He was all that was on TV that night. Ted Koppel's Nightline or equiv. did a show on him and the show, and almost concurrently, he was on Letterman. He did allow as he made an effort to be nice and friendly and unintimidating. It was really interesting to hear him tell about the double life he had to lead - the shows are taped some months in advance. So while he was continuing to play, he still had to pay his own expenses in LA so he stayed at fleabags, and the only people who knew he was still playing were his boss at work and his wife and kid, although the kid is about 2, so probably just knows, 'Daddy's Back!' Anyway, the security on the questions, and on the status of shows that have been taped but not aired, makes NORAD look like a 7-11.
And then, when he lost, they had to maintain absolute secrecy for however many months it was until the show aired. All the LA people knew, of course - I've tried out for several games, and have tried out for Jeopardy three times - the first time I passed the written test, but in the mock game I just froze. Same thing happened when I tried out for Ben Stein's Money.
The game shows I did good on in the tryouts, went off the air anyway. )-;
But the point is, the game show tryout people tell the applicants that they'll know if you try out for another game show within a month or three. The gal was saying, 'This is Hollywood, we all work together, we all eat together, we all sleep...' and everybody's supposed to go 'ha, ha.' IOW, they all know what's going on, and nobody's talking.
Cheers!
