First appeared on Jeopardy!:
July 18, 1998 [game #3098]
Winnings total:
$175,600 + 1 Corvette
Records held:
5-time champion, 1998 Tournament of Champions winner, won first car (Corvette) awarded to 5-time winners in 1998-99 season.
Favorite anecdote associated with being on the show?
I was walking outside a hotel in Tempe, Arizona they day after my 5th win aired. A man riding by on a bicycle said to his companions, “Hey, that's the Jeopardy! guy”; so when my Corvette arrived, I ordered the license plate, JPRDGUY. Look for it on the road!
How did being on Jeopardy! affect your life?
Being on Jeopardy! has provided me with a cool car and a home. I am still driving the Corvette, and used one of my winnings checks to put a down payment on the condominium I am now living in.
Did you do anything crazy with your winnings?
I didn't do anything “crazy” with my winnings. I paid a bunch of tuition to my son's school and used some to stay in some nice hotels on a research trip to Germany.
Is there anything else you want people to know about you?
I am one of the founders of the Celtic Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley and the father of a great son (now a college sophomore). |
"He was a 1998 Tournament of Champions winner. Today he's a college professor. From Berkeley, California..."
2014 Battle of the Decades invitee: $5,000.
2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions Elite Eighteen (Round 2 winners) member: $72,201.
1998 Tournament of Champions winner (semifinalist by wildcard): $100,000.
Season 13/14 5-time champion: $75,600 + a 1998 Chevrolet Corvette.
Dan won $2,550 on the 4/1/2002 episode of Win Ben Stein's Money, tying Ben 8-8 in the bonus round.
Dan appeared on Master Minds on 2020-05-29.
In Dan's UToC Round 2 game, he was introduced as "a professor from Berkeley, California..." In his Round 3 game, he was introduced as "a university professor from Berkeley, California..."
The official UToC web site lists Dan's full name as "Daniel F. Melia".
Last name pronounced like "MEAL-yuh".
On Wednesday, 2005-08-03, Dan, 61, wed Dara Hellman, 39, a teacher at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, on the Jeopardy! set at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, in a ceremony officiated by fellow 1998 ToC finalist Bob Harris, who was named a deputy commissioner of civil marriage by Los Angeles County. Alex Trebek attended the ceremony.
Dara's Jeopardy! Message Board user name: dhellman |
