Jeopardy TV Show 1980’s , January 20th, 2020

Jeopardy TV Show Story, January 20th, 2020

Back in the 1980’s my younger sister went to the Jeopardy qualifying test in Kansas City and she was accepted to be on the show.

My Dad was in Las Vegas on business. He told my Mom and sister to go to Los Angeles and enjoy the experience.

The Jeopardy Program paid for my Mom and sister to fly to Los Angeles from KC and put them up in a hotel. Not sure where. Maybe Burbank.

Dad upgraded their room at the hotel to a suite and hired a car and driver to take them to the TV studio.

The day of the TV show my sister and Mom show up in a big black limo. The other two contestants for the show, are getting out cabs.

“Why does she get a limo and we don’t?” One contestant complained.

The Jeopardy people told my Mom that she couldn’t give any clues to my sister as Mom sat in the audience. That was tough on Mom.

The show went really well. Alex Trebeck liked my sister. She wore a blue dress and told Alex that she was a housewife in KC raising her two daughters.

Unfortunately my sister missed the double jeopardy question and the final question. Which I remember, but I won’t embarrass her by listing them here.

My sister came in second. She got a vacuum cleaner and the home game of Jeopardy.

Dad called Mom at the hotel in LA to ask how their daughter did on the show. Dad, “Sorry to hear that. But I’m winning at the tables.”
Dad doesn’t gamble big amounts. A ten dollar bet was huge for him in the 1980’s.

Mom assumed Dad had won big and went on an antique buying trip. She bought a very old black and jade Chinese folding 6’ high screen that cost quite a bit. It sat in the KC home and then the Savannah home. We always worried that it would fall over and hurt Mom. My sister has it now. Which is symmetry.

The VHS tape of my sister’s appearance on Jeopardy was in the family for awhile, but, no one has it anymore. I think my sister acquired and burned all the copies.

Don’t know what happened to the vacuum cleaner.

Dad told me the wife/daughter trip to Los Angeles cost him way more than he won in Las Vegas.

TJM