I was a talking head on a History Channel documentary about twenty years ago. They were totally disorganized but otherwise fun to work with, and the whole thing was one of my favorite experiences.
When “Doctor Who” was still on public television (OPB) I was part of a group called :“Friends Of The Doctor” and we manned the phone banks for their pledge drive for a couple of years, appearing on screen during DW pledge breaks.
Academic Challenge on Channel 5. My team came in second.
I also appeared, in uniform, on an episode of Bozo The Clown in Chicago one time. It was a military promo they had.
As a tween, I was an extra in a commercial for Tampa Bay Cadillac, along with all the other kids in my drama class. We were so far away from the camera you couldn’t tell us apart.
I had to give a speech when my employer made a large donation to the city schools for a technology build-out. A few seconds of my speech were shown on the local TV station local 11pm and 6pm news, with longer clips of the speeches from the Superintendent and the Mayor.
I have also been on TV for a couple of seconds at most as an audience member at a high school quiz show in two separate places. It’s Academic on WRC-4 TV in Washington DC and High School Quiz Show on WGBH in Boston. My daughter was with me for the latter, and boy was she stoked.
Public access television that covers municipal board and committee meeting, I’ve been on dozens of times. But the audience is probably smaller than out Finance monthly team meeting at work.
I’ve been on RADIO with an audience of hundreds of thousands as a main attraction, so to speak. As a contestant of a popular intercollegiate quiz bowl citywide final.
The local news station did a story about my high school history teacher winning some kind of award. You could see the back of my head in one of the shots. Later on, the same station would use it as stock footage in news stories about the school system.
I was also in the background of a shot of the TV show “The Boys”. Unfortunately, you can’t see me because I’m behind a reflective window.
I was accustomed to being rather regularly on the local evening news and reading out verdicts in cases that were of interest to the public during my years working for the courts. I got a fair amount of the, “Hey, I saw you on tee vee last night!” stuff, too. It was just part of my job. Court staff are barely window dressing, so no biggie. I was always careful in civil cases with big money verdicts to make sure I read out the dollar amount correctly. No, “One hundred seventy thousand – no, wait! – one million, seven hundred thousand…” sound bites from me!
The only time the process got to me was when a verdict for a very high-profile serial killer case came in just in time for the local evening news. The tee vee companies were camped out waiting for this moment and decided to broadcast the reading of the verdict live. We had tried the case out of town due to a change of venue, so the verdict-reading was broadcast in real time across two counties. And it was a death penalty case, besides.
I remember feeling quite faint as our proceedings got underway, I watched the jury filing in to take their seats and based on their tearful demeanors, realized I would be reading out a death verdict. I thought to myself, “Don’t faint, dumbass, and don’t fuck up!” I read that verdict out to the defendant as well as I could do it. Faced the defendant firmly, didn’t stumble over his name (to be fair, his middle name wasn’t Orenthal), and then went on to poll the jury in the old-fashioned one-at-a-time way.
In subsequent years, several true crime episodes have been made of the case and one of them includes footage of court staff as well as audio of that verdict being read. Every time I happen to see/hear one of those shows, I silently thank the god I don’t believe in that I didn’t screw up.
Please be this guy. Please be this guy,
Way cool! Did you ever get to interview any big names?
I’ve been on TV about 2 dozen times over the years. It was always in the background when they were reporting on a horrific traffic accident I was at the scene of. I’d be on in the background for about 3-5 seconds.
Except one time, circa 1995, I was on for about 20 seconds and I was about 50 feet from the camera and I was bitching at another Deputy because he had let cars drive through an area I did not want cars driving through yet.
Then there was a time I was on for about 3 seconds where they showed me shooting a deer with a shotgun. I learned later the asshole reporter said “the officer just destroyed the animal. I don’t know if that was necessary”.
For the record that deer had been hit by a motorcyclist and was suffering immensely. It was a fluke that the news team was at the area so fast or they never would have seen/filmed that.
