Good Job, Brain! - Bonus Episode: Being on a Game Show 101

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

It's our bonus episode all about game shows with our first ever panel of experts! Join Karen and former game show contestants Elliot, Amy, and Tyler in a roundtable about what’s it like being on a game show. Elliot schools us on how to best prepare, work, and earn your win. What’s it like filming during COVID? What was Amy’s winning strategy on Supermarket Sweep? Find out how much Karen has to pay in taxes for her winnings, while Tyler shares his hot book-stacking tips for call backs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, vowel buying, double daring, tune naming chasers, wiping out moles and whammies. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. I'm your humble host, Karen, and today you're listening to a. a very special bonus episode all about game shows. What's it like being on a game show? How to get on a game show and some behind the scenes secrets of what happens before, during, and after being on a game show.

This episode is being released at the same time as our regular episode. And the topic is actually TV. So I actually have a whole game show quiz in this week's episode segment. So be sure to give that a listen. So game shows, something of great interest among trivia lovers and buffs, and many listeners might know that recently in January 2021 this year, I was a contestant on the American primetime version of The Chase. And I thought, oh, yes, you're a champion. And I thought it would be a cool to share stories about the experience and offer tips and advice about being on a game show. And I'm so excited that for the first.

ever in good job bring history. We have today a panel of experts. So come on down and meet them. First we have Elliot, my fellow season mate on the chase. Elliot, tell us about yourself. Thank you, Rod Rod Roddy. Yes, I have been obsessed with game shows since I was little, since I was a kid and like could hold my own just watching adult jeopardy. I was like, this is a high that is unmatched. I didn't choose this life. It chose me. I auditioned for

my first one 10 years ago and was on Wheel of Fortune in 2011. Got to win that and a trip to Costa Rica. And then I was on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2013, the season that Cedric the entertainer was the host. And in 2015, I was

on six episodes of Jeopardy, which was the coolest. And then just like recently, we got to be on the new season one of The Chase, which was also just absolutely fantastic. Elliot was the season finale, and he's a wonderful to watch. The producer told me I put the grand in grand finale. I'll take that. Yes, you did. And next, we have a good job brain listener, Amy, who is also a game show vet. Hi. Yes. I've always been into trivia and I specifically remember the board game Know Your America and I tortured my family forcing them to play that with me over and over and over again and I've always loved game

shows but my first real experience with them was in middle school they taped double dare oh my god yeah and my school was outside of Philadelphia and we were taking a field trip there to go watch them record double dare and they asked if any students wanted to be on a team and participate on the game show and at the time i was way too shy to even consider signing up for it but i got to be in the audience and i absolutely loved it and i so wished that i had signed up for it that i was determined i would never miss that opportunity again so i think the first game show i went on was supermarket sweep with my sister a few years later, I was on Wheel of Fortune. After that, I was on Jeopardy. After that, I was on Who Wants

to Be a Millionaire? And the most recent thing I've been on was the NPR Ask Me Another Radio Show when it came to Houston. And of course, last but certainly not least, a long time, good job brain, friend and previous guest host, Tyler Hinman. Hello, let's see, game show network and buzzer TV are mainstays in my household of one that goes way back to my youth I would squeeze in as much game show network as I could before my parents made me play outside which I would dare say of the assembled party here I have far and away the least impressive actual game show resume I was on ask me another when they came to San Francisco thank you for the reminder about that Amy so I can pad my resume a little bit was on that's crazy not to interrupt

I was on Ask Me Another in New York. Oh my God, all three of you guys. And Tyler, the game show you're on is severely different than the game show we're on. Summer of 2017 is when it aired. It was called Superhuman on Fox. I dare say it was more kind of a reality show than game show. It was just kind of everyone goes on and kind of does their own smart human trick, I guess you'd call it, as opposed to stupid pet tricks.

Well, thank you guys for joining me. I think we have a brilliant and diverse. bunch. And so we'll structure our talk today in like three segments. We'll move from the auditioning casting stage, the taping stage, and the kind of the aftermath stage. Before we dive in, I want to ask you guys, what is a game show that you desperately want to be on? Past or present. What is the dream show you want to be on? And I can go first. So I grew up in Taiwan and before we had American cable, we actually had British cable first. So before Jeopardy Wheel of Fortune, I was exposed to any of that, I was first exposed to the Crystal Maze in the 90s, hosted by Richard O'Brien.

Every ounce of my body wanted to be on that show. And I thought it was, I mean, it's impossible. I was like, you know, a kid living in an island in Asia and being like, oh, I want to meet, you know, the guy from Rocky Horror and play all these puzzle rooms and stuff. And it really, like, reminds me of escape rooms now. And so that is my dream. I know they reboot it in the UK and there's an American version. I've never even heard of it. I'm so excited to look it up. When you say Crystal Mays, I think that that must be a drag queen, but apparently it's not. Or a drug. I've gotten to do the, like, the dream shows that I've wanted to do. So some of these game shows in Asia are so wild. They're so entertaining. That has to be the next thing. Like, it either has to be, it has to be that. If I'm, if I can't be a contestant at the Eurovision Song Contest, I have to get on the show. Yes, sir, I forgot to mention.

