Jackpot Trivia Bowl: Most Hilarious Moment

As you probably know by now, I am the host, producer, etc. of one of BuckeyeTV's original game shows: "Jackpot Trivia Bowl." Game shows, because they are basically unscripted, provide the potential for a variety of unexpected hilarity...which is why TV shows that highlight such moments, such "World's Most Outrageous Game Show Moments" and "Game Show Moments Gone Bananas", will always have virtually limitless material to work with. In fact, when I finally put together the video for one of the moments I'm about to share with you...don't be surprised if it appears on the next edition of one of these TV shows.

This happened during a taping of "Jackpot Sports Trivia Bowl", a collaboration I did with BuckeyeTV's Sports Department. The Sports Department provided most of the questions for this special edition...I provided a few of my own to make sure there were enough for the two contestants who would be playing. We were in the middle of our second game with Andy, one of the Sports Department's seasoned veterans...he had made it all the way to this question for the Double Jackpot of $27,000:


Personally, I thought he was going to pull it off. He successfully eliminated three of the wrong answers...leaving himself with Bobby Hoying, Art Schlichter, and Troy Smith. Then, to my disappointment, he said:


"I'm gonna go with Bobby Hoying...final answer." You should've heard the groans from his fellow Sports Department colleagues in the audience.


"Is it Schlichter? Is it?"


"S***! S***! I was going Schlichter!"


As Andy stormed off the stage, he forgot to completely disconnect the microphone, which was caught on his chair....


"Security...?"

Anyway, as Andy skulked around the studio shouting (to our amusement): "I was going Schlichter...God! I was going Schlichter!", I chimed in with:


"We're going to call the Psychiatric Ward to pick up our friend Andy here...."

The next thing I was going to say was: "But he did win $10,000 for the O.S.U. general scholarship fund (even though we weren't playing for real money)," at which point I was going to end the show...I assumed Andy would keep the $10,000 instead of giving it back and risking doing worse. However, to my amazement...Andy stormed back onto the stage, declaring:


"Hit the 'Reset.' We're going back."
"You really want to use the 'Reset' button?"
"I wanted the Jackpot! I'd have been the first one...damn it!"

While I checked to make sure we had time to start a new game, Andy continued:


"I was going Schlichter! I thought he started his freshman year! Germaine transferred in, Krenzel...can't throw the ball...damn it!"
Still amused, I responded by cupping my hand over my mouth as if speaking into a walkie-talkie: "Security to the set, please."

So, against the advice of his colleagues and my reminder that he actually had to give back the $10,000 to start over...we restarted the game. Andy blazed through the first two questions to reach $200, and then we reach one of the sports questions I'd written for the show:


I had actually run out of $300 questions at that point, and borrowed this one from my remaining $800 questions. I thought: "Surely our resident sports expert would know that it takes 12 strikes to score a perfect 300 in bowling, right? Right?!"


Wrong.


"That's bulls***! Bowling's not a sport! Who sent in that damn question?! Whoever wrote that shouldn't do sports questions anymore!! That's bulls***!!"


"It's not even a sport! It's not even a sport! What kind of sport is bowling?!"
One of his Sports Department colleagues answers: "Dude...it's on ESPN." At that point, I informed Andy that I had written that particular question. There wasn't much more he could say after that.

Anyway, because Andy and Matt (the first player) had only made $1,000 between them out of the possible $39,500 we were offering (the combined maximum for their respective games)...we decided to bring them both back to work together on one final Double Jackpot question:


After hearing the choices, Andy and Matt select Tom Cousineau....


...which was wrong.

After I explained that Tom Cousineau only held the single-season tackle record(211), while Marcus Marek was the one who actually held the career record(572)....


...Andy reacted by tossing away some of the blank index cards I provide for the contestants' use. In all seriousness, though...the whole escapade was hilarious. While I'm a little disappointed that neither of the Sports Department representatives could hit the Jackpot on sports-related questions, what happened instead made for much better television than if either of them had won...especially Andy.
Read more!

The Art of Illusion...on a Sidewalk!

I really have to thank Matt Archer for bringing such fascinating artwork to our attention in his blog "Tarheel Archie." Julian Beever's artwork, in particular, is a very impressive display of the art of creating a 3-dimensional illusion in a 2-dimensional space. Granted, any of these sidewalk paintings can take on a seriously distorted appearance from any other angle, such as the incredibly long leg of that swimming girl from the opposite angle...but when looked at from the intended angle, even I have trouble keeping in mind that it's only an illusion. In the "3D Sidewalk Art" post, for example, it took me several seconds to realize that I wasn't looking at a 3-D cartoon rendering of Batman and Robin climbing a "burning building"...but a perfectly executed 2-D rendering that only looked like a building had been inserted underneath the sidewalk, if that makes sense.

On another note, in the "Etch a Sketch Art" post...I also never would have guessed you could make anything worth looking at on the old Etch-A-Sketch drawing toy. Clearly, however, with enough time and practice...anything is possible on any medium, even an Etch-A-Sketch. I must once again thank Matt for putting this blog together. These works of art are very fascinating to look at.
Read more!

But really...what IS a "friend"?

I found a very interesting observation on Mike's blog ("I Hope You Dance") about people in general. It's a wise and, unfortunately, accurate observation that I don't often see...on the Internet or anywhere else. It's just not human nature for a person to think of anyone other than him/herself...it has to be learned. Just as unfortunately, it seems to be too much work for people in general to learn how to treat other people...it's also human nature to do what is easy, and not necessarily what is honorable. This is consistent with what Mike sees in traffic (on a regular basis, I'm sure) and the particular observation of the older woman (proof that wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age) in the gas station. Both of these examples are just the tip of the iceberg, of course...but it would take too long to go into more detail.

