Host: Michelle Jalowski
Michelle: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host this week, Michelle Jalowski.
It's hard to remember a time before Netflix and Hulu and on-demand TV. Even though I grew up without all those things, I'm one of those millennials on the cusp who had a pretty analog childhood. It's been a long time since I watched TV on an actual TV.
In this episode, we have two stories about old-fashioned television magic. Our first story is a blast from the past and put me right back to childhood on the couch in front of the TV. Jessica Lee Williamson told this story at an L.A. StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Respect. Here's Jessica, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jessica: [00:00:41] When I was 18, my little sister, for my birthday, she gave me this journal that she had written in the front cover. It said, "To Jessica, if you don't make it as a talk show host, maybe you'll make it as a writer instead. Happy birthday." [audience laughter] When I was 18, that's like the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I was obsessed with the idea of being a talk show host. I would just come home from school and just sit on the sofa and go through Rosie O'Donnell, Maury Povich, Geraldo, just down the line. It wasn't my personality that squashed those dreams. [audience laughter] It was Geraldo Rivera and his live studio audience.
I lived in Maryland, which was three hours away from New York City. And they would always show-- On the talk show, they'd say, "If you want free tickets, just send away." So, I had to send away to all of them. I got tickets to all of them, including Geraldo. I got four tickets. I invited the people who I thought were the coolest people I knew. We had this plan to go up to New York City and go see the show live. And then, everyone bailed on me [audience laughter]. I was devastated. And so, my mom was like, "I'll drive you up there and go see Geraldo with you," [audience laughter] which was horrifying. [audience laughter]
And then when we got there, this producer came out and said, "Who wants to take part in today's show?" I rose my hand, because I had this desperate need for attention. I guess Geraldo's producers had a desperate need for people with a desperate need of attention, [audience laughter] because they picked me to be in their show, even though the theme was Women Who Date the Wrong Men. [audience laughter] I was only 18 years old, and I had only dated two guys in my life. But to be fair, I was technically a woman and they were both technically really wrong for me. [audience laughter]
I guess it made for really boring television, because Geraldo was really trying to pump up the drama by pouring on the pity. After asking me about my dating experiences, he just grabbed my hand and was massaging it. It was really weird, because he had this-- I think it's a Star of David tattoo in the web between his thumb and his index finger, and that's all I could stare at while. The cameras are on me and he just kept massaging my hand and saying, "You poor girl. How are you ever going to find the right man?" [audience laughter]
It made me really uncomfortable. I tried to diffuse it with a joke, a really bad joke, something along the lines of, "Well, I guess I'll just dye my hair blonde, because every guy I've ever met always likes girls with blonde hair." But it didn't come out as a joke. It just came out like a sad person. [audience laughter] And then, that was when the studio audience turned on me and [audience laughter] gave me this group lecture on self-respect. [audience laughter] Most of it's foggy, but I remember one woman standing up and just shouting, "Girl, don't ever change yourself for a man." [audience laughter]
At this point, I didn't realize the level of humiliation I had made it to. I still was like, “Oh, this is going all right. I think this is going all right.” [audience laughter] My mom is a man-hater. I'll just put that out on the table right now. [audience laughter] She's also Cuban and talks too much. And so, she was in the audience talking to herself, and then Geraldo noticed. I don't even think he knew she was my mother. He just saw this woman who had something to say. [audience laughter] And he was like, "You look like you've got something to say to her. Why don't you stand up and say it?" [audience laughter] All I could think was like, "Oh, my fucking God, my mother's going to embarrass me so bad right now," [audience laughter] not realizing how badly I had embarrassed myself.
She stood up and she's-- I mean, she's a talker. It's like, she goes on and on and on. You're just always like get to the point. And so, she gave this really dramatic monologue on women, and honoring themselves and having self-respect. I was just dying the whole time. And then, the audience stood up and gave her a standing ovation. [audience laughter] And then, on our way out, they were still telling me like, "You can't dye your hair blonde. You're pretty just like you are," giving me this pep talk. This many years later, I definitely did learn something from it in terms of self-respect of not changing myself for a man, but nothing in terms of getting up on a stage and humiliating myself in front of hundreds of people. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:06:42] That was Jessica Lee Williamson. Jessica Lee Williamson is an artist and television writer living in Los Angeles. Her credits include I'm Dying Up Here, Medical Police and F Is for Family. Jessica has also told a whopping 39 stories on Moth stages all around the country. If you want to tell a story at The Moth, remember, you can go to our website, themoth.org, to pitch us your story and find information about upcoming SLAM dates.