Elia is a noted expert on Eurovision. The greatest American fan. Yes. But I call myself. Because of my ample crossword experience, I would do really well on Pyramid. Plus, I would get to meet Michael Strahan, which is very important to me as a lifelong New York Giants fan. I think second place would be Wheel of Fortune for the same kind of reasons. Yes.

The only thing is, I'd be worried about the luck aspect of the game. Occasionally, you'll see this contestant who, like, never gets to play. because the person playing ahead of him just wins everything. And then when he does, he spins bankrupt. Tyler, that would be you, though. Like, you would be that person that the other two would be mad about. I would never know because it would never get to me. Like, sometimes you get that person who just, like, never gets a chance.

I'm not putting that into your universe. And the other reason I prefer pyramid is, like, they pumped up the bonus round so much. So even if you completely screw up and, like, do kind of portal, you still go, like, 10 grand. We love that. Yeah. Yeah, I occasionally get reached out to by game to her producers. the, like, a chain reaction came back or whatever. Oh, yeah.

I would be like, top prize is $10,000 split amongst three people. And I'm like, listen, as Linda, as Linda Evangelista said, I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000. Like, if I feasibly can only do one game show in two years, we're looking at a top prize of at least $50,000. I would still go on to play. I did not warn you guys that I'm going to do this. In the spirit of good job brain, we have a segment where we call it Pop Quiz Hotshot, where I surprise people. Good. You guys know. Instead of doing this as a group, I'm actually going to ask you guys during this episode, I'm going to actually do a head-to-head challenge, and each one of you guys get a card. So before we talk about, start talking about auditioning and casting phase, Elliot, you're up. I got a random card here. Are you ready to play Pop Quiz Hot Shot?

I was born ready. All right. Here we go. Blue Wedge for Geography, Elia. What is another historic name for the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Congo, for short? What a great question. The historic name for the DRC was Zaire. Correct.

I think it was changed in the 70s. And another fun fact about it is that the capital is Kinshasa. and it's the only place where right across the river is another national capital, which is Brazaville. And a third, fun fact, is that I think

Kinshasa is the largest French-speaking city. Next question, Pink Wedge. The film Ghost World, which features Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch as two outsider teens, is based on a graphic novel by whom? That is,

I believe his name is Daniel Close. Oh my God. Nailed it. Okay. Yellowidge. Which country was the first to send in warplanes to Libya in March 2011 in support of the ouster of

Libyan strongman Gaddafi? Okay. And here we have a question that is not in my wheelhouse. Let's see the U.S. France. Okay.

Purple Wedge, which Ridley Scott sci-fi classic is based on the Philip K. Dick novel, do Androids dream of electric sheep? It is Blade Runner. Correct. Green Wedge, what's the name of the region between Mars and Jupiter where large irregularly shaped objects orbit the sun? Is this a question from, are you smarter than a fifth grader? Because this is called, wait, I think so this is the asteroid belt, right? Correct. Orange Wedge, last question. Who was the first American to win the tour to France. Oh, fun. I truly don't know. I really couldn't begin to care about sports. But if Greg Lamonts, is he? Oh my God. That was in the punch bowl. You got it,

Elliot. Good job. Wow. That was a hard card. For a bonus point, give all 130 spellings of Gaddafi. I was just not to say, he actually holds the record for like most accepted spellings of his name because both his first name and his last name have 20 different ones. All right. Good job, Elliot. So let's talk about auditioning, testing, and casting, the early phases of being on a game show. And, you know, Tyler, you actually have a different game show experience.

So I want to ask you what the testing or the casting process was like. You know, you were, obviously, you were the star of your episode and they probably seek you I would strongly dispute the claim that I was the star of my episode. There were, you know, five contestants there. And I think we're all more or less on equal footing, at least going in. I've been in kind of these circles for a while when you, you know, attend to crossword tournaments and kind of running these circles of puzzle people. These things tend to get circulated. These flyers are like, hey, seeking contestants for this show.

And, you know, I kind of opened myself up to them and, you know, had a few conversations with various Hollywood elite and so forth. interviewing me, there's a big long application, which I deliberately had a lot of fun with because I find those really dry and boring, so I like to inject a lot of jokes. Maybe they like that, and maybe it's disqualified me from a few shows along the line, interviewing with them and kind of seeing what challenge

would best work on the show because I knew they wanted me for my crossword ability, but doing a full crossword maybe wouldn't be really great television. There's a lot of back and forth on, like, what I could do. And we settled on kind of this sort of miniature word puzzle. Once we kind of decided on that, Yeah, we made it happen. Amy, you've been selected for so many different game shows.

