WWTBAM Bored

OK, 1st read the "aud report to follow later" post. I've already put a lot in that. I guess piecemeal works better for me than one big chunk. But I didn't want to keep adding to that one, unless answering specific remarks/questions, because I'd titled it "aud report to follow later".


I was trying to goad myself to do real work, which I've done some of by now, not post.


Anyway.


Someone early in the aud asked Maggie (or Margie; I've got to look her name up) whether J! is thinking about replacements for Alex Trebek, & she said "he's signed his contract for 2016 & we don't think beyond that". Of course, they wouldn't tell us if they did. And Maggie wouldn't be the one to say, either.


Maggie does the whole aud in an intentionally over-the-top very loud voice & manner; microphones have been invented & the other staffers at the aud (including Jimmy from the Clue Crew) use them, but Maggie does not. She tells us that KJ in his book describes her as "insert some friendly but otherwise mentioning how loud she is phrase here"; I can't remember the exact phrase, but she does & she's proud of it. Would Maggie be a good sub for Alex? sure, but I doubt they'd hire her. She's a woman, but unlike Meredith Viera she doesn't have front-of-camera cred. And, when some auditioner gave their age, she told them "you shouldn't give your age unless its 29 or less", which became a running joke through the auds. Young people gave their age; others joked around it. I, when they asked me to "tell them about myself", lead with "I was born & raised in (city which I told them but won't tell you; please stop looking me up, BJ!, I got reasons! respect them!) but I moved here so long ago that if I told you, it would tell you my age!" which got a laugh. Maggie followed her original "unless you're 29" quip with "I'm twice 29!" & she probably is.


They wouldn't keep her on if she didn't pick good contestants, & she's obviously good at her job, even if she doesn't pick me. Its got to be heartbreaking on some level to know she'd be a good host but won't get it when AT leaves.

OK, more stuff I should have done ahead of time that could have swayed this for me:

I put off writing the "5 things about yourself" to last because I hate that stuff, have grown bitter about it from BAM's looking for looney-bin stuff, know J! is not looking for that, just the homely, in the best sense "my husband proposed to me on top of the Ferris Wheel but dropped the ring" stuff we hear every day on J!, but am shy of it anyway. By KJ's last games I think he was talking about what food his kid, if his kid was still that age, threw at lunch.


I should have typed my stuff out & literally pasted it onto their form. Then xeroxed the page, I'm not stupid. Don't bother with trying to get their form into your own program, bad things can happen when you import text like that unless you've got a lot of time to make it work; I know this from experience at trying.


But because I procrastinated so long, I didn't have access to a printer to do that right before the aud. So they got my hand-written stuff, which I guess they couldn't read. They didn't use any of it. Not any. That scared & floored me. With most other people, they lead with "so you do/went/whatever" off the form, & the person, & Maggie, could go to town on that. I didn't get that opportunity. Either they hated my stuff or just couldn't read it. Or I'd picked stuff Maggie just doesn't know enough about to converse on, but she knew about almost everybody else's topics.


Even when she asked me "so what do you do for fun", & I started to describe folk music festivals where I hone in on the old-English-language-ballad singers, somehow that didn't float Maggie's boat. I can hear your-all laughter from here, but the aud crowd did not laugh. At least.


I'll tell you about the crowd at the aud; staggering # of professionals. Medical professionals, engineers, pretty much the rest teachers of some specialty subject. Then there was me. Who passes their tests & shows up at auds, after the invites, pretty much does resemble who they book onto the show.


I had a comment on my notes, where they ask about "J! winners you have actually met", about the banjo player (I'm gonna keep the guy's name out of here to protect the innocent) who is a J! winner who has been in the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival Karaoke band backing people at the festival, including me. So, technically, I've met him, though we don't know each other in any sensible sense, if that phrase makes sense. You'd think the music answer would have at least let me lead into that, but it did not.
We were moving right along.


Several auditioners mentioned that they had met KJ everywhere from a book signing to sighting him at the airport but being afraid to say "hi". Maggie told us stories about how he loves when people say "hi". She says he said of a crew of 80-year-olds on a cruise ship who all said "hi", "Maggie, these are my people".


But did they pick up on my story about being beat on BAM by T.L. Cubbage? Nah. He's a nice guy, too. I can vouch for that, having met him back then. And he's a very recent Battle of the Decades contestant on their show. But apparently the BAM connection makes it unmentionable at J! auds. The old rivalry still exists, though we fear BAM might not be long for this world, when all anybody has to say about the life of J! is "who will replace Alex", knowing the show will go on.


Or they just couldn't read my handwriting. "T.L. Cubbage" isn't very hard to read even in my handwriting, though.


If you have seen KJ through your binoculars somewhere, please mention it at your aud. They will love you for it.

Its all coming back to me.


One of the earliest (but after Beer Lady) contestants got greeted by Maggie with "so you didn't have a tantrum & rip up the studio". (We weren't in a studio, just a hotel conference room, but anyway.) "So what do we owe this good behavior to?"


Contestant replies "Oh, when I was young I did that, & then they found out it was because I'm allergic to a food ingredient. I don't eat that stuff anymore, so I don't do that anymore".


Now, you know they got this tidbit off contestant's "5 interesting facts". You also know the contestant was smart enough just to put the "I throw tantrums" part on, leaving the rest to be elicited in interview.


I knew you are supposed to write your "5 facts" that way. And you are probably supposed to write, or, rather, type them in red letters, too.


I didn't. Not that I throw tantrums or anything. But why don't I learn?


Look for Tantrum Man on your sets soon, too.


One who may not get on based on their 5 facts, though I hope, for the sake of the rest of us uninteresting people, they do, is the contestant who had written about having 2 cats, "Cartoon Man Cat & his mother". It turns out "Cartoon Man Cat" was named exactly that, not Dilbert or anything, his mother was named "Mother", & cartoon kitty was never very friendly, took weeks to come out from under the bed & went off to live with a neighbor, mother stayed with contestant a while. Not a terrible story (except for the deserter cat), but it had ticking but no bang, as they say. As I say anyway.


I hope this contestant gets on.


At least we know they had legible writing. And knew how to write 1-line comments, like I don't. And had a red pen, probably.


I would never have the guts to put "I throw tantrums" on a TV-show application, even if I did. Throw tantrums.


I'm just puzzling out what gets you into the earlier mock-game-followed-by-interviews groups in J! auds.

Remember, my group was next to last.


Even though one of the contestants (not me) had a hook that when they spoke it, all the audience (except me) went "oooh". Their father is one of the "Imagineers" for Disney World, meaning they invent new rides. Maggie talked to them about the newest ride for a while, which it turned out their father worked on. (Of course Maggie, being Maggie, knew what the newest ride is without being told.)


I didn't go "ooh" because I was afraid it would be one of the rides that treats Disney characters as real & really gives me creeps, but it turned out it involves boats, I think, which I would have liked, Jack Sparrow or whomever or no.


So why'd they get in my (next to last) group?

Maggie SPeak has a good three decades at least of game show staffing experience, as she worked on the Newlywed Game and Dating Game in the mid-late 80s revivals of those shows(Elaine Joyce/Jeff McGregor All New DG era). That would help give away her approximate age.

Alex Trebek got the Guinness World Record for hosting the most episodes of a single game show (6,829 over 30 seasons).

Alex Trebek sets a Guinness World Record for hosting 'Jeopardy'