
Thanks be to the Deity or Non-Deity of Your Choice, this is the final entry in my chronicle of my “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” film week audition. If you want to read the whole story, you need to start here. If you don’t want to read any of it, you have my complete sympathy.
It was eight-thirty and, after four hours in line, we were out of the line, out of the already semi-stiffling desert heat, and inside the air-conditioned theater. I was seated next to the Shoo-In, the Washingtonian nurse and the David Mariniss-reading Republican were seated on his other side. A youngish woman with a take-charge/no b.s. attitude stepped onto the stage and started giving us instructions — warning us not to ask a lot of questions as there would be plenty of time to answer those once she got through the basic instructions.
Those instructions really could not have been more simple. We were to be given two tests: one on film trivia for the movie week, one on general knowledge for the regular show. Each test would be in an envelope we were not to open until time was called. They would be thirty questions each and we would have ten minutes to answer them. Also, if selected, we would be expected to pay our own ways and find our own accommodations in New York — and we might have as little as 24 hours in which to make the arrangements. (I guess that’s why the first few questions are so easy. You need to hit the $1,000 level just to break even.)
Also, she reiterated that we would not be able to leave the room to use the bathroom — unless we were willing to get back into line and restart the whole process. I had consumed probably at least two large cups of coffee and a bottled water before entering and had been to the bathroom at least twice — but a third trip was clearly in my future. I began to feel just a bit concerned.
Then it was question time…never ending question time. Would we really have to pay our own way? Yes. How many questions was that? How much time would we have?
How many answers would have to get right to make the first cut? Not allowed to say.
Can you give us an approximate idea of how many of the questions we need to get right in order to make it to the interview? Not allowed to say.
Roughly how many questions….? And so it went. So much for game show contestants being smart people, I thought, beginning to feel a bit more bladdery than I care to feel.
Eventually, though, it was time for the first test, which was for film trivia. The questions by themselves should not have been hard for any film fan….If you can name the moves where lines like “Round up the usual suspects” and “fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” came from, you probably would be able to answer most of the questions correctly.
Not surprisingly, the questions I found the hardest came from more recent films. I guessed/remembered right about how Harry first met Sally (and for me, that’s a recent film) and probably blew the question about Prof. Klump’s scientific field, because I’ve never seen the Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor. The Shoo-In, a Ph.D. in some combination of physics and chemistry, didn’t know that the Maltese Falcon was a statuette but he was pretty certain that Klump was a microbiologist. I think psychologists call this “salience.”
Those are about the only questions I can remember…though I remember that one multiple choice had both Michael Curtiz and Billy Wilder and Carl Theodor Dreyer actually got mentioned somewhere along with Bergman or Fellini. I guess that makes it automatically hard for a lot of people.
Then came the general information quiz and that was, not surprisingly, somewhat more challenging for me. There was a question about species of flowers that I could not begin to answer. I blew one about John Edwards’ home state. (I knew it was either South Carolina or North Carolina….Edwards definitely seems more like an upscale North Carolinian to me…which somehow led me to decide that the opposite answer must be correct in a bit of logic to make George Costanza proud.) And I for the life of me could not distinguish between a comfit and a compote. (As we were leaving, I learned that compotes are made from fruit and comfits from meat.)
After about twenty five minutes, both questions were done. Now, all we had to do was wait for the scan-tron forms to be read by the scan-tron gizmo (which I’ve never seen — the technology goes back to my childhood, so I can’t imagine they use PC type computers to read those #2 pencil marks now…or do they? Anyone know?). I suddenly became more aware of the state of my bladder, and suffered through more inane questions and some okay jokes. They threw a bunch of t-shirts at us, but I was in no mood to leap for them.
Finally, it was time to read out the people who had passed the test. Not with names, of course, but with numbers we had been assigned outside based on our place in line. First they read the numbers of the people who passed the general trivia test. The Schoo-in passed, of course, and so did the Washingtonian Nurse. The David Mariniss-reading Republican however, did not.