What is it that you have that you think the producers picked you? Okay, the number one thing is I know how to follow the rules. So it's amazing when you go to a tryout and they wheel of fortune. They say, don't say, can I have the letter N? They say, spin the wheel, ask for an N. Say N. And so I follow the rules. And I shout it with my Amy voice, my Wheel Fortune game show voice.

so many people would get up there and they'd mumble and they'd say, can I happen in? And it's like, that's exactly what they told you not to do. So one, I could follow the rules. I can shout when I have to. I kind of know my own faults as far as public speaking and such. So the first three that I was on, I know that when I got up and talked in front of people, I would turn beat red. I never wear makeup, but I wear makeup when I try out for a show and I wear a turtleneck so that you can see. my bright redneck, right? So I've got those. I'm also willing to tell a story about myself that might be embarrassing, but it definitely is unusual. I think it was Wheel of Fortune. Everybody was into scrapbooking. So everybody told the same thing that their hobby was scrapbooking. It's like, you do not stand out with scrapbooking. You stand out when you have pet worms because that's what I had. I was worm composting at the time. So we had a thousand worms in our kitchen to take our compost. Or we wrote a, Ew.

They worked really well. Or I have, I turned my backyard into a mini golf course for my kids. So there's, I have, because I'm lazy and I don't want to cut the grass. So whatever it is that you may think is slightly weird or you may not want to share on public television, you just have to get over that and just share that. Yeah. You want to, you want to stand out. You want to follow the rules.

You want to be heard and you want to stand out. Amy just gave all of us a master class on game show. is that's literally what I would tell people to do when they're going to an audition. And also something that Tyler said earlier, like, figure out what makes you unique, what sets you apart. It can be a tiny thing, like, but like figure out what sets you apart and just really lean into that, play that up. You have to make them want to cast you. You have to, like, sell yourself. You have to say, like, I dare you to do this show without me.

Like, do you want your show to fail? Because you don't get me, it will. I say things like this in my audition. I say things like, they're like, why do you want to be on the show? I was like, oh, I'm already on the show. Like, I'm actually already on the show. This time for me right now is me just, is letting you figure it out. I'm so envious, Elliot, like talking to you since the chase.

Like, you're so confident. You're so capable. And you really, Tyler, you too, like you guys are very assertive. personalities. And for me, you know, I guess my, my, you know, I'm not that strong at trivia. I like trivia. I'm not that good at it. But I think it's fun. And also I have a slew of strange hobbies that really people pay attention to. Your strange hobbies are, make you extremely castable. And I care about them so much. So it's very easy for me to, to get really excited and talk about that. So on, on the chase for our auditioning and testing process, like, I don't know about you.

you, Ellie. I took a test and then I got called back to a like a video, like a Zoom or Skype interview where it's just one to one with the person they ask you questions like what you do with the money and you kind of play a mock version of the game. And then my favorite part, my ultimate favorite part of this early process of auditioning and casting is you had to get a background check. You know, everybody had to get a background check. These days, because of social media, there is a protocol where you actually have to friend an entity on Facebook and then they would kind of go through your social media to make sure that, you know, you're a sane person and you're a nice person. And at the end, the best part is you can request and they'll send you back their findings that they flagged. How many pages was yours?

Mine was like 18 pages. But a lot of it was like broiler plate like legalese. But they flagged something. One of the things is I had a picture of me with a cookie that was a cartoon version of a penis. And there was icing coming out of it. And so was that penis cookies. I framed my packets because it was just like my greatest achievements. I was so proud of it.

Mine was, I think, about 18 pages as well. It could have been a lot longer. But actually, when I joined this consulting firm a few years ago before my current job, they did something similar and the difference in that one is that they literally reached out and they were like here are the tweets you have to delete it was so funny hearing this older woman HR woman reading out a tweet of mine where I called the little mom sorry we can believe that but like she literally read this tweet to me over the phone before I could join this prestigious consulting bird and I was like okay fine I'll delete it even though it's a memory of my trip to Copenhagen one thing that's brings to mind that's lot of auditioning that I've done is it can be incredibly annoying to have to do an interview with like the right backdrop and the right clothes and everything, especially when you're stranded in your studio apartment where space is already at an extreme premium. One time, I had to do it all at this apartment. So it was basically against this background. And I had to be standing up

and like, you know, it was right against the curtain. So I had to put my laptop on like a ton of books and like everything. And then it turns out they need like some followups. And for some reason, you have to do those follow-ups looking exactly the same as you did the first time. And by that point, I'd already gotten new curtains. So I had to bring terrible, dusty curtains down, find out what I was wearing. And oh, yeah, it was a different time of day. So the light was all wrong. And I finally decided, let's do it.

