In the 80’s I lived in LA and convinced my ex to answer an ad for Jokers Wild. She went in, took the test but wasn’t selected. A month or two later we get a call and the person says she had scored too high for Jokers Wild but would she be interested in being a contestant on Tic-Tac-Dough? For those of you too young to remember the game was hosted by Wink Martindale and worked exactly like Tic-Tac-Toe: mark 3 boxes in a row, column, diagonal you win. Questions were approx Jeopardy difficulty.
So wife packs up several outfits and we go to the taping where they shoot 5 episodes a day. My wife is told she is up for third episode. First two, the 6 time champion cruises to victory.
She goes up, chit chats, then goes first. Against my prior advice she picks a corner question (she liked category) instead of the center square. Bad mistake - strategically taking center first gives you a freeroll.
But anyway she gets it right, yay. The champion goes 2nd and ... misses!?! That means my wife can force a win if she gets next two. And then we are all surprised - the show breaks for dinner! The champion is sweating the whole break since he has lost control of the board.
We come back, she picks the center square and gets a question about a British actor in a movie. She’s knows all the actors in the movie but none of them are British? So she misses. From there on neither misses but he is able to force a win.
TV cameras pan to me and our two sons in audience. I put a comforting hand on my oldest’s head, he slaps it off angrily, he’s mad that we just missed out on thousands of dollars and a chance to win the “Brand new car!” they had us practice cheering about in the audience warmups.
Our consolation prizes? An ugly yellow coffee maker and a “years supply” of Peppermint Patty’s. The British actor? Cary Grant. Wife knew he was actor in the movie but never thought of him as British.
They don’t tell you when the episode will air so I’ve never seen it. However years later after we moved to Durham and I was coaching a youth soccer team one of the dads came up to me and said he had just seen my wife on Tic-Tac-Dough! I forgot to ask if they showed my sons angry shove away. But at least I know we didn’t dream it!