A North Dundas native gave her two opponents a run for their money (pun intended) when she competed on the popular long-running American gameshow, Jeopardy! last week. Amanda Prusila was born in Ottawa – which she now calls home once again – but she was raised in Winchester and attended North Dundas District High School. Her Jeopardy! episode aired on October 7, which happens to be Amanda’s birthday. The coincidence was a great birthday gift! The episode was filmed several months ago.
The game proved to be a roller coaster. Amanda was able to quickly raise her in-game fortune to $2,400 within the first few minutes, but when she made a slight error in naming famed conjoined twin brothers Chang and Eng Bunker, her balance fell. She regained traction and climbed to a $3,000 balance by the middle of the episode.
Two more errors in a cooking terms category put Amanda at -$600, but it didn’t take long to bring herself back to a positive balance of over $1,400. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, as her opponent Mark quickly took centre stage, amassing over $23,000 of in-game winnings.
Following some more ups and downs, Amanda finished with $600 while Mark was the champion of the night with $20,000 – his second episode as champion with total winnings of over $50,000. But even without a win, a chance to appear on a famous TV show was a great experience for Amanda, who is a huge fan of “Jeopardy!”
“Overall, I’m happy with my performance,” said Amanda. “My main goals were to make it to Final Jeopardy! and to not make a truly embarrassing, meme-worthy mistake. Anything more than that would be the cherry on top. The daily double and just getting to riff with Ken were definitely my highlights of the episode itself.
“Going in, I knew how well I’d do would really depend on the categories, as well as my competitors: their buzzer speed as well as their knowledge base, and if we’d be dueling over the same clues. The most frustrating part for me was my wrong answers that were so close, but since it’s been over four months now since filming, I’ve made peace with them. I’m human, and recalling obscure trivia from the recesses of my mind is an imperfect process.”
The most surprising aspect of the whole experience for Amanda was how friendly everyone was on set, including her two opponents, Daniel and Mark. “I especially gelled with my two competitors… so it was a treat to be paired up against them,” she said.
Amanda describes herself as a “proud Ottawan”, but she was raised in Winchester and still has family in the area. “I really appreciate the perspective of growing up in a small agricultural community, and I had a great experience with some stellar teachers and mentors at North Dundas District High School,” she added. Her love of Jeopardy! took of “in the last 8 or so years” as she and her boyfriend began recording episodes to watch later. Amanda explained her attraction to the show: “Compared to other game shows, the sheer volume of content is what really drew me in, with no time wasted explaining the rules and drumming up suspense. The writers take a lot of care to pepper the clues with obscure facts, but without making the clues too difficult to answer.”
For some, a barrier to appearing on a game show would be camera shyness, but Amanda offers key advice in this area: “I have learned, through a lot of trial and error, to just not care as much. I often remind myself that I’m my harshest critic, and that everyone is too focused on themselves to put that much thought into others. Jeopardy! contestants come from all walks of life. I encourage any fans to give it a shot and apply online. You’ll never know if you don’t try!”
Amanda is yet to receive her $600 winnings, but the process understandably takes time. In the meantime, in the absence of fortune, she’ll have to settle for (local) fame!