Auditioning to be a Millionaire

Today, I went to an audition to be a contestant for "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".

When I arrived @ the address they gave @ the appointed time there were dozens waiting on the sidewalk outside the building. It was a cattle call.

As I stood in line, I found out that the lady standing behind me had been a 1 time winner on Jeopardy about 10 years ago. She said that she can never be on Jeopardy again until Alex Trebeck retires. When she won she beat out a 2 time winner and apparently he held a grudge as a few years after the win he found her online and emailed her about the winning answer. The answer had been "Ash Wednesday" and the guy was convinced she'd won because that was part of her religion. She informed him that it was a lucky guess as she is Jewish. LOL! Get over it dude.

When we got inside the building we had to go thru a metal detector before checking in and receiving a manila envelope that held our test as well as being assigned a #. (First you have to pass the test, then you get interviewed so they can judge your personality and look over a questionnaire you filled out in advance and then you wait to get a postcard in the mail to tell you whether you are on standby to be a contestant or not. But just because you get the postcard doesn't mean you are going to be on it.)

They had several cafeteria style rectangular tables set up for people to sit at and as we waited for everyone to file in, they handed out magnets and tossed t-shirts. They asked if anyone had NOT seen the show and a guy raised his hand. The t-shirt tosser said, "I hope you're kidding, sir" as she tossed him a shirt. They also announced that they were having a special wedding addition and asked if there were any engaged couples in our group. There wasn't. Apparently if you win you get your wedding paid for - but do both parts of the couple need to pass the test to qualify?!

In between freebie handouts I studied the promo posters around the room. One for Nightline said - Just because its after hours doesn't mean you have to be kept in the dark. And they also had an ESPN promo posted that is a favorite of mine. It shows a baseball card w/ the statement - W/out sports it would just be gum.

Finally, it was time to get our instructions and ask any questions. The test sheet was a fill-in-the -circle kind so they can send it to a machine to immediately find out if people qualify or not. We had 10 minutes to answer 30 multiple choice questions. They told us that a blank answer is worth the same as a wrong answer so we might as well guess if we didn't know the answer. They would not answer what percentage of right answers you have to have to qualify - apparently that is a big secret...

Then we were told to open our packets and begin. Some examples of questions included what a maillot was, what show was Dr. McDreamy on, which listing of international airlines was based in Spain, what was Michael Clayton's occupation in the movie, and so on. Some were easy, some...not so much. (I had actually played the game online to "study" and the test seemed to be harder than the online game.) Time was called and soon they had the list of those that qualified. They started calling out numbers and I saw that the Jeopardy winner got in! Then I started to space as I watched the people that had been called get their pics taken and realized that I wasn't listening to numbers! Eeek! I remained focused for the rest of the listing but never heard mine called. I was tempted to ask the lady about my # just in case it was called during my spacey moment but didn't want to appear to be one of those people that was in such disbelief they didn't pass the Millionaire test that they had to "make sure". So I just left w/ my souvenir magnet and my test pencil (that had the "Millionaire" logo on it, too). A LOT of us left and I would be curious to know the average percentage of people that go to the next step out of those groups. In other words, was the group I was in smarter or dumber than the average bear?!;)

I can audition again but the way my schedule is I'm not sure I really want to schedule and spend time again - kinda feel like I've been there, done that. And even though I didn't pass the test, I still think I'd be a pretty good lifeline if anyone is looking for one! :)