2019s a Ruth Wisse, a Yiddishist and professor at Harvard.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard the name pronounced before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my mother,\u201d Billy said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo! Where do you teach?\u201d I said.\u00a0 The Wisse family is scholarly; David Roskies, Ruth Wisse\u2019s brother, is a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary.<\/p>\n Billy said,<\/strong><\/span> \u201cI write questions for Jeopardy.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>\u201cThat\u2019s a job<\/em>?\u201d I said, pulling out a pen and jotting down Billy\u2019s email address. My son Teddy — a college student then — would love a job at Jeopardy <\/em>upon graduation. Teddy was on Brandeis\u2019 Quiz Bowl team. (Quiz Bowl is Jeopardy<\/em> minus the money.)<\/p>\n Two years later, Brandeis played in Los Angeles for the national championship. Teddy was on the Brandeis team. I gave Billy\u2019s email to Ted.<\/p>\n Ted and<\/strong><\/span> his Brandeis teammates met with Billy Wisse for breakfast at Canter\u2019s Deli.<\/p>\n Two years after that (2004), Ted got a business call at our house. \u00a0He had recently graduated college. He wouldn\u2019t pick up the phone. I yelled, \u201cPick up the phone, Teddy!\u00a0 It\u2019s for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony <\/em>was on the line.<\/p>\n Sony owns<\/strong><\/span> Jeopardy<\/em>. Sony offered Ted a slot on Jeopardy<\/em> as a contestant. Sony sent a contract via FedEx. One paragraph read (paraphrased): \u201cDo you know anybody from Sony or Jeopardy<\/em>? If so, you can not be on the show.\u201d<\/p>\n Teddy did not know Billy Wisse! \u00a0Teddy and Billy Wisse ate breakfast two years prior for one-half hour. \u00a0Also, there had been other Brandeis players at that breakfast.<\/p>\n At Sony Studios in Culver City, California, Billy Wisse stood by a computer at the edge of the Jeopardy<\/em> set. Alex Trebek, the show\u2019s host, wore a cast on his wrist. He had fallen off a ladder, he told the studio audience.\u00a0 He had been cleaning his gutters.\u00a0 Sounded odd to me. (I was in the peanut gallery.) A Hollywood guy cleans his own gutters?\u00a0 Maybe. There are low gutters in California.<\/p>\n Alex Trebek and Ted Stratton, 2004. (Show aired in 2005)<\/p><\/div>\n Jeopardy<\/em> tapes<\/strong><\/span> five shows a day. The show\u2019s contestants for that day sat in rows isolated from the studio audience.\u00a0 Whenever an on-deck contestant went to the bathroom, he or she was escorted by a guard from Standards and Practices, which monitored cheating.<\/p>\n The first game was between an Idaho man, a Washington state woman, and the defending champ, \u201ca schoolteacher from Lancaster, Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n The Jeopardy<\/em> stagehand said, \u201cLights, camera.\u201d\u00a0 But no \u201caction.\u201d \u00a0Wisse and other Jeopardy<\/em> employees huddled at the side of the set.\u00a0 They looked at computers and talked to each other.\u00a0 This went on for about a half hour.<\/p>\n Wisse, you do not<\/em> know my son. \u00a0Have rachmones <\/em>(pity), <\/em>Wisse.\u00a0 You see 11 Jeopardy contestants per day; they\u2019re mostly all young white guys who look alike.\u00a0 You do not know Teddy!<\/p>\n The Jeopardy <\/em><\/strong><\/span>people couldn\u2019t locate the appropriate random packet of questions for the first game.\u00a0 That was the hold-up. Everything had to be kosher — up to Standards and Practices.<\/p>\n Teddy didn\u2019t play that morning.<\/p>\n Lunch break was at Quizno\u2019s for the peanut gallery. (The contestants ate in the Sony cafeteria.) \u00a0At Quizno\u2019s, the girl friend of one contestant said, \u201cI don\u2019t care if Jonathan wins or loses.\u00a0 I don\u2019t love him for his game playing.\u201d<\/p>\n Shut up<\/em>. \u00a0I was so nervous I couldn\u2019t eat.<\/p>\n Teddy didn\u2019t<\/strong><\/span> play the game after lunch either.\u00a0 I asked an usher, \u201cWhat if my son doesn\u2019t play today?\u201d<\/p>\n She shrugged.<\/p>\n Teddy made it onto the final game of the day.\u00a0 He faced a Boston book editor — the defending champ — and \u201ca graduate student originally from Johnson City, Tennessee.\u201d\u00a0 That was Jeopardy<\/em>-speak for “a graduate student now living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, doing a post-doc at MIT.\u201d<\/p>\n Ted did<\/strong><\/span> well in the Double Jeopardy category \u201cOur Lady,\u201d about Catholic shrines. The \u201cOur Lady\u201d questions covered Our Lady of Czestochowa (Poland), Our Lady of Gethsemane (Kentucky) and several others.\u00a0 This is what my son learned at Brandeis.<\/p>\n Heading into Final Jeopardy, the Tennessee grad student was in first place.\u00a0 Ted was in second, and the defending champ, Boston book editor, was in third.<\/p>\n The Final Jeopardy category was Fictional Children. The answer was: \u201cThis boy, introduced in a 1902 book, flew away from his mother when he was 7 days old.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt<\/strong><\/span> like I was watching my kid line up a 50-yard field goal at the Ohio State-Michigan game with one second left on the clock.\u00a0 That is the weird part about being a parent — all that collateral joy and pain. Merv Griffin\u2019s Jeopardy<\/em> think-music ended.<\/p>\n The Boston editor, in third place, answered, \u201cWho is Peter Pan?\u201d<\/p>\n Right-o. \u00a0She went up to $10,900.<\/p>\n Teddy said, \u201cWho is Peter Pan?\u201d Right. He went up to $13,399.<\/p>\n The graduate student from Tennessee said, \u201cWho is the Little Prince?\u201d He went down to $7,900.<\/p>\n Alex Trebek announced, \u201cThe new champion, Ted Stratton, a reporter from Cleveland Heights, Ohio!\u201d<\/p>\n — For a blow-by-blow of the game, see Robert KS’ J! Archive.<\/a><\/small><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/teddy-on-jeopardy-2005.bmp\" "\\"teddy")
\nFootnote:\u00a0 For $500, “Who is Billy Wisse?”\u00a0 Answer: a <\/small><\/em>mentsh<\/small>.
\n<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/jeopardy-280x300.jpg\" "\\"jeopardy\\"")
<\/a> <\/small><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"