And if it's not good enough, then, you know, I'm out. Oh, man. That is truly a game show ride of passage. I did the exact same thing for the chase, a stack of books, a laptop, them being like, that clock on the wall is ugly. And I'm like, well, it's painted. So it's going to be there. All right.

Well, at this stage, where we're going through background checks, we're going through testing. And finally, you get the call saying that, hey, what are your available dates? Let's fly you down. And so now we're going to talk about traveling and taping. And before we get into that, Amy, it is your turn for Pop Quiz Hot Shot. Here we go. I thought we'd already declared Elliot the winner after him. No, but everybody, everybody gets, gets this.

I'm okay with that. I haven't studied, but okay, go ahead. Okay, here we go. A blue wedge for geography, which spice are people in Denmark doused with if they're single on their 25th birthday? Oh, my heavens. I actually feel like I've heard this before, but I can't think of anything other than cinnamon, so I'm going to say cinnamon.

It is cinnamon. And it says here, and if they're still single at 30, they get a pepper shower. It's kind of judgy I don't know about that Pink Wedge which hip hop duo scored a billboard chart-topping hit with a brilliant song about bargain hunting Oh, is that

Thrift Shop? Oh, crud. Maclemore and somebody. Yes. Or is it just Maclemore? Is it just that? It's Macamore and the act is Macamore and Yeah, I'm not going to come up that. Ryan Lewis. But it is thrift shop. All right, Yellow Wedge,

who is depicted on the U.S. $1.1 coin issued in 1979. Oh, no, 1979 specifically? Is that? Susan B. Anthony? Correct. Purple Wedge,

which pop artist Nunn designed the famous love postage stamp and gave Boston a perpetual rainbow on the side of a storage tank? Pop artist, none? Is that what you said? NU.N.?

Yes, pop artist dash none. Mother Maria. I have no idea. It is Karita Kent. Green Wedge, which part of the skeletal structure of the human head is unique and is not shared with any other species on Earth? What? I did not know this. So part of our head no other species has?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, everybody's got ears. Colder. Oh, warmer. I feel like it's something to do with the jaw. It is the chin. The chin, yeah.

The bony protrusion of the lower jaw that extends past the teeth is distinctive to us. All right. Last question. Who is the first defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy? I'm sorry, first defensive player? Defensive player. Okay, so we're talking football. And, oh, Lordy.

Lawrence Taylor was a defensive person, so I think, so I'll go with him. It is Charles Woodson. He was playing for Michigan in 1997. Oh, that's good job, baby. Woo. All right. Travel and taping. You got the call.

You're getting on the show. Now you got to travel. Obviously, me and Elliot have very different experiences with that because we had to travel during COVID. Elliot, you got COVID tested before your flight. Yes. We had to do a test on camera. We had to like do a Zoom call with a nurse so that they could watch us do our

own test. And then, like, once that mailed in and cleared, then they would book our flight. We flew down to L.A., and then we immediately got taken to another testing site. And then, like, got taken to the hotel and given $180 per diem so that we could order DoorDash or whatever because they wanted us to essentially quiet. Famously, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy do not. You have to get yourself there. You have to put yourself up. And that's mostly the reason that there is that $1,000 minimum price is because you have to do that. Tyler, how was it on Superhuman? It was weird because they brought us, they brought us down for, I don't know,

someone like a week or something like that, but I was only needed for like a couple days of that. One thing I did, and I hesitate to say this, but I was actually invited to a wedding in San Jose, one of the weekends that I was in L.A., but was not needed. So I actually just left a bunch of my stuff in a hotel room in L.A. for two days and just flew from L. directly to San Jose with some stuff, went to the wedding and then came back. I'm not sure they know that I did that. You know, I feel like all three of you guys are such good stage presence and kind of personalities on TV where I'm obviously much more comfortable behind the camera or behind a microphone. I was so nervous. It seemed like my eyeballs. They could see everything in front

of me. Like I can process visually everything that's happening. But the back of my eyeballs were puking in my brain. Part of me is kind of like, I don't know if I can go through this again. It was just so scary and I'm really not made for this. And I'm so envious to people who do, you know, who get a charge from it. And it's so fun to watch them. Amy, did you have any like stage fright or were you nervous at all for any of these shows? Well, no, because the first one was supermarket sweep.

And because I got to do that with my sister, we, anything we do together is fun. So from the audition, when we played the practice game and they let us hit the buzzer and we're like, can we just stay and keep playing? We don't care if you let us on the show. We just want to keep playing games. So when we got there, first of all, we were a year that there was no studio audience. So I think that takes off some of the pressure, right? Because there's nobody there. And the host, David Ruprecht, was so genuinely sweet. Like, just made you feel right at home. And so once the host, David Ruprecht was so genuinely sweet. Like, just made you feel right at home. And so once the host, the game started playing, we didn't know there were cameras on us. We didn't know anything else was happening. We're like, this is our childhood. Let's just start giving each other clues or whatever. Play the game. So that part, because that one was a small set and everything made it easy.

