This happened this afternoon on the Australian version of Wheel of Fortune.
The clue: “Actor and Film.”
The letters already there: LEONARDO DICA_RIO THE BEACH
So the contestant spins the wheel, it stops on the highest dollar value, the audience cheers wildly, the host chuckles and asks “well, what letter is it?” Everyone has obviously assumed that the round is as good as over.
“I’ll have a B please.”
Silence. The grin vanishes from the host’s face. He is visibly shaken. “Uh…uh, no, I’m sorry, there are no Bs.” It’s hard to convey in words the atmosphere of utter shock and disbelief that was evident in the studio.
Next contestant spins. Asks for a V. More silence. The host looks like he’s starting to wonder if he’s dreaming.
Fortunately, the third contestant asked for a P. Much cheering. The other two contestants hang their heads in shame.
Pfft. That was creepy to see my signature line turn up in my post after me having it disabled for months. Silly new board.
Anyway, I thought I’d add to this topic rather than start a new one. I’ve got another supposedly amusing little anecdote that nobody will reply to.
The Olympic torch was lit just a few hours ago. This is big news here in Australia, of course. A Greek-Australian schoolgirl was to have been the second torchbearer, after that Greek highjump guy. But at the last minute, the torch committee people (or whatever their official title is) decided to bump her down the list of bearers, in favour of the daughter of the vice president of the IOC, Kevan Gosper. This has created a bit of controversy here.
Now, the schoolgirl in question has been very gracious about the whole thing, expressing no hard feelings towards the situation. But it’s obvious the media wants to stir things up a little, and get a jab or two in at the whole Olympic deal whenever possible (you should see how much fun they’ve been having with the horribly unorganised ticketing process, but that’s another story). So, during the news coverage of it tonight, this little soundbite happened:
The emphasis is mine, just to highlight the lovely ironic little slip-up of the teacher.
What I want to know is why contestants who obviously know what the answer is continue to buy vowels!? Do they want to make sure they don’t go into another tax bracket?
WOF belongs in that lowest common denominator category of television: ** mindless media for the masses ** or to put it another way ** air-time for air-heads **. That the contestants proved their ignorance so demonstrably is no surprise to me at all. What does make me wonder is why an obviously intelligent member of the species (anyone who uses SDMB) is doing watching such crap.
Re the Olympic torch ceremony. After all the f***ups that SOCOG have made over the last year, it’s amazing that the Games has been organised at all. This latest little gem of PR may yet see the public finally decide to ignore the whole event and concentrate on football instead.
True story: about ten years ago, a friend’s cousin was on one of those “pick a letter” game shows. She yelled excitedly, on national TV, “I wanna take a P!”
My friend and I nearly did the same ourselves when we heard that . . .
DVous Means: I wasn’t actually watching WOF. So that’s ok then. I just saw that little clip from it on a show that was on later that day.
UncleBeer: That’s weird. But I’m pretty sure that’s what was said. Maybe the host said “No, it’s not a B” - that would make a bit more sense…and it would also mean the host was even stupider for not seeing the B that was already there.
I suppose this’ll just be the “stories from Australia” thread, then. Here’s another one:
A couple of weeks ago the ‘Logies’ were held. They’re roughly equivalent to the Emmys in the USA, I think. Australian TV’s major awards night. Anyway, there was a small group of very noisy anti-nuclear protesters out the front, where the stars and guests entered the venue. They were dressed up like mutants, shouting various slogans, trying to break through the barriers and get out onto the red carpet - pretty much just being loutish protesters.
No one could figure out why they were there. Until one of them later admitted (I think) that their group had seen the name John Howard on the guest list. John Howard is the prime minister of Australia, and he’s made some rather dodgy decisions on the whole nuclear/uranium mining issues.
Unfortunately, John Howard is also an actor in a popular Australian show, SeaChange. THAT was the only John Howard who turned up to the Logies. Oops for the protesters.
On the Gosper’s daughter front, the depressing things are that (a) he almost certainly didn’t ask for it and (b) he can’t understand what’s wrong with it.
The Hellenic Committee is worried they’re going to lose their games and are sucking up to Gosper to get him on side.
What can John Clarke and Ross Stevenson do in the next series of The Games? There is just nowhere to go.
