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Bay Area Buzzes In

Tribune photo by MICHAEL SPOONEYBARGER

People take the 10 question pre-test for the first stage and the chance to be a contestant on Jeopardy at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Tuesday.

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By RICH SHOPES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2008

TAMPA - Bruce Whiting smiled and shrugged after emerging from the first round of tryouts Tuesday for the TV game show "Jeopardy!"

Three hours of waiting in line and countless hours of watching the show and shouting out answers had come down to this: three minutes at a table, pen in hand, answering 10 questions about people, places and history.

When it was over, Whiting stepped from the conference room and onto the twinkling, glittering gaming floor at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Some of the 1,100 aspiring contestants emerged clutching one-page congratulatory letters explaining the next step in the three-prong testing process, including a mock competition complete with hand-held buzzers.

Not Whiting.

The Tampa psychologist stepped from the conference room empty-handed.

"I didn't make it," he said. "But at least I tried."

That's the healthy way to look at it, he figured.

He smiled. Then he commiserated with other aspiring contestants who didn't make it.

"I guess I could give myself therapy," he joked.

The nearly three-hour tryout Tuesday afternoon produced tears but mostly shrugs.

A line of "Jeopardy!" hopefuls snaked around the perimeter of the gaming floor. The first 1,000 got a blue wristband that meant they were permitted to audition.

A couple of hundred aspirants were invited back today for parts two and three of the tryout, including a 50-question test and mock competition at the Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk Hotel in downtown Tampa.

Across the casino at Floyd's restaurant, a mock "Jeopardy!" game, not part of the audition, was drawing hundreds of "contestants" who lined up to get a taste of the real thing.

One of those, Joy Appleton of South Tampa, stepped to the microphone, clutched the buzzer and buzzed in at the right moment to name the actress featured in both TV's "Murder, She Wrote" and Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii."

Appleton knew the answer. The crowd knew it. If she was home this would have been so easy ...

"Who was Angela ... uh ... Who was Angela ... uh," Appleton's voice trailed off.

"Lansbury," said Kelly Miyahara, one of two "Jeopardy!" Clue Crew hosts. "Who was Angela Lansbury."

There was something about standing up there, Appleton explained later.

Of course, at home with a margarita in hand and her husband, Bob, at her side, things seem to go much smoother.

It's nerve-wracking up there, she said.

The two never miss the show, but they did miss the audition.

They arrived just after the event's producers closed the line at 3:50 p.m.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or at rshopes@tampatrib.com.

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