Answer: It’s the most fun you can have on TV.
Question: What is being a contestant on “Jeopardy!”?
That wasn’t one of the clues given to Jonathan Fox earlier this fall, but it is one he happily responds to today. The Plymouth husband and father of two was a contestant on the long-running TV quiz show where people are given the answers and must phrase their responses as questions.
Filmed in September, Fox’s segment airs Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 7:30 p.m. on WBZ-TV in Boston. While Fox can’t speak about how he did on the show, he has plenty to say about what it was like.
“It was the experience of a lifetime,” said the 52-year-old capacity planning manager for Wayfair in Boston. “If they ask me to go back, I would say ‘yes’ faster than the first time.”
Fox said he was excited to walk on to the stage – named for the legendary “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, who died in 2020 – but was overwhelmed when he saw the 60-foot video screen where clues are displayed, as well as the setup of the famous studio. He was also surprised by the temperature.
“When you see the podiums and the question board, it’s – breathtaking might be overstating it – it’s impressive to feel the ambiance,” he said. “It is, like most TV studios, freezing cold and bright because of the hot lights they use for the cameras.”
Fox explained that the large screen shows all 30 sections with the subjects and dollar values for the clues. When a contestant picks one, the answer takes over the big board.
“The clue appears on the main board,” he said. “It’s huge! It’s got to be 60 feet across…To see the clue that big, it’s amazing.”
When questioned about how contestants signal to respond to the answer, Fox admitted to a certain uneasiness over that process.
“Buzzer anxiety is a real thing,” he said. “When you push the button and nothing happens, you really start to freak out. You think you never will be able to buzz in on anything. Once you figure out the timing, you can get on a roll where you can answer four or five questions in a row. I’m not sure that happened to me. It’s all such a blur.”
The Plymouth contestant noted that there was one time when he didn’t touch his buzzer. The category was anagrams, where letters of a word are rearranged to spell another.
“I’m terrible at anagrams,” he admitted. “When somebody picked that category, I literally put my buzzer down. I would not touch it.”
To qualify for “Jeopardy!,” Fox had to pass an online test. The first time, about six years ago, he didn’t get a return call. However, after Fox tried again in the spring, he was notified he had made it to the next round. He then auditioned on Zoom and participated in simulated game-play test.
“Then you’re told you’re in the contestant pool and you might get a call in 24 months,” he said.
In August, he was contacted about a possible taping at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif., near Los Angeles. Aside from his wife Julie and children Aaron and Maddie, he could tell no one what he was doing. When people saw him posting on Facebook about his trip, his cover was that he had gone there to attend a Los Angeles Dodgers game, which he saw the day before the taping.
“I didn’t tell my friends, my parents, anybody, which is hard thing to do because you are excited and you want to tell people,” he said.
While on television, Fox wanted to do something for his wife, so he spent the night before his appearance learning American Sign Language.
“You have a fleeting moment when they introduce you on screen,” he said. “I did sign something to my wife in ASL. She’s not fluent in ASL and neither am I, so I hope she figures it out.”
One of the highlights of his experience was meeting Ken Jennings, a former “Jeopardy!” contestant who won 74 consecutive games. Fox said the show’s host was as charming and engaging as he appears on television, though the Plymouth resident only spoke to him briefly because of protocols related to previous quiz show scandals.
“Hosts, contestants, questions and producers are kept very, very separate,” Fox said. “Our interactions with Ken were limited to the time we were playing the game.”
He added, “For all of the tapings I was there for, he is brilliantly smart, fast, funny and self-effacing. There is not a hint of ego. He’s very upfront when he makes mistakes on clues. He’s everything you would hope he would be.”
Though it didn’t happen, Fox was excited about the possibility of meeting “Jeopardy!” announcer Johnny Gilbert, who has called every episode – more than 9,000 – of the show since it first aired on primetime television in 1984. He was honored by Guinness World Records for having the longest career as a game show announcer for a single show.
“My one regret is that I didn’t get to hear Johnny Gilbert say my name on air,” he said. “He is 96 years old and he tapes from home now. On Tuesday, I will finally get to hear him say my name.”
So how did he do? Fox won’t say, only: “Tune in on Tuesday!”
Dave Kindy, a self-described history geek, is a longtime Plymouth resident who writes for the Washington Post, Boston Globe, National Geographic, Smithsonian and other publications. He can be reached at davidkindy1832@gmail.com.