What is Deja Vu?

So I went to a taping of Jeopardy! today. And boy, were there a ton of memories from the last time I was there...seven years ago. Lots of "hey, that wasn't there the last time I was here..." Most notably, of course, was a giant poster of Alex and the Jeopardy! logo hanging outside the studio. As we passed through security I caught a glimpse of the Wheel of Fortune audience holding area, and inside I noticed a tribute poster to the late announcer, Charlie O'Donnell. Said something along the lines of, "The Wheel will keep turning, but the voice is forever silent." Rest his soul, Charlie O.

But anyway, back to Jeopardy!. The door to the green room, of course, still sits right in front of the door to the studio. Alex's podium from the old set, for whatever reason, sits right by said door. It appears they've turned part of the studio into a kind of museum of Jeopardy! history. Right across from Alex's old podium is a 3x3 bank of monitors playing various moments from Jeopardy!'s history. We were ushered in too quickly for me to take a good look at it, though I did notice some footage from the Art Fleming days being shown. And then there was a hallway between the green room entrance and the audience bleachers that I don't remember seeing before. Looked to have more press release photos and the like, though I couldn't get a good look at it.

We're ushered to our seats and I get a view of the new set. I remembered the set being smaller than it looks on TV, thanks to tricky camera angles and whatnot, but good grief, this set is TINY. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. To the left of the board are the cameras that catch the contestants, as well as a monitor where the video clues are displayed. Though this was a free-standing monitor and not one embedded into the wall like the old set was...looked a little sloppy back there. Anyway, above those are the score displays that the contestants see so they can track their scores throughout the game. They've changed them to LEDs instead of the clunky and noisy vane displays that bothered me throughout my appearance.

As it turns out, we're watching the last of the quarterfinal matches for the 2011 Teen Tournament. While I won't spoil any outcomes, I will say this: Trebek read a lot of answers, and contestants gave a lot of questions. Although since they are Teen matches, I won't get to brag to my roommates that I actually know all these answers when the shows air in February...since they probably also know them!

Sarah and Kelly from the Clue Crew were in attendance for this show, while Jimmy was, according to Alex, "at the bar across the street." Kelly corrected him and said something about a wedding that I didn't quite pick up.

I'll put together a list of quotables from this taping in another entry, but a few things that stuck out: Alex and Johnny are still as hilarious as I remember them from 7 years ago, and I actually spurred on Johnny's story about him flubbing a word during a cold commercial read for the original Price is Right with Bill Cullen. Alex messed up a couple of clues, but considering he only messed up 2 out of 122 he read for the afternoon, that's pretty damn good. Besides, it was pretty neat to watch the pro mess up every now and again.

Even better? I saw the man himself walk out of the studio to his truck, complete with golf cart security escort. He and I made eye contact, upon which he said "Now don't laugh!" (He was in a jacket and jeans at the time.) Reminded me of my very first encounter with him, when he threatened us with a banana. Luckily this time he was unarmed.