June '00 Acting Journal

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2000

MEAT AND THREE!
Actorman, only one answer from $500,000, goes down the toilet!

June is the official month of the well-placed kick to Actorman’s groin.

How is this different from any other month, the faithful Randlemanland reader (there is only one, you know) might ask? Well, let me tell you. Usually, the groin kicks are self-inflicted. Not in June. June has been a month of professional groin kickers lining up to kick the short extra point that is my privates. And, none have missed yet.

THE GAME SHOW AND MY “LAME” SHOW!

The GREED Saga....

It is not a pretty story, but one that has too be told. Perhaps our decedents will be able to learn from our folly. If not, they will be doomed.

The story starts in April, when the flowers are blooming and every baseball team has dreams of October. I picked up my Sunday LA Times, and noticed an ad in the Classified section looking for game show contestants. “Win 2 million dollars in one day!,” the ad screamed. “Okay,” I screamed back. I called and left my number on an answering machine. Two days later, GREED called me. An appointment was made for the next day to take the GREED test. I could also bring a friend, so I brought that girl from the Kentucky Hollows, Holly Morris. You may remember her from an early journal entry as the big winner on that sizeist HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. Unlike, the sizeist SQUARES, I knew that GREED took people of all shapes. I had seen one rotund fellow on the show, that made me look svelte. That is not easy to do.

We arrived early at some dumpy studio in the middle of old Hollywood. Lined up on the street were about 70 potential GREEDSTERS. As we stood there, across the street the LAPD was searching the car of a modern day Humbert and Lolita. The girl had to be 16, but she was holding on to a teddy bear and was weeping. The Humbert dude looked confused as the cops called a tow truck and had his mid-’70s powder blue Ford LTD hooked up and taken away. Soon, the car and the cops were gone and the father/daughter or hooker/pimp or whatever were standing there with a befuddled look. I was tempted to leave and help them (her), but you don’t get a chance at 2 million dollars everyday. And, quite honestly, after a decade in LA of being bombarded daily by requests for money by the homeless and the faux homeless, my milk of human kindness has long gone sour. Sad, but true. Plus, they were calling us in for the GREED test.

How hard could that be?

Ummm....VERY HARD! Of the 70 people taking the test, 58 did not have to worry about running out of time on their parking meters. There was one moment of fear and potential humiliation. As the talent coordinators for GREED were calling out the names of the passers. My friend, Holly, was one of the first called. After a few more names, I started to get worried that maybe she would pass and I wouldn’t. That would have been the end of our friendship. Every time I would look into her face, there would be a flashing neon sign saying, “I passed, and you failed, you Arkansas hick!” Maybe that was an unreasonable thought on my part, but, well, we are talking about me. Happily, after a few more names, they called out Mike Randleman and in my best PRICE IS RIGHT moves, I came on down.

We played a mock game and they imparted a bit of the GREED strategy to us. Basic stuff, like always give the hardest answer you KNOW is right and save your “FREEBIE” (one incorrect answer is taken off the board) for the later, more valuable rounds. One person asked about the possible of the game being canceled for low ratings. But, the talent people pooh-poohed that, saying “As long as we continue to win our time slot, we will be okay.” After about an hour, we 12 GREEDY apostles left for our first supper as potential millionaires. There was one thought lingering in my mind...I am not very good at this game. The few times I had watched GREED, I would inevitably get the answer wrong. Unlike the MILLIONAIRE show, where I had had a few nice runs, GREED, I always bombed. Plus, the game relied on the captain a lot. That person had all the power and if they made a poor decision, well, your SOL. If I got on, I really wanted to be the captain.

Later that day, Holly and I discussed the audition experience; who we thought was good, who blew, and if I had a shot at the blonde lawyer I auditioned with (the consensus was no!). It was agreed that we both acquitted ourselves well. However, due to a rule developed during the quiz show scandals of the ’50s, stating that you could appear on only one game show a year, Holly was ineligible to be a contestant until July. By then I planned to be, at a minimum, a millionaire.

The next week was a blur. I got a call from the GREED office asking if I was available to tape the next Saturday. Uhhh....HELL, YES!! I mean Okay. And that began my week of cramming through all manners of reference books. Presidents assassinated, go ahead, ask. Longest running Broadway musicals, don’t insult me. Top Home Run Hitters of all-time....YAWN! I slept with these huge books for a week. In the middle of the night, I would wake up and glace at the Dewey Decimal system. I was nervous, but ready.

