You've already read the trip reports of my trip to Italy with my three best friends in 2007. But how did we get there, you ask? Well, since the answer to that question has been televised twice in the last six weeks, I figure it's time to share! Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy. :)I have a friend who is rather a game show expert. She's been on quite a few. When she got the audition notice for a game show that needed a team of three women, she knew exactly to whom to forward the notice. GNO! That's the name my beautiful two gal pals and I go by. In November, 2006, I filled out the brief application to be on the game show Chain Reaction, on the cable network Game Show Network (GSN). About a month later, we were sent an audition date. As you can imagine, we were very excited!
The auditions were at the NYU Seminar and Conference Center downtown. There were quite a few teams there, and a lot of them looked like us. Peppy and fun gals with brains, that's what they were looking for. At least, that's what we told ourselves. We took a brief written test, I guess to see if we could write (lol) and then we had a mock game on camera. Of course, we were delightful. I mean, hello, how could we not be?! I remember Agent and Orange were two of the words in the chain, but I don't remember much of anything else. That evening is rather a blur, since I was so excited and hopeful to make it to the actual show.
About a month after our audition, I got a call saying we had been selected! Woo hoo! Our preparation began in earnest. There used to be an online game of Chain Reaction (I don't know if it's there anymore), so we played that a lot, but realized it wasn't really helping us. So we asked a friend of ours to help us out by writing some chains and running reps on the final portion of the game. I gave him a VHS of a couple of episodes of the show and off we went. My office has a large conference room, so we set up an easel, and rocked out those chains. We also all took a turn at the final portion of the game, which in the first season, used a blindfold (it would be a little different in our season, which we would discover later). We quickly realized that I had NO talent for thinking while blindfolded. It was incredible how stupid I became. So once we figured out who would do what, we practiced more puzzles. Our dear friend/faux game show host, later dubbed in Italy as "the luckiest man in the world," became invaluable in getting us ready. His puzzles were excellent! Oh, and we also had a couple of fashion shows, trying to figure out what I would wear on the air. Many outfits tried, but most failed. I'm not easy to costume...
So, finally, on February 13, 2007, we went to the Sony Studios on the west side to tape our episode of Chain Reaction. I was wearing a reasonably attractive outfit, along with a pin my mother gave me, a necklace a friend brought me from Ireland, and a photo of my nephew in my back pocket, onto which I taped a haiku another friend wrote for us. Clearly, I was leaving nothing to chance. We were sent to a holding room before our taping with our opponents, a group of professional bowlers, along with two other sets of contestants. They would be taping three episodes that day. This is a photo of the holding room.
We were sent off to the hair and makeup room. They didn't do much to me, though I did get a touch-up with mascara and powder. In fact, I felt as if I were wearing so much powder, I couldn't feel my face. If you watch the episode and wonder why I keep touching my face, that's why. They used a straightening iron on my hair to make it look shiny, but I refused the offer of lipstick. The makeup guy said fine, but you're going to have to use your own lip gloss at every break. No problem. I stuffed it into the other back pocket of my trousers. The makeup guy then made my teammates even more stunningly gorgeous than they normally are. Back to the holding room...
Our opponents, the pro bowlers, were really nice guys. And, if I remember correctly, they beat us in the practice game we did while we were waiting for our taping, which was the last of the day. I'm glad I got this picture, because after I took it, one of the production assistants yelled at everyone to put cameras away. Whew. Then they re-explained the rules to us, and gave us a couple of things to remember. All will come into play during our taping. One, don't ever contradict the host, Dylan. Uh. OK. Two, if there's a pause in taping, don't talk to your teammates. OK, got it. And three, don't give any clues or use any words in the chain that are sexual in nature. Pshaw, I thought. Why would anyone EVER think of sex words during a game show?? Uh..................
Finally it was time for our taping. We went to the studio and the P.A. told us that Host Dylan was in a bit of a bad mood because the earlier tapings hadn't gone very well. So we were expected to be extra spectacular. No problem. We also had a giggle over one of the episodes that had aired earlier in the week (two words: leisure suit. if you ever see an episode with three guys in leisure suits, make sure you stay tuned...). We flipped a coin to see who would get the first chain - I called it and we won! Whew. They took our pictures on-set. At first, they considered me the captain, so I was in the middle. Then they changed their mind and put me on the right. Then they changed their mind and put me on the left. I believe, when you're watching the show, you will see me in different spots as the opening unfolds.
Oh, I forgot to mention, we had filled out questionnaires that told them more about us before we got to our taping. So before we started the PAs told us what Host Dylan would want to talk about with us. Of course he picked my Olympic synchronized swim team coach story. They always do. And he wanted to talk about how we rehearsed at my office. Then I was trying to get him to talk to my beautiful teammates. Maybe one gal's McDonald's story? No. Then they asked, "Who's the Fanilow?" I'm like, ugh, me, clearly I'm the weirdo who has good game show stories! But they made sure to give me the shape of what I should talk about, so it wouldn't throw Host Dylan off his game.
