Twenty years ago today I won on "The Weakest Link." $80,500. When the memory was fresh, only five years after the big day, I wrote this while living in Australia. I amended the epilogue to bring the story current. Here are the 5,000+ words. Enjoy (and endure.)
MELBOURNE - Thursday 26 October 2006
I won a trivia contest Friday night.
Actually, I put together a team that won the Melbourne Press Club's Trivia Night. Thanks to my savant friend John, the music knowledge of Sport 927's production guru Phil and some random right answers from the rest of the table, the team of "St. Louis - Not Louie" became the first to knock off perennial champions "The Supreme Court."
My friend, Laura C, texted me from Los Angeles to say she was not surprised we won. She ought to know. Five years ago Laura C was the Contestant Producer when I won $80,500 on "The Weakest Link."
(N.B.: Cynics akin to me need to know Laura C only became a friend well after I had been on the show - and well after the show was out of production.)
Today marks five years to the day since I struck it temporarily rich. It was the first step of the trail that led me to live in Australia.
And yes, patient readers, it is a long, long trail. Print this out, and it'll stretch from you to me.
I. A sexaholic mayor clears the first hurdle
The whole process started in early 2001, when I first tried out for "The Weakest Link." The show received quite a buildup in the New York press, so this session turned into a veritable Broadway cattle call. I bombed out on the written test, but I was told I could try out again in a few months. I also remember hitting on a woman from Australia. Bombed out there, too.
Fast-forward to August 2001. I arrived home one day in Connecticut to find an invitation on my voice mail. "The Weakest Link" was holding contestant auditions at a hotel in East Hartford, Conn.
It was hardly an exclusive invitation. About 500 people showed up.
Having been on two previous game shows ("Scrabble" in 1990, "Wheel of Fortune" in 1991), I knew I had to separate myself from the crowd - and impress the contestant coordinators. The problem was I would be about the 130th or so person in the sea of 500 to offer a perfunctory introduction of name, hometown and job.
Being a smart ass and calling on my old back-of-the-classroom hijinks, I pretended to be a local politician in the midst of a sex scandal.
"Good morning, I am Phil Giordano, I am the embattled mayor of Waterbury, and I'm a sexaholic."
That laughter - and a score of 19 out of 20 on the written test - got me past the first round. The only problem was I did not know it.
"We're going to announce the eight people who will continue in this process and play the game upstairs," the coordinator announced.
Seven names were uttered. My name was not among them. We were excused.
II. Thank God it was raining
Disappointed I had failed to make the grade, I slinked to my car in the midst of a summertime thunderstorm.
I needed to make a phone call. For once, because of the fierce weather, I did not dial and drive. I sat in my car, in the parking lot, on the phone.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the window.
"Hey, you need to come back. We forgot to call your name."
I ran back into the hotel, where I was greeted by a bunch of people yelling, "Hey, they found the mayor!"
Upstairs the less-than-wet seven and I learned some bad news. Everything we had done to this point would not be seen by the show producers back in L.A. They were about to videotape us playing a mock version of the game. That was the impression that would make or break our audition.
All that work impersonating a crooked councilman, and I still was only past the first round.
As the eight of us were about to play the game, I was inspired again.
In introducing myself, I purposely held my name tag upside-down, claimed my name was "NOR," then talked about my love of dog sledding (true story there).
As the camera zoomed in on me, I pretended to try and discipline an increasingly impatient dog at my side. The dog, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, I was in a tug-of-war with this canine Harvey.
No guarantees at this point, but they did take my name and address and number and information on next-of-kin.
It was time to hurry up and wait.
III. A surprise at the bookstore
About three weeks after that audition I was supposed to receive an Edward R. Murrow Award at Nashville. That would have been Sept. 12, 2001. Events of the previous day led to that trip being canceled.
Coincidence or not, 9/11 also marked a crossroads that began the decline and fall of prime-time, television game shows. If nothing else, it threw a delay into production schedules for just about everything being produced in Hollywood. Therefore, I suspected a call from "The Weakest Link" would be a long time in coming - if at all.
Surprise.
I was walking through the Borders in Farmington when my phone rang.
"Can you be here in Los Angeles for 'The Weakest Link' on Oct. 26?"
I pretended to sound cool when I said yes. I was chilled a bit when I got a bit of bad news.
"You need to know we're bringing in 12 contestants, but we only take eight for the actual taping. So you might not make it on."
What the hell. I was getting a free trip to L.A.
IV. The day arrives
I flew from Connecticut to California on a Thursday and was told to get a good night's sleep. The next day would be the day.
My friend, Steve, drove down from Ventura to join me for dinner near the hotel at Universal City. He wanted to attend the taping, but I had to inform him none of my friends would be allowed in. In fact, thanks to the confidentiality clause in a contract all prospective contestants had to sign, no friends or family would be allowed to know the result of our show.
I repeated the same little speech on the phone to a good many other people that day.
Friday morning arrived. So did superstition. I had packed a T-shirt I received while in the audience the previous summer for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." After a workout in the hotel gym, I was going to put that on under my shirt and tie. I changed my mind. If I lost, I would end up blaming it on the T-shirt.