So after that first one, it was like, I know how to do this until I got to who wants to be a millionaire. And that puppy is scary because the audience is right there. these huge lights shine go up and down and blind you when it's the boom boom you know that noise that one I was actually nervous during the production which is also why when I got to the point where did I want to answer or quit I was like I'm too scared I'm too done like I'm ready to just just call it good for you to know to know my extent but that that one also we were hidden in a green room

and you couldn't you couldn't watch the other people being recorded all the other three shows you got to watch we were literally in a box that was in a giant tent and the only time we could leave that room until our recording was to go to the bathroom and they would have to escort us to the bathroom

so I went to the bathroom 15 times that day because I was like this is the only way I'm getting out of this room so sure let's go back and when that one was over and I'd actually won something I was just like pure relief. I was like, okay.

That one I was like, it's okay to let me go home. I don't need to keep playing this game. What's something surprising that you found out about game shows or like behind the scene stuff that the TV screen doesn't show? And for me, the biggest thing I could not believe in, of course it makes total sense now. We had a little huddle and there was a third party auditor that came in and gave a spiel and was like, hey, I'm here to monitor the fairness of the game. Sullivan Compliance.

Oh, is that them? That's their name. He walked out and I was like, oh, I remember you. Oh, they do like all. Probably they do almost all the handshells. Yeah, Sullivan does, does Wheel in Jeopardy as well. I don't remember about Millionaire, but I definitely remember that name for the three of those. So what's something, Tyler, that's, you know, surprising that you found out?

Like Amy said, there's just, there's just so much waiting. especially for a show like superhuman where there's five of us in one episode and we all competed individually we weren't allowed to watch uh anyone else so i kind of had to hear hearsay about how everyone else's went they wanted me to have enthusiasm like running out onto the stage and we actually did twice the first time i damn near ran over the cameraman uh there was there was so much waiting like for the studio audience they actually had like a comedian who was there to like kind of hang out with the audience basically and entertain them during all the gaps it was Frank Nicotero, someone like that, the guy who hosted street smarts, I think.

Oh! Yeah, I think that's his name. He, uh, yeah, he was the comedian. So he's kind of like riffing while like between takes and everything like that. I mean, everyone who's ever been on a TV show or to a studio can say that, but like it's always so much smaller than it looks on television. Supermarket sweep is nowhere the size of a supermarket. You think it's going to be a store, but it's not. And the, and the funniest thing there was I made my sister do the running part because I didn't want to do anything physical or running. The meat and the cheese. they were plastic. So they weren't even heavy. They're light. You can tell them. Because it would spoil. Right. I mean, why did I think they were using real meat? You lied to me, farmer John.

Amy, so say for a supermarket sweep, what was your one big strategy that you think really paid off? Oh, we studied that store. Because if you recall, there's like different mini games where you might have to go find something, which ours was juicy juice. And so we had drawn out the store and memorized where everything was in the store. And that way, if we got to the final too, which we did, we would be able to know exactly where every item was that you were trying to find. So we had that store memorized. Oh, I'm a strategy girl. I want to know all the rules so I can find where they can be manipulated. That's such a huge part of prepping for the show. So like, for instance, Wheel Fortune, I guess was my supermarket suite because it was my first one and I had watched it in my whole life. And I had developed all of these little strategies like, one, buying vowels is very important.

You have some people think that it's dumb. Well, they're dumb. You like, you have such a better percentage chance of a vowel getting in there. Once you have money, you got to buy vowels. Like, of course, if it's what are you doing, you know it's going to be a gerund or a. A partisan is going to end an I-N-G, so you start with N. I also knew that I would start with N if it was like on the map because I thought all of these countries that start with new or north or in and land.

So like I had strategies per puzzle. And the biggest one I'll say for Wheel of Fortune is that if you're landing on on bankrupt, that is your fault. Like you spin the wheel. You don't just push a button and the wheel spin. You spin it. You get a practice spin one or three. two before the game, it is on you. It's on your person to look at your practice spin and

see what your average spin is. Now, I was pretty lucky in that my average spin in the practice was about one complete rotation landing almost on the same spot. Wow. So I took that into account every time I spun. If the wheel comes back to me, somebody missed a letter. It's come back to me. You look where you are right now. If you're wherever, you're currently situated, you're free and clear, then just spin it. If you're very close to bankrupt and or like when you do a spin, you might land there, then you alter your spin. You spin harder. You spend harder. You spend softer. So I never landed on a single one. I've always wondered that. Like if they, oh, do they like change like the resistance so you can't really tell? But I guess,