I appeared on on TV when Derren Brown (illusionist) did a clever trick using chess.
You can see it here:
Derren Brown vs 9 Chess Players
Derren was both incredibly skillful and polite.
He did the whole thing in one take (it took nearly 2 hours), then instead of rushing off, he came over for a chat (and signed autographs.).
I believe I was but I’m not sure. I didn’t know how to verify if I was.
Here is what happened… It was 1999, and my buddy was getting married to his girlfriend. He was a huge Star Wars nerd, the biggest I’ve ever known. Bigger than me. This guy was hardcore. When he was younger he lived in San Diego and used to work at Comicon, and did security. And he actually got to meet celebrities as he escorted them, drove them, etc. He was acquainted with Peter Mayhew (guy who played Chewbacca) and Jeremey Bulloch (guy who played Boba Fett), for example, enough to still be in contact with them years later. He even named his son Anakin.
Anyway, they wanted to get married at the premiere of The Phantom Menace. It was at the Cinerama in Seattle. He actually got sponsors for it, and as part of his wedding party we got VIP seats. He dressed as Darth Maul and his girlfriend dressed as Padme. It was a crazy situation with lots of press. After the ceremony in the parking lot, we were able to walk into the theater, past folks who had been waiting hours (days?) to get in, so we could sit in a roped-off area. Then watched the movie.
When we came out, me and a few others were asked if we wanted to talk about the movie and be on the news, and we did. But I can’t remember who they were with, and I never found out if we actually were on the news.
What really stinks is that I can’t even find anything online about the event. There must be something somewhere, but it’s like it didn’t even happen. I know it was a long time ago, but still, you’d think I could find something about it.
Does it count if you could see me on TV behind home plate at a Mariner game when I had really good tickets?
A local PBS station used to do various public interest segments on home brewing that I featured heavily in. I’m sure they were seen by an audience of dozens.
Sounds to me like “you were on TV” so I would say yes.
I don’t think I’ve been on TV that I can recall. I’ve participated in press conferences but they were mainly for technical print media and would not have been covered by television. But I’ll cheat a little and say that while I haven’t been on TV, my son has, when he was much younger. The wife signed him up for a kids’ game show. We were both at the taping, and were delighted when he was the top winner, and got some cool prizes.
When I was in college a local TV reporter stopped me and interviewed me about that night’s football game, but I have no idea if they actually used the footage as I didn’t get a chance to watch the news that night.
I’ve been part of crowds that have been on TV several times, if that counts. When I was a kid I was part of the studio audience for Nick Arcade, when they were filming at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando. And I marched in our town’s local Christmas parade, which was filmed and aired on the local cable access channel. And when I was in college I was in marching band, and one time we were invited to perform on a local sports show (they usually had a high school band, but the band that was supposed to be on that night cancelled at the last minute, so they called us, mostly because their studio was right across the street from campus).
I used to run a pizza place in downtown San Jose. The place was decorated with a surfing theme, and we had an aquarium with a couple of nurse sharks.
Back in 1999 or 2000, at a San Jose Sharks game (hockey), the mascot, named “Sharkie,” was supposed to make a grand entrance by being lowered down from the rafters to the ice. There was some malfunction with the ropes and pulleys, and he got stuck suspended in the air for a time. The Daily Show decided to do a story on this, as a part of their then-ongoing series “Tales of Survival.”
They wanted to get footage of live sharks, and I guess the word on the street eventually led them to me. I got a call from one of the producers wanting to film in my restaurant. I said sure, why not. The sad part is, I’d never heard of The Daily Show at that point. So when Vance Degeneres showed up in my restaurant, I was unimpressed because I had no idea who he was.
Anyway, they also arranged for a marine biology instructor from a local community college to be there. They filmed an interview with him about sharks in my store, got some shots of my sharks, and filmed all of us employees going about our business. The only parts that made it into the final story where the shots of the sharks, and a few snippets from the interview. Nothing of any of us. 
The best part of all of this was turning me on to The Daily Show!