The main talent honcho from GREED called and wanted to go over my intro. If you don’t watch the show, let me set the scene for you. You are standing up in a line of six people and this guy with a voice deeper than God says “Mike Randleman.” You quickly turn to the camera, like you have been zapped with a cattle prod and say where you are from, what you do and a funny or quirky thing about you, that teases the audience to watch and find out what the heck you are talking about. Now, the honcho and I were trying to find my quirky thing. Would it be my job as an editor at a sports gambling publication? My passion of going to ball parks around the land and reviewing the food? Or the time I met George Wendt from “Cheers” and, in my drunken stupor, forget to close the gate and let his dog run away (it was found the next day). As an afterthought, I threw out that I was also known as the Celibacy Poster Child. BINGO! Obviously, my inability to find Ms. Right, along with my willingness to profess that I was a loser was just the hook America wanted. But, that was a small price to pay. After I won the millions, I could get a mail order bride from the Balkans. Bring on the wenches!

DAY OF DESTINY

Taping day arrived and I looked good in my suit and purple shirt. I walked into a room containing 40 or so people. I didn’t see anyone from my audition group. I felt loose; money, baby, money! It turns out that they were taping special episodes of COLLEGE GREED that day, and there were about 25 college students from around the country. This was good and bad. Good, because the college gals were easy on the eyes. Bad, because they were flown to LA on the show’s dime and that meant they would use them first. I started to get the feeling that I would not get on today. I had a flashback to the first game show I was supposed to be on, MAJORITY RULES. I sit there all day and never got picked, because I WAS READING A BOOK and the talent people thought I was weird. Because I WAS READING A BOOK. I brought no books to GREED.

I was fixated on this 6’5" girl named Samara from Ohio State, she was a tall drink of water. Sadly, the college kids stuck together on one side of the room and the old perverts on the other. I spent most of the day talking to a guy named Mo from New York. He was trying to make it as an actor and had developed this character of Mo, Plumber to the Stars. In fact, he had been on the Howard Stern show as the plumber character. During the show, he brought out his wife and mom and they both took their tops off for Howard. I found that a little disturbing. He was a good guy, but one of those New Yorkers that always make a big point of letting everyone know how little they care. “I’ll walk out right now, I don’t care.” “They can’t make me say that, I will tell them to kiss my ass, I don’t care.” “I’ll walk in front of a car, I don’t care.” It would be a lot less exhausting to care.

The fear of rejection soon ebbed as the college students turned out to be dumber than dirt. Three of the four crapped out early. One group stopped at $100,000, the big winners. At that moment, I got the call to go to makeup. And friends, I have to be honest, my heart started to beat like a Cuban bongo solo and I thought I was going to pass out. I had not been that nervous since the first time I walked on the TONIGHT SHOW stage years ago. I tried to play it cool, but then again, we are talking about me.

There was one group ahead of us when we were taken to the special waiting room. There was six of us; four guys, two girls. Mo was on my team, which was troublesome, because all day he has been saying he doesn’t care if he wins or losses. Fortunately, the others looked like they wanted to win. We were given strict instructions not to speak to each other. You see, the thing about GREED is you are NOT a team. You are a group and at any moment the person you have been talking to all day will try to take thousands of dollars out of your pocket. They reminded us “don’t use your FREEBIE too early and give the hardest answer you KNOW is right.” The whole day had passed and there had been no big winners. The group ahead of us changed that and three people walked away with $500,000. I took that as a bad sign, but I take everything as a bad sign. That is the defense mechanism I have developed from years of acting rejection and being a Cardinals fan.

The door opened and a lady with headphones summoned the six of us to the stage. It was much smaller than it appears on TV and very smoky from the fog machines. We met Chuck Woolery. A lot of folks don’t like Chuck, but he was very nice to us and I will be a fan forever. Before I knew it, the voice of God was introducing us. Mo was first, and screwed it up. They had to cut to come out remind him what to say. Take two. So, the voice introduced me and on cue, as if cattle prodded, I gave my info. The Celibacy Poster Child got a good laugh and Chuck had a look on his face that says “Oooookay.” After the introductions, there was the qualifier question. This had the potential for the most embarrassment. They ask a question and the five closest go on. The sixth person has to leave, never to be seen again. I did not want to be that person. In addition, the closet one becomes the captain and I had to be the captain. I wanted to control my own fate. I didn’t want my millions riding on Mo.

The qualifying question was “How members are there in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?” I panicked. Did they mean how many people or acts? Does P-Funk count as one or forty? I quickly typed in 165. I felt that I was a little high, but it seemed better to go over than under. When Chuck said 337, I was crushed. I had less than half that. There was no way I was going to be captain, I would be lucky to avoid the “walk of shame.” First was Randy, a Hispanic guy from the Valley. Second was the Celibacy Poster Child himself. Elated, I ran to my position, happy to make the cut and determined to knock off Randy at the first chance. Soon, our group was set; Me, Captain Randy, a physical trainer from Long Island named Guy, a woman lawyer, and, by the slimmest of margins...Mo. Two guys from New York, Mo and Guy. Here I was trying to win a million dollars with a couple of goombahs from the Soprano crew. Good god.