I guess they don't. They probably can't because it wouldn't be fair. That's true. It is, it is surprisingly heavy. That's one thing that was a surprise for me is that one, the wheel is smaller than it looks for sure but it also is 1.2 tons it's 2,400 pounds even shows like price is right there's a blog out there that literally diagrams every game they have and the best way to win it so like y'all do your research whether you're just having to learn trivia because you're on a quiz show or what like put some time into it aren't like like act like you want to win earn it everybody messes up cover up it just kills me try to get one digit right at a time people nobody plays it right kills me and if you're practicing at home practice standing up because you don't

realize how different it is to be standing and answering questions or trying to solve a puzzle than sitting on your couch and doing it if you're on a buzz show like get a toy buzzer like get a pin um the Alex Jacob who won the tournament of champions or jeopardy that I was in said that he used one of those springy toilet paper roll thing and I was like yeah well that that that's my probably why you won. You're so smart. Very early on, I knew I was like a personality pick and not really for my trivia prowess. Again, I like trivia. I wouldn't say I'm very good at it. And, you know, with the chase, there are a lot of former Jeopardy champs or Jeopardy contestants who have gone through kind of that experience before. So for little me, I'm like, okay, I watched

the past episodes and I know the Chase always asks kind of like risque, dirty word type of of questions. So I studied a list of words that sounds dirty. I printed out at the hotel lobby. I print out just pages and pages of trivia question. So I was like, okay, well, they're going to take away my phone. I can still study and kind of keep sharp while we're waiting. And it was a great way for me to bond with my fellow teammates because Chase is, at the end of the day, it's a team game. And so that really helped. So what's your kind of advice for when you're taping? to calm the nerves, to stay focused. It's kind of like the same as the Crosswood tournament,

which is all the nerves are just leading up to it. Once I'm actually doing it, all that kind of fades away. The good thing about superhuman is it's very much a positive show. It's not one of those kind of reality type shows where they're going to give somebody the loser edit and this person is going to look really stupid. Like, they want everyone to look really good.

Yeah, of course. Just realizing everyone's, everyone's in your corner and, you know, everyone's cool about things was a big help. Those were great. Like, use your nerves to your advantage. They're, like, related to adrenaline. And if you feel nervous, like, rub your hands together, jump up and down. And you can, like, trick your mind to thinking that you're actually just really excited

and that you're going to go give a big performance, like, and also another thing I'll say is that it gets easier as it goes. Like, the first show that I did, I was so, I had given them in my audition the, like, Tom Cruise jumping up on down on Oprah's Couch moment. Like, I was like, I'm going to be the. That guy. the idiot that y'all want me to be. And then when I got on the show,

I was so focused on winning that I wasn't really giving the personality that I want to. So it was truly a journey for me to be able to show my true self like I did on the chase. It took just becoming more and more comfortable. Yeah.

So like it does get easier is what I'll say. Once it comes to the day of taping, you can't control what questions you're going to get. You can't control what you know, but you can control how you come across. So, like, come with a joke or two if you want, like, have a catchphrase. So put some time into that to call me. I'll help you out.

I'm laughing that you said the nerves can help you and make you more excited because I swear that I got on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire because I was freezing. And so it made me, I was sitting right under this air-condition event and I was so jittery that I was like, hyped up and I was ready to go and I was ready to talk. And I was just bouncing around. And I was like, this is, I'm okay. You know, and I was just shivering, but it gave me more energy when they started to interview me. I was like, yeah, let's go.

I was pretty more energetic. I'm getting like Target Lady vibes. I like it. My millionaire was actually the easiest one for me to get on because I literally auditioned the day I moved to New York. Like, I used to be an opera producer. We finished doing a live o'am in Memphis, packed up a truck, drove to New York City and it was the last day

that Millionaire was taping was actually turned out to be Meredith Vera's last day taping a millionaire ever and so I literally rolled into the studio with a suitcase like Star to be out of Annie three bucks, two bags, one me

like I'm from Mississippi y'all I just moved to New York and make it big and like imagine not casting me I came with I came on a cloud of energy All right, we're going to move on to airing and aftermath. And before we do that, Tyler, you're in the hot seat. I was hoping you to get that.

Hot quiz, hot shot, here we go. I can't wait for six pieces of knowledge that I happen not to have. It's going to be great. Well, we'll see. Blue Wedge for Geography. What is the main ingredient in Japanese yakitori skewers? I mean, meat? It's, yes, it's chicken.

But like they also skew other things up. There's more to it than that, I feel. Yeah, yeah. Pink Wedge, which Broadway musical features a drag queen named Lola and songs by Cindy Lopper? Oh, is this Cindy Lopper? That sends me to Kinky Boots? Yay! Correct.

