Alex, I'd Like To Solve The Puzzle
The traditional line-up is just about as old as time (or at least just about as old as contemporary syndicated television).
"Wheel of Fortune" at 7 p.m., followed by "JEOPARDY!" at 7:30 p.m.
A weekday evening staple for those of us who'd like to find at least some success in our day before we inevitably wake up for a new one and give it yet another go.
First comes "Wheel of Fortune."
It incites the indignant know-it-all inside us.
Vanna White cheerily walks out to touch each lighted block to reveal a letter (she used to physically turn them after they lit up, and that was so much cooler then).
Money for each consonant that pops up. We have to "buy" a vowel. Pat Sajak mysteriously knows how to get the Final Spin to fall on $5,000.
And there it is. Painfully, excrutiatingly obvious. The kind of frustration that has us longing to take a flight out to California and demand a person of our superior intellect be placed on the show immediately.
"_ R _ _ _ T E
_ N _ E _ S T _ _ _ T _ R"
"It's an occupation, and the answer is PRIVATE INVESTGATOR, you mental midget! You don't need to buy any more vowels! Stop wasting your money!"
Then, they try to get cute. It's "Wheel of Fortune's" inane attempt to trip up its overconfident audience.
"On The Menu" is the subject.
"T _ R _ _ Y
M _ _ T _ _ _ _"
"TURKEY MEAT ... WRAP?"
No.
"What?! TURKEY MEAT ... LOAF?!"
Seriously, who eats meat loaf made out of turkey? Sure, there must be some people who eat meat loaf made out of turkey, but not enough to make it the answer on a freaking T.V. game show.
Nevertheless, on to the bonus round.
This is all ours.
The bravado wells inside us. She could win $25,000 or a Forerunner or a trip to France. If it were us, we'd win all three ... even though it isn't in the rules for it to be possible.
A phrase.
"_ _ N _ _
- D _ R _"
Um, what?
"HUNKY
-DORY"
We then feel a certain kinship. All is equal. We tell ourselves that no one is really smarter than anyone else. No need to be an arrogant, intellectual snob. We're all in the same boat. We win some, we lose some.
Then ... 7:30.
"This!
Is!
JEOPARDY!"
Time for the manic shift in our self-esteem, the abrupt bursting of our scholarly command of "Wheel of Fortune." It's time for the erudite, pretentious, catty host Alex Trebek, who rolls his "R's" at the slightest hint of a Spanish word.
We resent him because we were him when we were watching "Wheel of Fortune."
We answer, maybe, eight correctly ... and never "Final Jeopardy."
"JEOPARDY!" throws us a bone. Always at least one question to keep us normal folks hooked with the futile optimism that it might be our night.
One of them is, "Who wore No. 23 and lead the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships and is considered the greatest basketball player of all time?"
And even then, as we shout "Michael Jordan!," we forget to say "Who is ...?"
These contestants are gods. The guy with the weird nervous tic. The girl whose specialty is 15th Century Antartic history.
How do they know who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1941? Can they click on Google with those buzzer thingies?
Suddenly, "Wheel of Fortune" is feeling a little more in our comfort zone. And the guy who messed up ...
"Evil Dictator:
S A _ A A M
H _ S S E I N"
... well, he doesn't piss us off quite as much at the moment.
But, at the end of it all, the real question isn't, "How come I don't know who the first left-handed Rhesus monkey was to tap out Act II of 'Hamlet' in Morse Code?"
It's ... "What kind of gay story am I going to come up with when Alex wants to do a little Q&A to share a little of myself with the viewing audience?"
Still haven't figured that one out.
13 comments:
Excellent - an Eric post! a rare but refined beast!
My little story for the Q&A has gotta be the chat-up hands in freezer fiasco.
Although these two gameshows are not the staple diet of uk tv - I totally relate to what you say about hovering in the middle of the two groups of contestant - it's like how the hell does someone know that much about Belgian waffle production during the 1940's? what could of possibly been the reason that they ended up with that knowledge in their head? the randomness of it all.
and especially with who wants to be a millionaire you can scream stupidity at the TV screen as folk bow out before they have even banked some cash - plus you can fake being knowledgeable about things you don't really know by simply chancing it right on the multiple choice and proclaiming genius to the armchair audience around you.
I'd love to see Ron Burgundy on a gameshow - he'd say everything with such assured belief in his correctness "Diversity? I believe that's the name of an old old ship used during civil war times"
i must be really dumb as i can't even get the ones of wheel of fortune sometimes. i mean like, powermad freak with huge ego T_NY BL_IR, surely the answer to that should be cocksucker, but it doesn't fit in.
i know what spo means about millionaire, which is why i play in the pub quiz once a week just to remind myself how stupid and ill-educated i really am.
my gay story would have to be about the time i got locked out on a roof when i should have been working on the air conditioning plant about 6 or 7 years ago. it seemed a nice day and you could see a long way. trouble is the door had swung shut behind me and there was no handle on the outside. there was no signal on the mobile so i couldn't ring anyone and there was no-one down below to shout to...not that i would have.
i felt a proper lemon that day.
I hate to say this about good ole' Alex, but he looks kind of... gay without the mustatche.
It leads me to believe that he always looked gay, underneath it all.
My middle daughter rolled her "r" on a made-up Spanish word this morning. She's three, and addicted to Dora the Explorer.
"Mommy (she says every two minutes now)? This is a square. Say, 'Squarto'" (with a perfect trilled r).
Take THAT, Alex!
I think Rusty is right - Alex does seem to be staring with far too much of a "loving eyes" type thing going on
and you just know that man has his hand on her arse.
ha!
"stay classy, san diego. i'm ron bur-dun-dy?" he's already got the question part down, now all he's got to do is pull out his trump card: a whale's vagina.
if he gets it wrong, he can just look at alex and say, "hey, when in rome ..."
dan, i thought you might talk about y'all were supposed to be working somewhere and a guy almost died or something.
as far as alex being gay ... hey, however he wants to roll is cool with me. what's interesting, though, is that he would look more gay WITHOUT the mustache than with. he's got it rough. it's almost like he had the mustache for too long. you almost want to tell him to get it back, but then that's just crusty.
kz, i was watching jeopardy yesterday and a guy correctly answered something that "le tigre" was the right answer for.
he said, "what is le TIG-ray."
alex goes, "correct, le TIG-rah."
now why is that necessary? also, they've got my kindergartner speaking more spanish than i can translate. how cool is that?
e+
was the question "what is Derek Zoolanders favourite pose after Blue Steel?"
eric, that story about paul deciding to have a heart attack while we were working where we shouldn't have been would be tooooo long for a game show. and it doesn't sound self-deprecating enough. getting stuck on a roof like a total pleb is. and i got mixed up. memory failure. it wasn't the a.c.
that other story was a pearler though. shame that firm went under.
Vanna's completely useless now. I hate it.
LOL. A game show dissertation. You are great!
vanna's a survivor. however many plastic surgeries she needs to keep that wheel turnin' ... the better!
you guys are great!
e+
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