Up next, Wes Hazard. Wes told this story at a Jersey City StorySLAM, where theme of the night was Exercise. Here's Wes, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Wes: [00:07:25] All right. Hey. In October 2017, I got a really good email. Maybe the best email I ever got in my life, or at least the most exciting. It told me that I had passed the online test and I was invited to go audition live for Jeopardy!. I got to do that. I was very, very excited. [audience cheers]
Thank you. And sort of an email I'd been waiting for 20 years. I love that show. I really, really enjoy it. On an average day, if I have the time, I will watch the daily episode of Jeopardy! on TV and then spend 90 minutes a day looking up random crap on Wikipedia. That's how I have fun. All right. I got that email. I'm like, “Oh, we're obviously going to orient our entire lives around this now.” So, I started going hardcore, every day watching it.
I would watch old episodes on YouTube. I bought a student atlas, like minimum 90 minutes of map studies every day, UK king's line of succession. I was in the J Archive, a database of all the online Jeopardy! episodes. Just hours every single day, hours. I started watching it behind a music stand, standing up with a ballpoint pen in my hand to get the timing down. I'm really into it.
Let me throw some numbers at you. Every year, Jeopardy! announces an online test, and about 300,000 people say, "I’d like to take that test." Jeopardy! allows about 70,000 of those people to take the test. And of those 70,000, 2,500 get invited to audition live. And of those 2,500, about 400 people a year get to be on Jeopardy!. The odds are not in your favor, but I like, “Whatever,” right? [audience laughter]
Backtrack. I take the online test, 50 questions. You’re watching them on screen, a little box pops up, you type in your answer, it stays for eight seconds, then goes away and then the next question. Out of those 50, I know from research online, you’ve got to get at least 35 out of the 50 to even make the cut. I was scorned. I’ve been doing this. I played high school bowl, college quiz bowl, lost my virginity at 21. I play trivia, all right? [audience laughter] So, I’m into it. I think I only got a 37 on that test. Not great, but just over the line. All right, fine. Great.
And then you go in for the live audition, and it’s three parts. So, the first part is like 50-question test again, but this is a little bit different because it’s a recording of Alex Trebek and he does the answers, and they give you a blank sheet with 50 answer spots on it. You have an advantage with this one, because they don't get yanked away after each question. And if you're moving through these questions at the speed that an average Jeopardy! person needs to be at, you're going to bank some time.
Some of them you're just going to know immediately. Some of them you might not get immediately, but you can jot a little note down to yourself. At the end of that, you get like maybe a minute or so where you can go back and nail the answers. And I got to say, I'll stand before you here with humility and say that on that 50-question test, [screams] I frickin' murdered that. Like 47. [audience laughter] Just destroyed it. Yeah. Feeling real strong. Aah. Woo, yeah. Because like three of them-- All right, I didn't know them. That's life. I didn't know three. But at the very end, with 17 seconds left to go, there were just three that were right at the top of the tongue, edge of the mind. I was just like, “Basically, what's the capital of Croatia? What is the Civil War internment camp where war crimes were committed and what is the element within your body that breaks down proteins?”
I couldn’t get it, I couldn’t get it and I couldn’t get them. [screams] [unintelligible 00:10:44] [audience laughter] Feeling good. All right. Nice. And then you go up. The second part of the interview is like a mock game. They didn't even really care. These are just softball questions. There's no stakes, there's no Alex, there's no lights, there's no crowd. It's you and 20 other people in a hotel room in whatever town you're in. I was going there. They don't care. They just want to know some basic stuff. “Do you know how to play Jeopardy!? Do you answer in the form of a question? Do you keep it moving? Do you have good energy? Do you look crazy on TV?” like basic stuff like that. [audience laughter]
I'm just whipping through them, Emancipation Proclamation, Rosa Parks, just hitting it. John McCain was one of them. That was weird, but I got it. It was nice. [audience laughter] So, cool. Feeling good on that. And then, the third part is just like a little mock interview. They ask everybody the same question. “What would you do if you won a bunch of money?” And everybody's like, “Fix up the house, pay off some debt, travel, help the grandkids.” I said that I wanted to reunite the cast of the 1990s sitcom from FOX, Living Single, for my 40th birthday party. [audience cheering] Yeah. And they reacted thusly.