Yellow Wedge, which widely predicted catastrophe devastated New Orleans in 2005? Nice, uplifting question. Herringen Katrina. Yes, correct. Just move on. Purple Wedge. Who is Master of Ceremonies at the Hunger Games? I mean, I guess I don't know who they mean by Master of Ceremon.

Is that the Stanley Tucci character? Yes, it is. Do you remember his name? Not even a little. Maybe if I get the initials, I could pull it. It starts with a C. Oh, it's like, C.F. It's like Caesar or?

Yes. Yeah, and the last name is really funny and weird. You know what? It just wanted Cesar. It's a flickerman. Oh, wow. It's close. Wow.

Good job, brain. I went too nutty. Green Wedge, which has not been at Philadelphia's Muter Museum, a jaw tumor. Washington's false teeth, a brain or a vertebra specimen. Philadelphia's muter museum. It's M-U-U-W-Lout, T-T-E-R. And your choices are a jaw tumor, Washington's false teeth, a brain, or a vertebrae specimen, not been at this museum.

I feel like there's a lot of apocrypha around Washington's teeth that aren't really true, so I'm going to say that. Yes, you're correct. Well, reason. The tumor was Grover Cleveland's, and the brain is Einstein's. Is the tumor from first or second term? It was in the middle one. Okay.

Oh, man. All right. My pronunciation. Okay. Last question. Here we go, Tyler. Apsail, belay, and geston are moves in which sport? Did I pronounce it wrong?

I think that's like rock climbing or something related to that. Correct. I've never heard of the third one, to the first two. Because ab sales, A-B-S-E-I-L, right? Yeah, and that's the UK term for rock climbing. Okay. Good job, Tyler. Yay, that one way better than that.

We're done taping. We're about to wait for this show to air. For a lot of people who won money, you actually have to wait until your episode airs. And then they start the process of paying you out. So some people wait for, could be up to a year, up to a long time. And Tyler is dusting his. his hands off of this. I won the princely sum of nothing.

So, yeah. Yeah, but you've also won the American Crossword tournament six times. And one of them was in a documentary. Thankfully, I did not have to wait for the documentary to come out to be paid for that tournament. That was a different man. How much money actually do you win money? Yeah. The first couple years that I won, it was $4,000.

And then the last couple at some point in my run, they boosted it to $5,000. And then I went 12 years of it. that winning, which was not so fun. And then this year, it was an online tournament, so it was only 3,000. But, you know, swift kick in the butt, as I say. Do you get a big giant check given to you at the event? It was sadly not a giant check. That is my,

definitely my number one. It's actually in a crossword. It's just a plain old. It does it, Will Schwartz's a signature on it, so. Ooh. Oh. I guess you kind of get an autograph that way, but no. Sadly, no giant novelty. Happy Yilmore check for me. So, of course, everybody's burning question after they learned that you've been on a game show is A, did you win? And B, what did you do with the money?

I'm out. Well, Elliot, you are coming in live here. You're recording in beautiful Mexico. Absolutely. With my Wheel of Fortune money, I went to Europe for two months and did the like hostile couch surfing life. I've definitely traveled with most of it. After millionaire, I bought a really nice burberry runway bag called Nancy, who's traveled all over the world with me. She's named for Nancy Kerrigan. And then with Jeopardy, I actually went

to Europe again for two months, and that was the first time that I went to the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna All-School. I spent just two days in Belgium, but I did go by the Manic and Piss statue, and I

did get a Manicin Piss postcard inspired by a segment from one of my favorite podcasts, Belgium or not Belgium. And then, yeah, with the chase, I'm doing a little two weeks in Mexico here, but then I think I'm going to use the bulk of it as a down payment either on a place in San Francisco or I keep being tempted to buy a condo and part of my art of because I love it so much here. That money doesn't really go far in the Bay Area, actually. I know. You'll be honest.

One of my game show applications, one of the questions they ask is, what would you do with the money? And I said, well, I would rent a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco, but I probably would be able to afford that. So I'd just travel the world instead. Oh, and that's one of the things, actually, is a lot of game show vets, contestant vets talk about is you have to have a good answer for what are you going to do with the money. You have to have a unique answer. Most people say travel, some people say, oh, I'm going to pay my bills or I'm going to pay off my student loans or I'm going to buy a house. But they want weird. They want, you know, something that they can talk about.

I think for me, for the audition and then also it was film, but it wasn't, they cut it in the episode, which was, what would you do with money? And I said, I wanted to have pro skating lessons so I can learn how to skateboard off of a half pipe, which I'm completely serious about. Obviously, I can't really do that during COVID. Mine was cut too. I had said, well, first of all, like, yes, you need to spend time answering all the questions on the application like put do good answers what would you do with the money like what makes

you unique you really need to call a friend talk it over so write them really well my answer for the chase was sarah i'm so glad you asked me the reason that i wanted to come on this show and win a lot of money is because i love money i don't understand why people say money doesn't buy you happiness they must they must be spending it wrong because it buys me a lot of happiness so if If I win money on here, I will buy myself some happiness. Thank you. And they cut it. And world peace.

