The future is now - tell us of your fifteen minutes of fame! TV appearances only. Any context is fine.
For me -
[ul][li]When I was in first grade, the local news showed me raising my hand in a class at our local museum. I was wearing (I kid you not) a purple shirt with brown polka dots.[/li][li]In high school, I was on the team that competed on a local quiz show called Who Knows?. We were on the show several times (3 IIRC). We finished fourth.[/li][li]I appeared for one season behind the opening credits of a local show produced by Twin Cities Public Television called Almanac. I was doing a sit-up, and a barbell curl. [/li][li]I was interviewed on the local news when my neighbor across the street was shot and killed by the police. This was the first civilian shooting by a cop in our city’s 37 year history. We knew each other slightly, as our sons were friends. [/ul][/li]
How about you? Starred in a commercial? Reality show? America’s Most Wanted?
I was on two news stations in St. Louis many years back. I was a member of a sports car club that held a rally where the navigators were student at a school for the blind. The rally instructions were all in braille, though the drivers did have a back up set. Each station shot their story a different day, but they both aired the same day. Lots of fun driving down a residential Street with a cameraman sitting on the hood of the car.
Elementary School: Kids game show on the local network on current events.
Middle School: Interviewed at the mall on my opinion about who shot JR.
College: My fraternity raised $10k for Jerry’s kids. I was the only one around Labor Day weekend, and I got to go down to the local studio and hand over the check at midnight or so. Best bit - an old friend from middle school was watching a movie with friends. The VCR shut off at the end of the movie, and the TV turned to the channel. He suddenly saw me on the TV, called in a donation so that we could connect (we had both moved to California).
There was a bad vox pop debate show in Scotland in the mid 90s - it was called “Trial by Night” or some such thing, and it aired at about 11pm or so.
Basically they got a group of 30 or so folks in their 20s, paid us £10 and gave us food and free wine, then plonked us in a studio and asked us to discuss popular issues of the day.
It was about as good as it sounds, but filming ended before the pubs closed, and we had the £10 they gave us, so I must have been on that ten times or so.
I was on the news once, but all they showed was me walking away hand waving and saying “get lost,” or something. We had just had a round of layoffs at our company and I refused to talk to the media.
Kindergarten: Buckshot. A local kids lunchtime show with cartoons, birthday greetings and Benny the Bear.
Grade 12: Buckshot. Our TV/Video production class went on a field trip to attend a taping. One of Buckshot’s daughters was a school mate.
A couple of times in grade school when the news came to film something going on at our school. I was just in the background. In high school, I was walking in an Earth Day parade and was interviewed on how I planned to help save the earth.
I worked at a local TV station back in the mid 90’s for a short while. During that time I was in a couple of promos and commercials. No speaking parts.
Back when I first started riding dirt bikes, I was riding one day when a young guy was killed. He rode over a small cliff and suffered a fatal crash.
Anyway, the news crew was filming the area where he had crashed and a few of us were showing off while riding our bikes. I was doing the same while watching the news crew as they filmed us and not paying attention. I rode over the same damn cliff, only for some unknown reason, I did not crash but I bounced through the bushes and the tumbleweeds and came out sitting sidesaddle, still on my wheels, saying, “yeah, that was on purpose.” Needless to say, I made the news footage.
I once spent a summer selling ice cream from a cart. On a particularly cold day, that happened to be a very slow news day, the local news did a story on the cold. They included a shot of me reading my book at the ice cream cart, and briefly interviewed me about my slow sales. I still have the VHS tape around somewhere (“How cold was it? Just ask SpoilerVirgin, who was reading a book at her ice cream cart…”)
Several years ago I was in a 60 Minutes piece about Kinky Friedman. I was shaking his hand at the Texas Book Festival, and talking with him about how we are both left handed. Of course, you couldn’t hear what we were saying, so I’m hoping it looks like we were having a deep and meaningful conversation.
Everyone in my family except my wife has been on national TV. I was on Jeopardy, younger daughter was in a GMA segment (not speaking) and older daughter had a featured continuing role on a Nick show.
My wife however was interviewed for a radio show.
I placed a bid on behalf of my employer (a large telecom carrier) at the first FCC spectrum auction in 1994. Because the auction was the first of its kind (there have been many since), it attracted news coverage. I happened to be caught on film and shown on CNN Headline News.
I was on Jeopardy in 1975. I have been interviewed a number times on TV here in Panama. (For some reason, they usually edit out most of my remarks in Spanish…) I also had a brief bit on a program by the Smithsonian.
Back to the OP: In my 20s, I was young 'n stupid enough to want to Change Things, so I started a grass roots movement to address a government injustice at the state level. Contacted the local television stations and was interviewed in connection with this endeavor. Things Changed and I was a happy girl.
Throughout my career as a judge’s assistant, I was frequently window dressing in the trial shots and sometimes filmed as I read out the verdict in a case of particular interest to the community. This only phased me once, when it was televised live on all the local news stations (the verdict was rendered at the convenient hour of 4:30 p.m.) and I was reading out a death verdict. All I could think was, “Don’t fuck up.” The moment was memorialized for all time in an episode of American Justice, as the case was sensational enough to merit such treatment. The show is in reruns, and people still call me to say they saw me on the tee vee.
My high school had a public access TV show that we would do every week for video class.
I was the first ever sophomore host that they had, so I was on once a week for a whole semester hosting it with a Sr. my first year, then another soph my Jr. year.
Once Sr. year came I went back behind the scenes.
It was a lot of fun in retrospect since I wrote the whole show =)
