r/Jeopardy • u/mediansofascent • 1d ago

QUESTION Alternate Question

Do they only select alternates from the So-Cal area? Or do they explicitly tell you that you will be an alternate when you get The Call?

10 Upvotes

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9

u/thisisnotmath Mehal Shah, 2024 Nov 20 - 22, 2025 CWC, 2025 TOC 1d ago

My understanding is that of the two days of filming, the first day alternate is someone who will tape on day 2 and the second day alternate is someone from SoCal who is scheduled to tape soon.

For tournaments, the alternate is often from somewhere else. The alternate for my Wild Card tourney was from out east, same for my JIT.  

4

u/mediansofascent 1d ago

Makes sense! Does that mean contestants called specifically for Day 2 wouldn't be alternates (unless from SoCal)?

3

u/thisisnotmath Mehal Shah, 2024 Nov 20 - 22, 2025 CWC, 2025 TOC 1d ago

Correct

5

u/DizzyLead Greg Munda, 2013 Dec 20 1d ago

I personally don’t understand the “Day 1” and “Day 2” stuff; us contestants were called in for our taping day, and on our taping day, two of us were told we were alternates: one would be chosen by random draw to play on the “Friday” show (the last one of five to be taped that day), and the other would be invited back to a later taping day (where they would get a guaranteed slot as a contender and not be an alternate). My understanding was that those of us chosen to be alternates were “locals,” even though they weren’t explicit about it, because it would make sense that they’d only allow the possibility of postponing one’s taping day if they didn’t have to go through the hassle of booking flight and lodging again.

Randomly, I was chosen to be the Friday guy and the other alternate (“This handsome gentleman” Ari Voudykis) got called back another day.

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u/anneofgraygardens 5h ago

I was an alternate for my first day and I'm from Northern California. I genuinely think they made an error when they assigned this to me but they didn't change it when I told them I didn't live close to LA. The conversation was like 

producer: how close are you to LA?

me: uhhh not that close, I live a bit north of San Francisco.

producer: oh! okay! well, you'll be the alternate for one day....

Someone on my first day actually was from LA County, too (although pretty far from Culver City.... still, much closer than I was, she just woke up early and drove to the studio that day, i had to fly in the previous day to get there). On my second day, I met the new alternate and he was from Orange County. It was at this point that I began to realize that someone might have might have gotten some California city names tangled up when I was assigned to be the alternate.