The van was there to pick up us out-of-town contestants around 9 a.m. or so. We all compared our respective life's stories, but the mood was somewhat icy. After all, one of us was about to cost the rest of us a lot of money.
The drive to Burbank took us to NBC. I knew my way around there quite well, having known a few people at Channel 4 - and having attended a lot of tapings of Johnny Carson.
Last time I had been on the lot, though, we hadn't been bottlenecked through a metal detector. No doubt a response to 9/11. My response to the Geiger-counting baton was to quote Jerry Seinfeld.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you."
No laughs.
This was going to be a long day.
V. Politics in the Green Room
Us out-of-town contestants were ushered into a Green Room. Like all others, it's not green at all. Like few others, I had been in this one before - 11 years earlier for "Scrabble."
Contestant producer Laura C and her crew began the long process of paperwork and instruction. Along the way we were encouraged to interact with the other contestants.
This is where we were allowed to discuss strategy, since it would not necessarily have a bearing on the game. Or so we were led to believe.
One rather tall, young man made it a point to pass around one bit of advice. (I'm presuming now that you have seen the game and know how it works. If not, might I recommend "The Weakest Link" and www.google.com.).
"If you get down near the end, and there's only one person left of one gender, get rid of that person," he said. "You can't have that being a factor at the end."
I tried to play it like the guy who had been around game shows before, but not to the point of knowing too much. A backstage version of "this won't hurt a bit."
The whole time I had one thought in mind. The key to winning was to be smart early and dumb late. It became a mantra - although I do not think I ever uttered it.
Even so, I found myself coming off like a know-it-all, especially around all the women. Except for Janine. She was one of the locals - an antiquities dealer from Hermosa Beach.
Janine was about my age - and rather attractive. She and I seemed to have a flirty bond that made us allies.
Or so it seemed.
And then there was Fred - the loan officer from Georgia. He was just a good guy - and funny.
Everyone would learn that in due time.
VI. The last audition
With 12 contestants to go into eight spots on the show, something had to give. That led to a long walk down a corridor that I am betting Jay Leno strode when he was sneaking around to hide in a storage closet to eavesdrop on NBC executives.
We were told we would meet the executive producer and his two lieutenants. This was the make-or-break session. As fate would have it, I was first in of the 12.
"You're the one who had the imaginary dog," one of them said.
"Yes," I said. "Would you like me to bring him in?"
"That won't be necessary. Just tell us why you would make a good contestant."
"Well, I'm a smart ass. I know a little about a lot. And scoreboard."
The three of them looked at one another.
"You know we don't have scoreboards here."
"Oh, I don't mean that. I mean 'scoreboard.' The real-life one between the Americans and the British."
I had it in mind to have a go at the host of the show - British subject Anne Robinson.
"I mean scores like 1776 and 1812," I said. "I just want to remind Anne of those numbers."
"Would you use that on the show?"
"That's just my backup material."
As everyone chuckled, I figured I was in. I just would not know for another couple hours.
VII. Back to Studio 1
After I think three or four hours, a makeup session and a wardrobe check, we finally were off to Studio 1. The old Johnny Carson studio. As many times as I had been in there, I figured it was like my home-court advantage.
Laura C then told us what we were waiting to hear.
"You'll know if you're on the show when you walk in," she said. "We'll announce your name, and you'll walk to the next podium from left to right."
First came Janine.
I figured I would be left to the very end. Or not at all.
"Second? Ron!"
A bit of celebration followed by more "meet me in the bar" looks between Janine and me.
Then came Julie and another Laura and Marcia. Then Fred and Amanda. Finally, Alex the attorney filled the last spot. The tall guy with the gender advice was left to sit in the audience and stand by for two rounds - just in case one of us threw up or dropped dead.
He would be forgotten. Or so it seemed.
VIII. Let the game begin
Us eight contestants shot a pretend conversation on a mini-set in the wings. That was for the opening credits. We were interrupted, however, by the first of countless delays.
"Janine, do you have something you can wear over that top," a contestant coordinator asked. "You have a girl problem."
Everyone seemed a bit embarrassed. Then I broke the tension.
'Hey, they told me I was looking too cold, too, so they made me put some padding in my pants."
Finally, I got a laugh.
We shot the opening, then it was back to our podiums. Still no sign of the dreaded Anne.
I looked around and realized I was standing right about where Fred de Cordova used to be when he was producing "The Tonight Show." Johnny used to sit between where contestants 3 and 4 stood. Doc and the band were about places 7 and 8. And the monologue faced the other way - right about where Anne would be running the show.
"The Weakest Link" audience was situated in the area that used to be backstage for Johnny. The permanent audience area was mothballed - save a few seats in the front row for the staff and stand-by contestants.
As we waited to start, Janine and I exchanged more furtive conversation.
Or so it seemed.
That was until we were told not to talk to one another. Nor any other contestants. Just talk to the contestant coordinators.
Finally, Anne appeared. She looked younger than the 57 she turned a month earlier. She launched into a quiet but confident and no-doubt dog-earred speech. It ended when she told the audience this was the last time we would see her smile.
