I’ve been saying for a little while that I hope the Amazing Race stays around long enough for me to enter. Well, they are.
There’s a form to fill out (I think I can figure that one out), but there’s also this:
The person I’ll be entering with is a woman I’ve known for 23 years (friend of a friend in college). I’ve known her through two marriages (I flew across the country to surprise her by showing up at her second wedding, and it got moved to a different location and nobody told me. I joke that she stood me up at the altar), one son, and three careers. She’s travelled quite a lot, and enjoys it, can do some potential Roadblocks that I wouldn’t like, and knows how to drive a stick shift.
Any tips on making the audition tape stand out? Do I say the same things on the tape that I just did here? Do I point out that they’ve never had an inter-gender, life-long-friends team on the show before (I don’t think they have)? Do I promise the Amazing Producers lots of emotional conflict and bonding? Do I tell them I want to prove that not all guys from Boston are assholes?
Be creative. Remember the Guidos’ audition tape (Guido begging the producers to take Joe & Bill off his hands for a while so he could get a much-deserved vacation)? According to My Ox Is Broken, the Guidos were basically put right at the top of the pick list from the time casting watched the tape to the point where they sequestered everyone just prior to the race beginning.
Two people talking at the camera is boring. Everyone does it. You might want to go on YouTube and watch some of the audition tapes from years past (CBS’s official TAR pages generally have audition tapes on tap, as well).
Not knowing you or your potential racing partner personally, I can’t tell you the best tack to take, but I do suggest doing something other than the standard, because you need to catch some very jaded casting directors’ eyes with this…they’ve already done it 11 times (I don’t count All-Stars, because who needed to audition for that?), with thousands of potential racers.
My sister and I have talked about trying to Race. She can be the courageous cancer survivor (who happens to have travelled a lot and will eat anything) and I’ll be the supportive sister (who happens to be good with many physical tasks and a deft hand with animals). Only she lives in Pheonix and I live in Nashville. It would be very hard to make an audition tape that way.
When supervenusfreak and I started Weight Watchers a little less than a year ago, we said once we’d both lost the weight and got into better shape, we were going to try out for the Race. Our hook was going to be losing over 400 pounds between us.
Unfortunately, I’m still dogpaddling in the shallow end of that projected weightloss…
My brother and I joked around with the idea of making a mock 10 minute episode of TAR running through World Showcase in Epcot (“Travel 50 feet to Italy. Once there find the living statue, who will give you your next clue…”). I still kinda wish we’d done it.
That makes me think of that cell phone commercial, where the boy and his dad are “fighting” but really actually saying really nice things to each other. “Geez, Dad, you’re so reasonable!” I think there’s another one with a teenage daughter along the same lines. It could be funny, if well done!
