Brooke Martin was going to get on Jeopardy, no matter how long it took. But for the life-long 11-year-old fan from Galway, it only took two tries to land a spot on Kids Week.
For the first five minutes I just walked around muttering ‘Oh my God!’ Then I thought, ‘I can’t believe I’m going to be on Jeopardy and I’m going to get to meet Alex Trebek,’ said Martin, excitedly recalling the moment when her Mom told her Jeopardy had called to say they wanted her to compete.
Martin was one of 15 kids`ages 10, 11 or 12`who traveled to Sony Pictures Television in Los Angeles, CA in early March to tape shows for Kids Week. The episodes won’t air until July.
Martin’s Jeopardy journey started back in the summer of 2009 when a commercial for the kids test ran after an episode of the show.
`My Mom made a joke about me signing up but I decided to just have fun and do it,` said Martin. `A couple months later, I got an email saying I was one of 300 kids that had gotten an audition.`
Martin traveled to Boston for that first audition but never heard back from Jeopardy representatives. In February 2010, the kids test commercial came on again and she decided to give it another try. Sure enough, another email invited her to another audition, this time in New York City.
`At auditions they took all the kids separately into a room and we had to take a written test of 30 questions. They also called us three at a time and did a mock game of Jeopardy with a screen and buzzers,` said Martin.
About a month ago, Martin got the call that she’d made it on the show and a few weeks later, she was on her way to California for a weekend of trivia and fun, courtesy of Sony.
`They flew us out, put us up at Universal Hilton and we got a little money for meals and transportation. It was a great experience and everybody who worked on the show was fantastic to the kids,` said Kelly Martin, Brooke’s mother who accompanied her. `All the kids were great, their families were so nice and everybody really went into the whole thing with the right attitude.`
Martin said a bus took her and her fellow contestants to the studios ahead of their parents, where they ate breakfast in a green room and got to know one another.
`We had food which was good because it was a long bus ride and we were all really hungry. We talked to each other about where we’re from, our lives, where we auditioned, and then later we went to watch the taping,` said Martin.
Kids Week contestants were called up three at a time to tape and those who weren’t taping got to watch all the matches from the audience.
`I was very nervous but once we got started I just got into it and you forget that the audience is there,` said Martin. `It was really amazing and Alex was pretty funny.`
To prepare for her Jeopardy debut, Martin got a little help from her parents. Her dad found a website with archived episodes and her Mom quizzed her on past questions.
`[The site] had pretty much every episode ever and my Mom would read them out loud and I’d try to guess the answers,` said Martin. `I could usually get them right.`
Martin doesn’t consider herself a genius or a whiz kid.
`I read a lot, so I know a lot of stuff,` said Martin.
Seeing her daughter appear on the show they watch as a family night after night was exciting and a proud moment, said Kelly Martin.
`I told her to go in with the attitude that it’s amazing to be on the show and what happens, happens. Enjoy it for the adventure that it is because not too many 11-year-olds get to have one of their dreams come true,` said Kelly Martin.
Besides buzzing in on camera`the results of which she can’t reveal`Martin said visiting California for the first time was fun.
`We went to Universal Studios and it was only 20 degrees in New York but in the 60s in California, so that was nice,` said Martin.
Martin said she loved the experience so much that she would `definitely` consider doing it again in the future.
See how Martin did when her episode airs sometime between Monday, July 4, and Friday, July 8, on ABC. The winner of each game receives a minimum guarantee of $15,000, second place gets $2,000 and third place earns $1,000.
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