Posted on 02/22/2006 7:44:06 PM PST by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA — The answer: This Arizona military installation is home to B Troop, 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Memorial).
The question: What is Fort Huachuca?
Although the answer and question will not be part of any future “Jeopardy!,” some things that happen on the post and in the Army will.
Tuesday, the “Jeopardy!” Clue Crew was on the post, filming video answers for the give-us-the-right-question television game show.
Between the Hollywood production, group and the military, the answers are classified so future contestants will not have an advantage.
The show’s Clue Crew is in its fifth year, traveling around the world, filming answers for contestants to put the right question to.
One of the on-air talents is Sarah Whitcomb, who grew up in Mesa. She has been part of the Clue Crew since its inception.
For about a week, the crew has been filming in different Arizona locations, including Flagstaff, Phoenix and Tucson.
This is the first time “Jeopardy!” has been at Fort Huachuca, she said, adding she has been in 41 states and 19 countries preparing video clues that have appeared in the long-running game show.
Some soldiers of Company D, 309th Military Intelligence Battalion, became stage props and clues for the seven-person crew, including another on-air talent, Jon Cannon.
The small group of GIs has yet to start training as intelligence analysts. They were tapped by their drill sergeant, Staff Sgt. James Cook, to take part in the detail.
The selection process for the detail was simple, the drill sergeant said.
It was a six-time “you process,” Cook said, noting he pointed to each soldier and said “you.”
Another Cook, who is no relation to the drill sergeant, said the detail members weren’t told they were going to assist with the “Jeopardy!” filming. “We thought it was just another duty,” Pfc. Dianisha Cook said.
But, the soldier will be informing her parents to watch the show in case she is shown.
She and other soldiers stood at parade rest as Whitcomb made her way through them first doing “promos,” or promotions for KGUN-9, the Tucson-based ABC affiliate on which the game show airs. They also were the props for possible answers.
Noting that there were a number of takes in the process, Pvt. Matthew Gertin laughed and said, “It seemed it was hard for them to get it right the first time.”
But he knew the “Jeopardy!” Clue Crew were doing a number of takes so the best promos and clue answers would be chosen.
Whitcomb and Cannon did each take with different inflections and body language. Not that there were no mistakes. More than once the two became tongue tied. And, joking around was also a given. With the drill sergeant brought in to be one of the stage props by standing next to Whitcomb, she began to humorously pick on him during a couple of the takes.
“I’m Sarah Whitcomb here at Fort Huachuca with my drill sergeant boyfriend,” she said.
Standing at parade rest, and keeping the demeanor that goes with his position, including a scowl on his face, Cook, peered out from beneath his Smokey the Bear hat, a drill sergeant’s military headgear of authority.
Off to the side, his soldiers grinned widely, holding in the guffaws that wanted to come out.
After his time before the camera, Cook, waved a finger at the soldiers, as a wide smile broke out on his face, he warned them he better not hear they told others about his Hollywood debut.
For Whitcomb and Cannon, the process in developing the answers and the categories for them is an arduous task.
It involves writers and researchers, said Cannon, who is in his first year with the crew. He and Whitcomb will each provide 10 answers about the post.
Doing answers about the military is nothing new, he said. He was one of a crew who went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., to do video clues.
Whitcomb has jumped with the Army’s Golden Knights Parachute Team, and been on a nuclear submarine.
Doing the filming is only part of the process, and sometimes it is the easiest part of the procedure, she said. Since 1984, about 300,000 answers have been prepared for the show, she said. It is not just preparing an answer, it is ensuring the question that goes with the answer is correct, Whitcomb said. A special group of more than a dozen writers and researchers check, recheck and do a final look at answers and questions, she said. Once the decision is made what categories the answers will fit, there is another check of the system, Whitcomb said.
Before the show goes on the air, Alex Trebek, the show’s host, joins in to go through the categories and answers so he is comfortable with such things as pronunciation, she said.
Care is also taken to ensure a category doesn’t favor a contestant such as having one about opera and having an opera singer as a contestant, Whitcomb said.
But, sometimes there is a something that happens out of the blue, Whitcomb said.
During one show the clue was about the man who created the Ferris wheel concept and the contestant who answered responded, in question form, giving away it was a relative of his, she said, adding the answer and question had to be discarded. Up to the time the contestant responded, no one on the show knew it was the man’s relative.
Preparing for a show usually means two days in a week in which five shows are filmed each day, Whitcomb said. Working with locales is always interesting because the areas get something in return for having clues about their region on “Jeopardy!” Whitcomb said.
As for the clues filmed on Fort Huachuca, they could appear anytime between March and the end of the season in June, she said.
Post Spokeswoman Tanja Linton said the production company for the game show approached the fort a couple of months ago to see whether clues could be developed about the installation and the Army, and filming done at Fort Huachuca.
The company was interested in items about “today’s Army and its equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said.
Additionally, the presence of the “Jeopardy!” Clue Crew will bring recognition to the fort and the Army by broadcasting what happens on the post, Linton said. “We like to do things outside the box,” she commented.
So, if you know the answer was filmed on the post, don’t assume the question will be: What is Fort Huachuca?
Remember, the post was used as a prop to elicit questions that have Army answers.
BTTT
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