Thanks to my father’s influence, my sister and I have game shows deeply imprinted on our brains.
I do not believe it was a purposely made decision. I figure it was like my early exposure to the Die Hard movies – an inadvertent though unavoidable occurrence due to their frequent appearance in my immediate environment.
From an early age through the present, the Smith household television sets routinely showed images of game shows.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of dreaming that I heard the “Wheel of Fortune” theme song playing. I woke up and ambled out into the living room to see what I was missing. Upon realizing that no one was there, and that I had left myself vulnerable to the multitude of monsters that lurked in the shadows, I quickly made my way back to my bed. In retrospect, the fact I lived long enough to turn the age of five is surprises me as much now as it did at the time.
Later in life, I saw an episode of the “Price is Right” where all three contestants spun $1.00 in their initial spin prior to the Showcase Showdown. At the time, Bob Barker announced this was only the third time in the history of the show in which that had happened. And even stranger, there is a part of me that is actually proud of the fact I’ve seen that.
And please don’t ask me to share my memories of the short-lived
Monopoly game show. Yes, I could still sing you the theme song. No, I’m not going to.
With the popularity of “reality TV,” there have been more programs that showcased people doing insane things to earn money. I’m not saying I don’t have a price (though all offers I’ve been quoted such far have been insufficient), but when you compare how easily many contestants sell their self-respect for the possibility of rewards, I come out looking pretty good.
My sister and I have recently spoken (not “at length,” but maybe “at medium”) about how all these influences impacted our brain. It seems we both do quite well in word puzzles, pattern-recognition, and in soaking up peculiar trivia (see my previous useless knowledge of the Monopoly game show).
After yet another viewing of Jeopardy, I began to think about the categories. I first started to think of what categories I would want to face. I mean, if you had the opportunity to pick what six categories that you excel in, wouldn’t you be tempted to play.
Of course, listing a handful of choices would severely limit the length of the post and would potentially come off as crowing. Granted, the bard Will Rogers said, “If you done it, it ain’t bragging,” but that’s doesn’t always come across well.
So instead, I will now highlight my short-comings for the sake of length (and possibly) humor. I’m sure I have the quantity; we’re just working on the quality.
Categories of Jeopardy I would Suck At
Finland, Finland, Finland
Knitting through the Ages
Beatniks Aplenty
James Joyce’s Shorter Sentences
Fish that Start with the Letter Q
The Song of Roland
Vermont
Popes that Couldn’t Swim
Bodacious Bogs
Historical Pants
Dali’s Melted Clocks
Elephant Graveyards
Cherry PI
Lie vs. Lay
Omar Khayyam’s Ruby Yacht
Lamps of Peru
Chamber Pots
Mongolian Road Kill
Pinecones of the World
Smells like cheese, but isn’t
Tennessee’s Lt. Governors
Apollo 15
One Night in Bangkok
Catty Cacti
Little Blue Engines that Couldn’t
If a Mime Falls in a Forest
1829
Yoko Ono’s Greatest Hits
Smells like Teen Spirit
Einstein’s Kittens
And our Final Jeopardy Question:
If stumped by these categories, at least I’ll always have the chance to replay my shame in the home game. There’s nothing more I’d like to do after publicly embarrassing my family than to have a miniaturized version of the game that destroyed me. Thanks Jeopardy.