We breezed through the first four questions. I got good laughs from the crowd explaining why I was the Celibacy Poster Child. A funny story, but sadly, a true one. It was time for the $200,000 question. The category was Disney songs. Cap’n Randy seemed pleased and we went on. But, first came the TERMINATOR. This is when one of the group is selected at random. That person has the option of selecting another in the group for a showdown question, with the loser leaving town. Everyone wants the TERMINATOR, because win or lose, you are given $10,000 on the spot. The TERMINATOR landed on Guy. Damn! He called out the one woman on the team and quickly dispatched her with a question about the Brady Bunch. We were down to four, all men.

Then the question was revealed, “Which of these Disney songs have won the last four Academy Awards for Best Song?” I saw Randy’s face crumble. I guess he, like me, expected it to be something about older, more well-known Disney songs. JUNGLE BOOK ones, not the new age, Elton John Disney songs. A little more difficult than we had hope, but all getatable.

But then Randy panicked and used the FREEBIE. All day they tell us to SAVE the FREEBIE. You will need it on your way to the big money. Mother of wheat!

Okay, no big deal. The road just got a little harder, but we could make it. Mo went first and, of course, gave the wrong answer. Then Guy and I gave our answers (both correct). Randy redeemed himself (almost) from the FREEBIE debacle by giving the right answer and cleaning up Mo’s mistake. And before we knew it, we had won $200,000. $40,000 of which was mine. But gentle reader, that was tip money compared to what I came to win.

Chuck introduced the $500,000 category—Favorite Frozen Foods. Guy and I urge the Captain to continue; Mo wanted to stop. Randy says we will go. Serious money time. But first, the TERMINATOR started. Please land on me, please! Of course, it landed on the guy who could care less, MO! The guy who was ready to walk was now assured of leaving with $10,000. With fire in his eyes, he went after the captain. He loses. And then there were three.

Chuck read off the question, which of these four were the best-selling Swanson Frozen Dinners last year. The seven choice: turkey, pot roast, salisbury steak, meat loaf, classic fried chicken, chicken nuggets and veal parmesan. This questions sucked. It was not an objective question, but more of a subjective one. I mean naming Disney songs that won Oscars are KNOWN FACTS. If you watched the Oscars or had a kid that was a Dis-no-holic. But, best-selling frozen dinners, who knows that? We truly needed our FREEBIE, but it was long gone. Guy started the proceedings with Meat Loaf, I went with Salisbury Steak, Randy goes with Turkey. One answer remain, Randy deferred to me (and added a slam about me being a guy that looks like he eats a lot of frozen dinners—I don’t.). I went with the Chicken Nuggets, and there was a titter in the crowd. But, I was very confident in that answer. Any house you walk into that has kids has chicken nuggets in the freezer. All kids, and the kid in me, love chicken nuggets. Randy was skeptical, he thought that classic fried chicken should be one of the answers, but didn’t know which one to change. In the end, he changed none and our answers were locked in.

There is this eerie feeling that overcomes you when the possible of winning $100,000 (my share at that time) is eminent. I mean it is not change your life forever money, but that it’s 2 to 3 year’s salary in one bunch (more than that in this train wreck of an acting year). That, combined with the fog pumped in, gave one this feeling of Vegas gone haywire.

I was confident in our answers. I thought that in these times, with the low-fat movement, lard-filled classic fried chicken would be out. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten frozen fried chicken, if ever. It seemed like a hassle with the bones and all the grease. Chuck revealed the answers: Turkey, Salisbury Steak, then, in a bit of a surprise, Chicken Nuggets. Knowing the show like I do now, that should have been the first sign of impending doom. To heighten the tension the GREED folks always reveal the hardest answer last. Of our choices, Chicken Nuggets was the least obvious. Yet, at the time, I still felt that we had it.

I was wrong.

It is impossible to describe the feeling of watching that red light pop up in the Meat Loaf box and to hear that Classic Fried Chicken was the right answer. The situation worsened when Chuck said that too bad we didn’t have our FREEBIE, because Meat Loaf would have been the answer removed. I was unable to leave my seat.

Finally, they hustled us backstage. I had to sign a piece of paper stating that I would receive $50 for my appearance and that I would not reveal the outcome of the show. I looked at Randy and told him that I thought we had it, but it didn’t matter. He was crushed. He said that if we would have gotten it right we were going to stop. Whatever.

The next day, I was unable to get out of bed. 90% of my thoughts were about the show. I replayed it over and over. What if I would have guessed higher on the qualifier and become captain? What if we had not used our FREEBIE? What if....what if? “Of all the words of mouth and pen, the saddest words what might have been.”

One funny thing, the way the show broke, it aired over two weeks. We looked like big winners at the end of one week and don’t go down the toilet till the next week. So for one week, it was “Midnight at the Oasis.” Then the next week, the silver cup was gone.

So it is a year till I can do another game show. By then, the game show craze will be dead or dying. But mark my words, my next show, I will be in charge of my our fate. That captain thing blows. HOLLYWOOD SQUARES here I come.

Till next time, Batter Up!

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