Harris, Bob 1963-

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Harris, Bob 1963-

PERSONAL:

Born in 1963.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Comedy writer and stand-up comic, 1980s; guest lecturer at colleges, including Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and University of Chicago, 1990s; radio host in Los Angeles, CA, 1999-2002; senior writer, Who Rules? (video game), 2005. Television writer for series, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and The Perfect Disasters; on-camera regular, Almost True Stories, The Learning Channel (TLC); technical advisor, Million-Dollar Blackjack, Travel Channel. Has appeared on game shows, including Jeopardy, Greed, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

WRITINGS:

Steal This Book and Get Life without Parole (humor), Common Courage Press (Monroe, ME), 1999.

Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including National Lampoon, Chicago Tribune, Z, Humanist, and Mother Jones Online.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!, comic writer Bob Harris relates his experience as a game show contestant. In 1998 Harris became one of the major players in the history of Jeopardy by winning five games in a row. At the time, that was the maximum number of games that a single contestant could win (management had imposed a limit), and it was not until Ken Jennings won seventy-four games in a row in 2004 that the record fell. Harris, a former engineering student with limited exposure to the liberal arts, studied before he appeared on the show, and he reveals the techniques that brought him victory. "For Harris," declared an Entertainment Weekly contributor, "being on Jeopardy! meant entering ‘Trebekistan,’ a mental state where ‘art and math and geography and science stop pretending to be separate subjects and converge in a glorious riot.’" In the book, David Siegfried explained in his Booklist review, "Harris recounts how he used whimsical mnemonics and his Eight-fold Path of Enlightened Jeopardy to win over seemingly superior competition." "In the end," said a reviewer writing for the Miami Herald, "Harris … turns out to be effective at bringing a lump to the throat." "Like the best of [stand-up comedy] routines," a Publishers Weekly contributor stated, Harris's book "is sharply timed, pulling out many swerves and surprises to keep the reader alert."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2006, David Siegfried, review of Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!, p. 34.

California Bookwatch, November, 2006, review of Prisoner of Trebekistan.

Entertainment Weekly, September 15, 2006, Ken Tucker, "Trivial Pursuits," p. 78.

Miami Herald (Miami, FL), October 3, 2006, "What Do Ken Jennings and Bob Harris Have in Common? A Daily Double of Memoirs by Two Very Different Jeopardy! Champions."

Publishers Weekly, July 17, 2006, review of Prisoner of Trebekistan, p. 153.