I called a W, an F, and a U that round, just so you might know what I was spelling.
This is the tale of a bucket list item. I have wanted to be on Wheel of Fortune forever. I grew up watching it faithfully with my grandma and grandpa every night that I was with them (which was not an insubstantial amount). I actually auditioned for it back in 2009(ish), when the Wheelmobile (does that thing even exist anymore?) came to Charleston, SC, where I was living at the time. I got selected at that event, which was mock puzzles in the middle of the mall, and did well enough to make callbacks. Callbacks were a series of mock games in a hotel auditorium with approximately 1000 fellow wannabes. They wanted you to be really extra (my boss at the restaurant I used to work at would have excelled there), and while I might be a performer and love doing community theatre, being really extra is not my jam, so that’s where my WoF path ended. Until this summer. I was dicking around on the MySpace, and I saw a little advertisement asking, “Are you a Veteran? Do you want to be on Wheel of Fortune?” Yes and YES. So I filled out the online application, opting not to make a video blurb, as they asked for. I’m really not cut out for the motion pictures, which makes where this story is headed both amazing and dreadful. I got an email a few weeks later inviting me to a Zoom meeting with one of the producers and several other wannabes. There was no advance information as far as what to expect, so when we logged in (there were 6 of us), it was basically, “You have roughly 90 seconds to tell us about yourself. Charm us. Make it interesting. GO.” I was first, so I just started rambling. It ended with “We’ll either let you know if you made it to the next stage, or you’ll never hear from us again.” Alright, then. The following week, I got another email, inviting me to a follow-up Zoom call with a different producer, one-on-one this time, that included another brief intro, and this time a mock game. For the mock game, the screen was split up into 4 quadrants, each with a different, partly-filled-in puzzle, all in the same category. You have 45 or so seconds to say whatever answers come to mind. You do this 4 times, for a total of 16 puzzles. My best guess is that they 1) want to see if you are actually capable of solving anything, and 2) what your process is….do you sit there, staring mutely, do you ever shutthefuckup, what is your face doing (aka are you boring or animated)?, etc. I don’t remember specifically what the categories were, but I was really rocking and rolling for the first 2 rounds. Then I crawled right into my own head and started losing my shit. I know I got a couple of the last 8 puzzles correct, but there were some I was completely brain dead on, let me tell you. I’m not sure that the puzzles were necessarily getting more difficult, more that I was definitely spazzing out. The coup de grâce was in the “Animals” category. I don’t entirely remember what was up there, but it was something along these lines (if we’re using the RSTLNE method, which seems appropriate): _ERS_ _N _ _T “Persian Bat!” I exclaimed. As the words are coming out of my mouth, I know in the depths of my soul that something is not quite right, and it’s been long enough since my last round of Botox that my face is ardently expressing this concern, but I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what I’ve done wrong. I just keep trucking, but this does put me in a bit of a tailspin for the remainder of the process. The producer thanked me for my time, recapitulating that I’d either hear from them again or I wouldn’t. “Persian Cat,” I mumbled to myself after the Zoom call had ended. What the fuck is a Persian BAT?! It was at this point when I think to myself that this moment will either be my make-or-break factor. They’ll either think, “This broad is way too dumb to be playing this game on national television,” or they’ll think, “This broad is comedic gold with how dumb she is – let’s put her on national television.” Apparently it was the latter, because a few weeks later, I got an email with several upcoming taping dates, asking if I had any conflicts with them. Not that they'd necessarily chosen me for the show, just a casual inquiry as to possible availability. After hearing that I’d make any of them work, I got an email a couple weeks after that letting me know which was my taping day. Now, this didn’t 100% guarantee I’d be on the show. Every taping day, they invite 3 extra contestants. I’m guessing this is COVID-related or having to do with any other extenuating circumstances, but you go out to LA with the hopes that the producers select you as one of the either 15 or 18 (they tape either 5 or 6 episodes each day) the day-of to actually be on the show. Thankfully I had a couple of weeks to wrap my head around the fact that THIS WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING, because each night the first full week after seeing that email, I woke up in the middle of the night in a massive panic that would last several hours. That, and I needed time to order a shitload of business casual clothes from Amazon, hoping they'd be delivered to my residence in Bumfuck, Yoop, in time to get the go-ahead from the wardrobe department (there's an extensive list of things that are okay to wear and not okay to wear, and since I have been running around in gym clothes for my professional life for the last decade, I had exactly nothing resembling business casual....I'm either spandex or a cocktail dress) on something suitable to wear. Rooms and flights got booked, invites were sent (you get to invite 4 people to filming, but since my cousin Stevie couldn’t make it, it was my friends Alex and James from when I was a Rhode-Islander, and Jack), and I headed out West with the hopes of first and foremost, not shitting my pants on national television, followed closely by not passing out (and if I did either, I’d hoped they’d be kind and edit it/them out), and actually making it onto the show. I wouldn’t turn down a bunch of cash and/or trips either. I can’t tell you if any of that comes to fruition until after my show airs, but if you’re interested in the outcome, I’d recommend tuning in on January 31st.
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AuthorA Homebody with a severe case of Wanderlust Categories
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