I guess this is as good a time as any for my first post, given that I've been lurking since late July.jeff6286 wrote:I hope this isn't an inappropriate question, but I've never seen it addressed before, and hopefully Rex or seaborgium will know the answer. When the TOC participants are "sequestered" for the quarterfinal games, are they prohibited from having cell phones with them? I had wondered in the past if a friend or family member watching from the audience could ever try to signal somehow to a contestant and give them some sort of guidance on what kind of score they would have to beat to get a wild card. It would be even easier for someone to send a text message telling a player in the 5th QF game exactly what number they had to beat, so hopefully the show has some provision in place to prevent this. If they do prohibit or collect cell phones during this "sequestered" period, is that the only time, or is it against the rules to have a cell phone on you during any appearance on Jeopardy? Or any other game show for that matter? Imagine someone in the hotseat on WWTBAM, and their phone starts playing some Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. Since I've never seen this happen, I'm guessing there is a standard rule for any appearance on a televised program, but I've never seen it mentioned before.
I'm Justin Sausville's wife, and as you know, he was in the 5th quarterfinal game of the most recent TOC. He was in the green room for the entire day and he was not allowed to have his cell phone with him. As a contestant guest, I was not allowed to have my cell phone (or camera) with me either. The first contact he and I had all day long was after the last game filmed; we couldn't even see each other during the lunch break. There was no way to pass any information to him regarding how the wild card standings were looking at that point. He couldn't see me in the audience from the stage so even some sort of blinking code wouldn't have worked.