David Madden is finally getting his chance on The Floor. The Jeopardy! alum first got his chance to show off his skills on Season 3, Episode 2. Now, he is going head to head again to defend his expert topic on the March 12 episode.
The game show contestant shared on Reddit that he will compete again, and he shared some secrets of the show in the process. “Hi everyone! I am a 2-day Jeopardy! champion (from 2015), and I’m also currently on season 3 of THE FLOOR on FOX (The Rob Lowe show, not the Floor is Lava show). I was on episode 2 and won that first duel (sushi),” Madden wrote.
“Not giving anything away since I was shown on the trailer for this week’s episode (airing Wednesday 3/12), but I’ll be competing again! My expert topic is Natural History (I worked at the natural history museum in NYC for 4+ years). Anyway, please check me out if you can! It’s a fun episode.”
Reddit users were automatically curious and asked him a bunch of questions about The Floor. One fan wanted to know how much information are the contestants given about the category beforehand. They also wanted to know if they get downtime or spend all of it studying other categories.
“For what we would identify, sometimes they would clarify in the category listing (for example Black & White they clarified it was things that were black and white vs. like Vanna White, Sirius Black), but other times we would have to make guesses,” Madden answered.
He also said that they film two to three episodes per day with 90-minute breaks in between each episode. “We got plenty of study time so when the board shifted, we could adapt,” Madden said. “If you made it to the end, you were filming for 5 days total.”
The Jeopardy! alum also said that he didn’t know any of the contestants coming into the game. However, they all met at a pre-show meeting the night before the first episode. He also said that they don’t know where they are standing until the morning of the taping. “So once I did know I prioritized study of the 3 adjacent categories (sushi, poetry, kitchen appliances) and then de-prioritized some that i had studied a lot for but were far away (e.g. Star Trek, female country singers). And then if things changed in between episodes, I would change study tactics,” Madden wrote.
Madden is a former 19-day champion on Jeopardy! and holds the eighth-longest streak in show history, in which he is tied with Jason Zuffranieri. He is only behind all-time greats, including current host Ken Jennings, Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, James Holzhauer, Mattea Roach, Cris Pannullo, and Julia Collins.
He first competed on Jeopardy! in 2005, and had a winning streak of 19 total games, with a total of $432,400. Madden was defeated by Victoria Groce. He then went on to compete in the 2006 Tournament of Champions but lost the semifinal match. Madden recently returned for the 2024 Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament but failed to win his match and took home an additional $10,000. This brought the contestant’s total earnings to $785,733.33.
The Floor, Wednesdays, 9/8c, Fox
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