In other countries, they actually don't get taxed on their winnings. And so here we get taxed. It gets taxed as income. Even out of my 130K, 50K of it, I have to kind of reserve and save that for taxes for next year. So I'm hoping for good paved roads near my house. But on the British, some of the British game shows, they don't even have prize. prices. Like, only connect is a show I love. You just get a trophy. Even on like RuPaul's Drag race in the US, you win $100,000. In the UK, you won like pins, like these little metallic

pins. And you did win like a YouTube series or situation. But it makes me think that there have to be different rules through British broadcasting. Amy, what did you do with your game show prizes from all your different shows? For supermarkets, we, we, we spend it going to New York. We go, we see Broadway shows. With the wheel of fortune money, we did buy a car. When my show aired, I was pregnant. And so it was like, oh, we need a car that can handle family. So we bought a family car with that one. Millionaire, I think that one was mostly saved. They did ask the whole, what would you do if you want a million? And if I want a million, I have a group of friends that we travel together and we do escape rooms together. And I was like, I am going to take us to Europe.

to all the mega escape rooms that you always read about online over there. Amy, you are in good... I was like, in all honesty. When you had mentioned escape rooms before, I love them. I'm addicted to them.

I think Tyler, you had said you do puzzle hunts, which I've just discovered during COVID. I've done like 200 escape rooms myself. Well, not myself, but you get it. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

We could have a whole other side conversation about which ones we should go to and wear around the country because I can fashion... Oh, my God. You should do that. If we all get on a game show next year, That's our answer.

I'm going to do what I'm going to travel and do escape rooms every day all over the world. Honestly, we're trying to go to Sweden. Have y'all ever heard of Bodeborg? Yeah, of course. I've been to Sweden. I went to the Abba Museum and I sang Dancing Queen with holograms of Abba. Whoa. That's a really great structure for the answer to that question as well.

like literally 95% of the answers are traveling and so you can't just say oh in trouble like whether it's escape rooms whether it's the Eurovision song contest like not I want not only travel but I want to go to see all this Disney worlds I want to go to whatever it is the goal is to get to somewhere that has something awesome that you want to do Amy I played escape rooms with Tyler before and it is it is superhuman after supermarket sweep it was obviously in runs on the like side packs television show and I was actually at a client site running a meeting and the kind of the person from the client she and I just couldn't click and I couldn't figure out why in the meetings and so it was kind of hard to run these meetings and one night she went home

she saw my episode she watched supermarket sweep every night with her daughter she saw my episode and the next morning came in and was my best friend and it's like we saw you last night on supermarket kiss me. And then the rest of the week went awesome. Oh my god. And then seal the deal. Wild. Anything else, Tyler, do you want to add? Yeah, I mean, like I said, my experience was a little bit different. But, you know, I definitely met some really cool people. And one of, one of my fellow contestants on my episode, we've been drunk together in at least three different cities. Shout out to Chris, the mental math genius. It's the friends we made along the way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny. It has to It's funny how many of these shows have communities.

We have our budding one with the chase on this online group. The former Jeopardy contestant one is pretty huge. And like you just, you make connections to that. I've made some like good friends that I've gone to Vegas with multiple times. The communities is something that I never knew about, but I'm like happy to be a part of now. Oh. Oh, be nice and be courteous. to all the cast and crew around you.

They've worked really hard. I had no idea how many people it took. Enjoy the behind the scenes part of it, because especially on like a show like Jeopardy, in an episode, only one person's gonna win. Like most people that go on the show don't win. But you can still have an amazing experience. Some of these casting people have been doing it for decades.

Like listen to their stories, ask them questions. Enjoy your experience, because like you've probably been dreaming about this for a long time. Like, don't get too bogged down on the day of. Be a child. Like, look up. Look at the lights. Look at everything.

Soak it up. Like, you made it on to the show. In many cases, it has been a lifelong goal. And for some people, like, they may never get on it. And they always want to. So really just soak it up. Have the most fun. Beautiful.

Thank you guys, Elliot, Amy, and Tyler for joining me for our first kind of panel episode of Good Job Brain. And hopefully people, game show enthusiasts and also trivia enthusiasts can learn something. And maybe we can inspire them to go and apply and be on some game shows. Woo-hoo. I'm waiting in the Jeopardy queue right now. We'll see. Wait, really?

It's been like probably six months now and I haven't. You got this. You have to let us know. All right. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys listeners for listening in. Hope you learn a lot of stuff about being on game shows, how to be on game shows, and some behind

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