# Have you ever been on TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333 "2011-06-21T19:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/1 "2011-06-21T19:38:44Z")
The other day I saw someone who looked familiar on TV. It was some local program and he was being interviewed. He’s a doctor where I work. So I ran into him today and I asked him about it. Not only does he not remember the name of the show, he doesn’t remember what he talked about. I find it really odd that he was on TV and barely remembers it. I was on three times. When I was little, the was a local show in Iowa called The Dr. Max Show. He’s entertain a little and show cartoons. He almost always had kids on the show. One day he had a Boy Scout troop and a Brownie troop on. My brother and sister were members of those. Since my mother had to take them there, and she couldn’t very well leave me alone, I tagged along. I was seated in between both troops. When I was in college, a local place was celebrating Oktoberfest. A friend called and said that he was playing there with an oompa band. Their bass player couldn’t make it, and I could make some quick cash by sitting in. I dressed up in what barely passed for leiderhosen and took the gig. While there, a local news team showed up. That night I saw myself on the news for about half a second. When I was in my mid 30’s, the local animal shelter was offering a deal where you could get you and your pet’s photo taken with Santa Claus. The cost would be donated to the shelter. My then-GF insisted that we go there with her cat. While all three of us were trying to hold the cat in something resembling a pose, a news team showed up. We were on the 6 o’clock news that night. What’s your story? ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/2 "2011-06-21T19:43:28Z")
I was on [The Johnny Downs Show](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Downs#The_Johnny_Downs_Show) in San Diego when I was in 4th grade. Not much of a story; I got to show off a paper mache puppet I made in class. ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/3 "2011-06-21T19:46:56Z")
Similarly, I was on the news in a Boy Scout (or cub scout maybe?) troop. We were visiting a set and all got to be in camera for the weather section. My brother starred in a “Quick Cuts” commercial. They shot all day and he got his face full screen for a solid 1.5 secs. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/4 "2011-06-21T19:49:58Z")
Our a Capella choir in high school was invited to participate in a choral festival in Rome, and we sang anywhere and everywhere for money to finance the trip (and we raised enough for everyone to go for free.) A local TV station gave us a half hour right before Christmas to sing and I think the sponsors gave us a check. This was way before VCR days, but we were taped in advance, so I got to watch. They made an effort to give every singer a several-second close-up, so I got to see myself with my mouth wide open. Very flattering. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/5 "2011-06-21T19:50:05Z")
Yes. A few times actually. I was the plate umpire in a high school play-off game that was televised here in Georgia. I was also interviewed by two different television stations related to my wife’s death. Because she was so young when she died, she had to have an autopsy; which was taking a really long time because the GBI was so back logged in their lab work; and I couldn’t get the death certificate issued until they completed the lab work. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/6 "2011-06-21T19:50:37Z")
When I was about fourteen, I was in a kid’s theater group and we were used as extras in a commercial for Tampa Bay Cadillac. All of us (kids and parents) were to mill around in the background as though we were car-shopping, while the focus of the commercial was on some little kid who had to say, “Mommy, it talks!” We were so inconspicuous in the finished commercial we could barely pick ourselves out. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/7 "2011-06-21T19:51:09Z")
I was on the TV game show “Child’s Play” when I was around 7. I’de love to find the footage. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/8 "2011-06-21T19:51:28Z")
I was on a high school quiz show once. My team lost. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/9 "2011-06-21T19:58:56Z")
Twice, as a kid. Once, the local news did a piece on the local school district’s gifted kids program. I was one of the kids in the background. The other one was when my Cub Scout troop was on some local UHF station’s after-school kids show. We were given hot dogs and chocolate milk and were interviewed by the host (a guy dressed like a circus ringmaster) in between cartoons. I hid my hot dog under my seat because it’s rude to eat in front of other people, even if they’re at home watching you on TV. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/10 "2011-06-21T20:01:35Z")
I was on the news a couple weeks ago. I was interviewed about our new dog park. It was apparently a slow news day. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/11 "2011-06-21T20:31:26Z")
I have been interviewed on the local cable channel. I also used to have a credit (live sound technician) on a local cable/ low power UHF Sunday morning church program. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/12 "2011-06-21T20:36:24Z")
I was on NBC Nightly News once. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/13 "2011-06-21T20:37:53Z")
I was on [It’s Academic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Academic) in high school. An improv group I was in put together 4 specials that aired on cable access. I might have been on once in 1994 when a reporter interviewed baseball fans on the street about the baseball strike. I missed the news that night and didn’t see. ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/14 "2011-06-21T20:45:51Z")
I was on some kid show when I was a child. I don’t remember it, but my siblings tell me that I was much more interested in my ice cream cone than I was to the host when he ‘interviewed’ me. As an adult, I was on the evening news once for about 30 seconds. A reporter came to do a story about a woman’s drainage problem and I answered two or three questions about a city project. Thursday night my daughter is going to be on the Colbert Report. Or, well, the band she’s in will be. That’s her 15 minutes of fame I guess! ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/15 "2011-06-21T20:55:32Z")
My first wedding took place outdoors on a beautiful sunny day at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. There was some footage used by a local station for “scenes around town” during the weather report. You can in no way identify me. But my husband and several guests were in full highland dress so some people who had been there could tell it was our wedding. Man on the street interview about Hillary Clinton’s first senatorial campaign in NY. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/16 "2011-06-21T21:02:51Z")
I used to be behind the credits (doing a sit-up, and a barbell curl) during the opening sequence of a local public television show called _Almanac_. I was on a high school team for a local quiz show similar to GE College Bowl - don’t recall the name (we finished fourth of a field of sixteen). And a local TV news show interviewed me when my neighbor was shot by the police a few years ago. That’s my fifteen minutes. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/17 "2011-06-21T22:13:26Z")
Several times as a teenager: various academic quiz bowl competitions, band competitions, an interview or threeon local news for stuff like scholarship awards. A few times as an adult - local news mostly, and a couple of national news interviews when a local chemical plant and a sugar refinery went kaboom. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/18 "2011-06-21T22:34:02Z")
I think I was on the local evening news when I was beaten up at school by outsiders. I know the story was on, but I was still in the emergency room and didn’t see it. I was told that the news team was at school before the ambulance arrived. I think it was in the late Seventies that I was on _Good Morning America_. I was one of those who opened the show with my name, where I was from, and the greeting “Good morning, America.” The first time they taped/filmed it, I spoke a little too fast. They told me that I didn’t sound like I was from Nashville. I said, “Oh! You want _Magnolia_…” They laughed and nodded. We did it again and I spoke in the stereotypical Southern drawl. They put me on TV. More recently I was on TV when the police had me identify the man who had just comitted armed robbery against me. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/19 "2011-06-21T23:26:57Z")
Quite a few times in court for work, and I was also on the Ohio Lottery’s television show because my grandfather put my name on a winning ticket. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333/20 "2011-06-21T23:30:20Z")
I was on the local news on a cold day in Sacramento. I was selling ice cream. It was a _very_ slow news day. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-been-on-tv/586333.md?page=2)