How did you prepare for today's show?
This time around I prepared for Jeopardy! by, uh, like, studying children's introductory books and, like, picture books, and world geography atlases and stuff like that.
How did you react when you found out about the Kids Week Reunion?
When I found out that, uh, there was gonna be a reunion show I was just so excited 'cause I lost the first time and I really wanna, maybe, not lose this time. So, that would be fun.
What are some of your favorite activites?
I like to write songs and play racquet sports and just mo--just move to New York City, so I wanna hang out there.
What are you most excited about today?
I'm most excited today about just meeting the other contestants 'cause they're all such interesting people and, uh, havin' a good time. |
"He has always wanted to be a writer, and now that he's starting a Ph.D. program in religious studies, he's going to get plenty of practice. A Ph.D student from Columbia University..."
2008 Kids Week Reunion player (2008-09-16).
1999 Back-to-School Week player (1999-09-07).
In 7th grade English class, my teacher asked me on a mythology quiz: "How will mythology improve your everyday life?" Like a prophet I wrote: "If I'm ever on a TV game show, I'll know the answers." My teacher gave me an F, but not a month later I got a Fed-Ex in the mail telling me I was going to compete on the first-ever Kid's Jeopardy! tournament. Sure enough, when I was on the show, I got the $1000 question correct in the category "Mythology." "Who is Achilles?" I answered with confidence. Take that, formal education!
I never liked school very much--I always felt I learned more from books that I wanted to read on my own and from watching "The Simpsons" than I ever did in class. I hated that when I knew more than the other students my teachers would get angry that I'd "buzz in" on questions they'd pose to the class where they weren't looking for an answer. I was kicked out of class so many times, had to write my name on the board, sit in "Time Out" and was placed in all of those other places they hide the subversives.
When I flew to L.A. back in 1999, I remember meeting such nice, well-rounded people as my competitors. Jeopardy! is not like the national spelling bee where contestants have to be obsessively focused on one topic to the point of social isolation; instead, they have to be very aware about what's going on around the world. I didn't study much when I was 12 but I definitely became more aware of little details in the months leading to the show. Everyone I met would teach me little tidbits, and it was very nice to get to interact with people and have them help me. Some of it was very useful--a couple days before I was on, an older man reminded me that the president of the Confederacy was Jefferson Davis, and that was a $1000 question in the CIVIL WAR category!
My two opponents, Robert and Davine, were super-sharp. Our game was very close and it came down to the Final Jeopardy! question. Although I didn't win, I was grinning the whole time.
Jeopardy! opened a lot of doors for me--I was 12 and had just moved from Omaha, Nebraska to West Hartford, Connecticut. I was an instant celebrity when I started 8th grade in the fall. I'd walk up to girls holding a box of Certs in my left hand, and I'd say, "Hello, my name is Yoni Freund, and I was on Jeopardy! Want a breath mint?" Did this for two weeks and was sitting at the cool table! It took about a month, however, for them to realize how dorky I really was.
Jeopardy! is such an amazing show because so much of life is about conflicting opinions. Jeopardy!, however, is cold and uncompromising. You can't fudge Jeopardy! knowledge. You can't ring in and try to use a British accent to sound intelligent and come up with the wrong response; you'll still be wrong. That's why people love trivia, because you can't fake it and you can't just throw up your hands when you're wrong with excuses like, "Well that's just your opinion!"
The Kids Week Reunion Game
It was very easy to tell who the "Jeopardy! kids" were at the fancy Universal Hilton. T-shirts. Shorts. Walking around with nothing to do. I had not seen one contestant, Nate, since I was in the seventh grade, and he had grown a foot taller, but I recognized him instantly. I went up to him at the elevator, we had a moment of acknowledgment, and then we hugged. I felt like I had uncovered an old photo album that I hadn't seen since junior high school.
Nate and I ran into Melanie, and then Katie, and then Curtis, and before you know it we're lounging by the pool and keeping the lookout for even more contestants. If you think we talked trivia and Jeopardy! you are wrong. We all had one thing in common--we were grateful for our sponge-like memories, but we were so relieved to not have to "prove" our knowledge base to one another. So many times in my life my friends have paraded around my sometimes-photographic mind and instant recall like I'm the autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman." But here at the pool with fellow Jeopardy! contestants, everyone knew what everyone else was capable of, so there was no "ooh"ing and "aah"ing over talents. We just spoke with calm respect for one another.
That night, just twelve hours before the taping, we went out and had some fun at Universal City. The only tense moment came at the "Forest Gump"-themed restaurant we were eating at, when our waiter began asking us progressively harder "Forrest Gump" trivia questions. He must have asked us over twenty-five questions and between the five of us we didn't miss a single answer. Although we all outwardly congratulated one another, it reminded me that I was around some razor-sharp minds, and winning an episode of Jeopardy! would take a lot of luck.
The next morning I took a 6 am swim and got breakfast in bed. Then I put on my outfit and went downstairs. All 15 contestants and one alternate were now congregated in the lobby with Jeopardy coordinator Maggie Speak. We shuffled into a small bus and began riding to the studio. My heart was beating about 150 BPM's but luckily Maggie got up in front of us and went through a rundown of the rules of the show, how the buzzer and Final Jeopardy! tablet worked, just running through how our day would go. This was a tremendous help to me because it helped me visualize everything I'd be going through beforehand so there would be no surprises.
Finally we arrived at the Sony lot and when I saw the billboard with the Jeopardy! logo my heart pounded even harder. We were whisked into the Green Room where we were prepped and then we walked onto the set. For a TV trivia nerd, this was like walking into the Sistine Chapel. The producers set up something very beneficial to ease the nervousness: we played two full mock games with Johnny Gilbert introducing us, using real buzzers, Daily Doubles, and even the Final Jeopardy! music. That got us in ready mode. Before we knew it it was noon and the studio audience showed up and then the first three contestants were chosen to begin the season premiere episode of the 25th season of Jeopardy!
The producers chose me to play in the second game of the day, and I had two very tough opponents. I won't spoil what happened but I feel that I put in everything I had into my performance and I left the studio with closure (and an exhausted mind!) When we got back to the hotel nearly all sixteen of us relaxed for about twenty minutes before going straight back out for partying in the Universal City! Now that the games were over and the tension was gone we got to settle in and soak in how surreal the experience truly was. A free trip to L.A., put up at a fancy hotel with fifteen amazing people I hadn't seen in a decade, and we're now planning our NEXT reunion maybe nine or ten years down the line. |