I didn’t pass the general trivia test either. (Damn those confusing Carolinas and gourmet food words beginning with the same prefix!) But as the lone film geek among my little group, I still had another chance. Neither the Shoo-in, the Nurse or the Republican passed the film trivia test. Probably the Fellini questions did them in. But not me, my number had been called.
The good news now was that I had a shot at getting into the hot seat. The bad news is I had no idea whether they were going to allow me to use a bathroom for another hour or longer.
As the mildly saddened non-passers left, their dreams of easy money and nightmares of public humiliation gone for the time being, the rest of us were herded into a line and guided backstage, into a large greenroom. Polaroid…yes, polaroid…pictures were taken of each of us, inscribed with our number, and then attached to our questionnaires. (Digital technology apparently hasn’t caught up with the world of game shows. “Weird,” all us wannabe contestants agreed.)
The good news about the polaroid was that my eyes weren’t shut as they usually are when someone takes a non-digital picture of me. No, this time my eyes were wide open and with my apparent lack of sleep and the polaroid’s less than flattering aesthetic effects, I had the overall appearance of a cheerful, upbeat zombie.
We were told to sit and wait for the number being called and once seated, still next to the Shoo-in and the Nurse, I was off-handedly told there was a bathroom we could use. I leaped over about thirty people to get to it. I really didn’t want to be squirming my through the interview — we were told they would be short. By itself, that was not really good news for me, with my lackluster questionnaire and all. Concentrating on my bladder wouldn’t help any.
Despite my rush, the bathroom was occupied when I got to it and my body didn’t want to wait. I asked if anyone there knew if it was a man or a woman in there. Someone said they thought it was a man and my only hope was that it wasn’t a gastric issue. A slightly uncomfortable three of four minutes later, he was out. (Possible prostate-related delays hadn’t occurred to me.)
Now quite relaxed, I returned to my seat.
The rest was pretty uneventful, I retook my seat next to the Shoo-In, the Washingtonian Nurse was quickly called to her interview and would be escorted out, possibly never to be seen again by us. So, all there was the waiting. And trying to figure out who the other film geeks were. Well, there was the young guy in the Army of Darkness t-shirt with the joke I didn’t get because I hadn’t seen it. (The Shoo-in, however, had.) Why did I even bother to ask if he was there for the movie quiz?
After some pleasant conversation with the Shoo-in, my number was called and I was escorted into a tiny room with an incredibly chipper young woman. This is probably not good for my game show chances because, while I’m actually a pretty enthusiastic guy when talking about subjects that interest me, the presence of really enthusiastic people tends to turn me more calm and low-key. Two ultra-enthusiastic people in the same tiny room is just too much enthusiasm.
Anyhow, I don’t think she really learned much about me. She asked me a few general questions. Had I stayed overnight at the hotel? Had I gambled? (Yes and definitely yes.) I managed to work in this blog, which I suspect is probably my only distinguishing factor as far as the producers’ minds are likely to go — though I don’t know if they would consider it a positive, a negative, or actually not such a distinguishing factor, just more proof of my geekhood.
Anyhow, the chipper young lady thanked me for time, told me I’d getting a card in a few weeks which would tell me whether or not I was being considered for the show and that it was it. The day’s work was over and it was barely past 9:30 and I was already tired. And, people were still getting in line and the odds of their auditioning looked better than excellent. Why had I checked out of my room at 4:00 a.m. again?
****
So, how do I assess my chances? Not great, just based on my numbers, my lousy handwriting/lackluster questionnaire answers and my lack of extreme chipperosity. Getting on isn’t easy even if you can answer the questions, just in terms of odds. There were about seven or eight other film geeks in that first group with answers just as good as mine. Probably at least seven or eight more groups of them, which makes for probably about 60 people competing for, I’m guessing, about ten slots for a single week (and some of those poor shmoes might not even get on the air). There’s always the Publisher’s Clearinghouse.
I’m convinced, however, that the Shoo-in is a shoo-in.