At the end of it, I'm like, “I'm my own harshest critic. When I fail, I tell myself in detail how I failed and how maybe we can correct in the future.” I got out of that audition. I was like, “Wes, how do you feel you did?” And I'm like, “I do not think I could have conducted myself better. Let's continue to study as if we're going to be on Jeopardy!.” And that's a big commitment, because they tell you nothing. They don't tell your scores. You don't know. I only know. Again, I'm keeping track. You get out of there and it's like, “All right, everybody, thank you so much for coming. You should be proud you made it this far. If we get in touch, it'll be within the next 18 months” and that's it. [audience laughter]
You just go home and wait 18 months for a phone call that may never come, all right? I'm just get out of there, I'm just like, “Do you know what pressure is?” My God. Think about the scenarios of going on Jeopardy!? What could happen? Best case scenario. You go on, you win 10, 15, 20 games, you become a minor national celebrity. You go on Fallon, you get to retire and just play trivia and write trivia books for the rest of your life. That's the best-case scenario. I knew that probably wasn't going to happen. But worst-case scenario, I was watching a game, the answer was Harriet Tubman, at home and I said Sojourner Truth. And I'm like, “What if that happens, all right? What if I just go on national TV, embarrassing my whole family, getting Black history questions wrong?” You know just like that. [audience laughter]
It’s insane. It's intense, all right? You’re just like, “Oh.” All this stuff is going through my head. So, I got to the point where four, five hours a day, easily like studying. I got to the point where I wouldn't allow myself to go to bed if I didn't hit five final Jeopardys in a row. You get one wrong, you better believe you're getting up and looking that whole article up on Wikipedia. The whole thing. I had Broadway trivia books, Bible trivia, the whole bit. It was crazy. And then, one day I got an even better phone call and then I got an email. And if you happened to watch Jeopardy! this past July, you would see that I was a three-time Jeopardy! champion. I was very excited. Thank you, guys, very much.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:13:50] That was Wes Hazard. Wes is a comic, storyteller and actor, and he aims to bring wit, energy and honesty to the stage or the Zoom screen. His book, Questions for Terrible People, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016 and features questions like, What's the biggest lie you've ever told to get a job? We wanted to hear more from Wes about what it was actually like being on Jeopardy! and to talk a little bit more about the late, great Alex Trebek. Here's Wes.
Wes: [00:14:21] Leading up to my performance or appearance, I should say, on Jeopardy!, I'd spent about five months of prep getting really psyched for it. What that does not prepare you for is actually being on set and just the magic. It's so weird. I had been a Jeopardy! fan for 20 years. So, I've seen that studio, that set many, many, many times. So, in a way, it felt familiar, but at the same time, it was totally new. You got there. The thing that struck me was how big it was. It was just a massive, expansive room. Much bigger than it looked on TV.
As far as meeting Alex, there was no starstruck quality, because he is so good at making people comfortable. Like, his job every single day is to take three people who are having the biggest moment of their entire lives and make them comfortable, get them set to play, put them at ease. And he is so good at it. So, meeting him was just like, this is like an uncle or something, you know? So, that was really special. It was just so great to be in his presence.
It's hard to believe that he won't be on the show anymore and you'll miss him, but I think that just speaks to how good he was at his job. He's an American institution. I will say that I was very sad by his passing, but it felt more like when you see a skyline that no longer has a building that you used to love, it felt like that.
Michelle: [00:15:45] That was Wes Hazard. To see photos of Wes with Alex on the set of Jeopardy!, head to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
That's all for this week. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Female Speaker: [00:16:03] Michelle Jalowski is a producer and director at The Moth, where she helps people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world.
Michelle: [00:16:12] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.