Mike is also on the right track with his conclusion that he shouldn't change the way he is just because of how people in general act. Yes, people like us are few and far between...and it's always nice for me personally to find people like Mike who seem to understand and accept the ways of the world. I probably don't need to tell Mike this, but people like us shouldn't (and don't) do the right/nice/honorable thing for gratitude. We do it because that is what our consciences direct us to do...we can't imagine proceeding any other way. For me personally, I know people in general don't care that I prefer to follow my conscience in everything I do, and likely never will...but there's no need to worry about them. I'm the only one who has to live with myself 24 hours a day...and as long as I do everything I feel I'm supposed to, I'm just fine with myself. I hope Mike continues to be just fine with himself as well....
Read more!

The Many Images of "EsterFranklin"

It's very interesting to see a blog composed primarily of pictures that, while they may not mean anything to someone who is reading David's blog, it's clearly very significant to David...and it's very interesting (and often amusing) to learn why. He took a picture of the "Wonder Bread" sign, for example, because it's his "favorite sign off of 670". It's even more significant to him because he used to pass it every night on the way home from a previous second shift job. While we're on the subject, why do businesses seem so slow to fix their respsective signs when a defect arises? A sign is supposed to be the face of that company, the first thing a prospective customer sees when considering where to spend his/her money. So wouldn't it be in the business' best interest to keep said sign in the best condition possible? Just a thought....

As for the chairs in this particular picture ("No Seat For Me"), I have a solution that would satisfy everyone...rather than resort to the other extreme of having all left-handed chairs, leaving the right-handed in the same position the left-handed seem to be in. In our lecture classroom (Lazenby, Room 21), all of the seats are equipped with retractable desks...typically on the right side of each. My solution: why not equip all such seats with retractable desks on both sides of each seat? This way, a student can sit wherever he/she wants, and pull out the appropriate desk based on whichever is his/her dominant hand. That's almost too simple, isn't it? I wonder if this idea will ever be used, though...it would take quite a bit of time and expense to fit current chairs with the additional retractable desks, but future buildings could designed with the double-retractable desks from the beginning. For example...the new Ohio Union? I doubt it will happen, though....
Read more!

The "Mediocrity" of Human Knowledge

I, too, always find it fascinating (and often disturbing) when I discover just how little people seem to know. Being a fan of game shows, I see many examples of this, but the examples that are the freshest in my mind come from the tapings of my game shows on BuckeyeTV. One example came in the form of a $50 question...the ones I write to be the easiest. The question was: "In mathematics, what is the square root of 4,096...which also happens to be the number of squares found on a standard chess or checkerboard?" When I wrote this question, I figured that most people have played either chess OR checkers in their respective lifetimes, and thus would know that both boards are 8 rows by 8 columns, or 64 squares. Thus, I figured saying that the answer was the same as the number of squares on a chess or checkerboard would be a giveaway. Even the contestant who was answering this question told me she had played checkers, and yet she didn't know checkerboards were 8 by 8. Eventually, she got the question right by finding the square root the hard way (I saw her work it out on the cards I provide for the contestants), so it didn't really matter. After the taping, everyone who was at the taping told me that this was the most difficult $50 question they'd ever heard...they didn't know chess and checkerboards were 8 by 8, either. Apparently, I'm one of only a small percentage of people who pays attention to those kinds of details...go figure. As far as the llama goes, while I may have yet to see one in person...I've certainly seen more than enough pictures and videos of llamas to know one when I see it, so I certainly can't explain what Brittany saw in that episode of "Cash Cab." Are examples like this a cause for concern? I don't know, but it certainly makes me wonder about people sometimes....
Read more!

Preparation for the Life of a Gypsy

I've actually considered what it would be like to travel the road with nothing but my car and some essentials, as suggested in Amber's blog. Specifically, I'd like to drive around looking for empty green spaces...mainly forests and other green spaces that haven't yet been touched by developers...in order to practice my martial arts in solitude. However, there is one essential other than those listed in this post that I would make sure I always had with me: money. It would be quite necessary while I was traveling: to maintain my car; to fix the car in case something ever went wrong on my road trip...including the money for a tow truck and a hotel in case the repairs required more than a few hours; to buy more food whenever I ran out; to wash my clothes at the campus laundromats, or to buy some clothes in case any of the ones I brought were somehow damaged. Money is, unfortunately, a necessary evil...which is the primary reason one should be careful about abandoning that job he/she hates too quickly ("Quit Your Job" post). Just a thought....
Read more!

It's never JUST "Stall Talk", is it?

This is a very interesting website...the bathroom stall seems to be a place where people share their innermost thoughts and feelings without fear of being judged or scrutinized for their thoughts, or even that anyone can trace those thoughts back to them later. It's truly anonymous. Dana might consider teaming up with a guy who would document the "stall talk" in men's stalls so we can all have a clear picture of what both sexes are thinking.

I do have a few questions for the woman who seems to be proud of this particular exploit...not that she'll ever see them: Let's assume that your ex is such a jerk, he doesn't deserve to be happy with any woman...which is why you broke up with him. Isn't moving on supposed to be the best revenge? Apparently you didn't move on, which is why you chose to share your body with a man you hated...after you discovered he'd found someone else. What does that say about you? And in case you've forgotten, turnabout is fair play...which means your ex may feel inclined to strike back by ruining your next relationship. But I guess that never occurred to you...a consequence of short-term thinking. You may feel "GREAT" about this now, but I guarantee that won't last forever. I hope you can still live with yourself when everything you've set into motion comes back to bite you....

Read more!