Right before we started, Host Dylan stopped by to wish us good luck. He asked who lived in Astoria, sigh, me, and then I asked him which subway train he took. He looked at me as if I had told him I would be stalking him later that day, then, as he walked away, he told us. You can see that part at the end of the opening credits.
These next photos are screen grabs from the episode. I got the first word wrong, of course, but so did the first bowler. My beautiful gal pal then got it right and we were off and rolling. Actually, we lost the first game, but got first crack at the second game. And here is when Rule Three nearly came into play. As you can see on the photo at left, the bottom word was Rubble. I guessed Barney above and got it right. One beautiful gal pal got the word Smith above Barney. Then my other beautiful gal pal got Easy below the word Big. Then it was my turn again. So the word is Easy, and I pick the word below Easy. They give me a letter. I get the letter "L." Panic. PANIC. All I can think is "don't say lay, don't say lay, don't say lay, you can't say Easy Lay on this game show!!!" You can see the terror on my face and then I say perhaps the stupidest guess on Chain Reaction (well, maybe not the stupidest. people have said some pretty dumb things). I said Lady. Ugh. Easy Lady. Yeah, cool move. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO embarrassed. Though Host Dylan does seem to get a kick out of it. And my boss did too, I later found out, but still. Photo at right shows my reaction after dumb answer. Thankfully, the bowlers didn't get it either, so the puzzle came back to us and we won it. Because my gal pals are smart. Whew. We had the lead going into the final puzzle.
The final puzzle is where you wager money for each guess. We had a pretty good lead, so we wagered low. Of course, the bowlers got a little momentum and we gals started to get worried. And then, thankfully, Bowler Bobby missed a clue and it came back to me. Oh. My. God. My life passed before my eyes. Seriously. Because I knew Bowler Ken would get it right if I didn't. The pressure!!!! Thank heavens I got it, because, seriously, after Easy Lady, I may never have lived it down if I had missed Franklin Mint. Where "Mint" came from, I have no idea. But thank you to the game show gods for helping me find it. And then my beautiful gal pals took us on home, because they are way smarter than me. I would never have gotten Caddy. Woo hoo!!!!! $2800 for the first part of the game!!!
Oh, and I almost broke Rule One (don't contradict Host Dylan) - he kept mispronouncing my name. As the taping went on, he kept changing and changing the way he said my name. I kept my mouth closed, though, and I think someone mentioned it to him during the break before the final part of the show. I got a little more assistance on my 'spontaneous' conversation with Host Dylan, and away we went. "Italy of the North" indeed. :) And here's where I almost blew it, with Rule Two.
We're taping the final part of the game, where two of you have to give clues and the third teammate has to guess the five words in 60 seconds. We got the first four words lickety split. Margarita. Boom. Sarah Jessica Parker. Boom. Ghost. Boom. Elmo. We were sizzling. Then, the powers-that-be wanted to check to make sure we got Elmo quickly enough, so they stopped taping and checked the playback. We had been told to not talk to each other while this was happening. Did that stop me? NO. When I'm nervous, I chatter. So, I say something, and one gal pal whispers, SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Then I start talking again and someone over the god mic says "Quiet on set." Ack! I believe I covered my mouth so I wouldn't say anything else. Terrified. Finally, they decide we got the answer in before time ran out, so we started taping again. We had like 40 seconds to guess just one more word. But our timing was off. We couldn't get it back. I could feel the money slipping away and finally, What? Do? You? Throw? At? A? Board? And our GENIUS gal pal says Dart and we WIN!!!!! Another $5000! We start screaming and jumping around like crazy people! Host Dylan loved it. When he announced our total winnings as $7800, I screamed like a banshee and ran over to hug him. I'm sure he still thinks I'm stalking him somewhere. As the camera closes in on us at the end, we all say "hi" as a salute to all our pals who had helped and supported us. Then Host Dylan comes over and says, "You know, the word was Darts and you only said Dart. I don't know..." And I'm like, "SO NOT FUNNY, DYLAN!!!!!"
Then they whisked us back to the holding room so we could fill out financial paperwork. We were GLOWING. We talked production assistant Jeff into having his picture taken with us. He said we were great, so there. I know we were! We had originally been scheduled to air in late March, 2007, but they moved our air date up to Premiere Week. Not bad! If I do say so myself, we were spectacular. As Host Dylan asked us to be. The photo at right is of our friends gathering at my apartment for a viewing party. What a blast. And ever since, we've been looking for another game show. If anybody has any ideas, send them our way...
UPDATE: I think I posted a link to our final round below. I had no idea we were online!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdQWa7IW8F0
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