"Stand by!" came the command from the floor manager.
"Welcome to 'The Weakest Link.'"
Da-da-daaa-da.
"One of these eight contestants could win $1 million. They don't know each other, ..."
"Cut! Let's do it again!"
One problem. Then another. It took about three or four takes before we truly were under way.
"Ron. 42. Production manager. New Britain, Conn."
Perfunctory introductions all. No fake dogs this time.
I was not nervous. Just focused. Perhaps too focused on playing the game. Thank goodness my first question was easy.
"What U.S. city is named from the Greek words for 'brotherly love'?"
"Philadelphia."
Off and running. And how. The eight of us proceeded to correctly answer 14 consecutive questions. But Anne scolded us for "panic banking," for breaking the string of what would have been a $125,000 score.
Amanda - a former intelligence officer - was out first. She had a wrong answer late in the round that stood out.
Four votes for Amanda. The rest were spread around - including one for me.
IX. Getting burned - but not in the vote
The other Laura was a young, blonde who reviewed comic books for a living. She tried to vote me off in each of the first two rounds. Come to think of it, she was one of the women who gave me the "you know-it-all" look in the Green Room.
When it came time to vote after the second round, I targeted her.
But wait. A technical problem. One of the contestant's Telestrators used to write down votes was broken.
As seemless as the show looks on television, there are lots of stops and starts to reposition cameras for each segment. After each round of questions and answers, there was a delay before we voted. And when we voted, we were urged to continue to pretend writing so they could record cutaways for later editing.
This particular stopdown, though, took nearly 45 minutes.
We all sat on the edge of the set. At one point I leaned back and scorched my hand on a footlight. This probably set the hearts of the stand-by contestants fluttering. But I was not about to let a borderline, second-degree burn stop me.
About 20 minutes after I had suggested to no one in particular that they simply replace the broken Telestrator with the one previously used by the eliminated contestant, the technicians seized upon their solution. They simply replaced the broken Telestrator with the one previously used by the eliminated contestant.
The next eliminated contestant would be the other Laura.
"Ron," Anne said, "why Laura?"
"Well, Anne, she didn't know her Prague from her Denmark in the first round, and quite frankly, I don't think you're allowed to have this many blonds on one set unless it's 'Baywatch.'"
"Is yours assisted, blond hair?"
"Would you like to find out?"
The long delay finally got me into a proper mindset. I was concentrating on the game, but I also was relaxed enough to channel into my wise-guy persona. Hey, in 45 minutes, I owed it to myself to come up with something funny.
X. Good-bye, Janine; hello, Fred
One by one, contestants were eliminated. Julie was rather forgettable on her way out. The only thing I really remember about that round was Janine trying urge me to vote off Marcia.
"What are you thinking?" I thought, silently. "You're wearing a microphone. If they catch you trying to influence a vote, you'll be out of here."
I pretended not to hear Janine and, instead, voted for Alex. That was how I was going to vote regardless of Janine's campaigning.
Fred was among the survivors. His exchange with Anne was the funniest part of the show.
"Fred, what do you do?"
"I'm a loan officer."
"A nice loan officer? Or one of those mean ones?"
"Well, that all depends. If it's the 30th day of the month, and you pay your bill, I'm a nice loan officer. But if it's the 31st day, then I'm a mean one."
"OK," Anne said. "Let's say I have a nice car that I use to take my two children to school. And it's the 31st day. What's going to happen?"
"Well," Fred said, "you'd better tell your kids to start their walk."
"Where's the car?"
"It's gone."
"Did you take my car?"
"I didn't take your car. I just told some friends of mine where they could find it."
A great exchange. The whole time I'm just leaning on my podium - channeling my inner Jim Lange or Dick Clark - and laughing my head off.
Janine became more and more nervous. And wooden. And unable to channel any knowledge. She was fourth to go.
On her way out she shook my hand. One of the contestant coordinators joked that she had given me her phone number.
Then because she walked the wrong path past the cameras, they made Janine exit all over again. And again she shook my hand. And it looked like she gave me her phone number.
Or so it seemed.
XI. Chich, you owe me a steak dinner
As fate would have it - and I am entirely convinced it was just fate - all but one of the five women to have begun the show was gone. There remained three men - and one woman.
Gender aside, Marcia (pronounced Mar-SEE-ah) the dentist was clearly the smartest player on the show. At least in terms of pure knowledge. But us guys must have remembered what the tall guy had said back in the Green Room.
If you get down near the end, and there's only one person left of one gender, get rid of that person."
And so we did. It is just that I did not have to tersely reveal that on national television.
Anne asked me, "Why Marcia?"
With a stony look on my face, I said, "Gender."
The audience then treated me as if I had just tied Nell to the train tracks.
I continued, because I thought this was the time. A few weeks earlier, ESPN Radio colleague and fellow subversive Peter Ciccone had dared me to say one particular line to Anne. Doing so would win me a steak dinner.
"Anne, there's only room for one woman on this show. I have been watching game shows for some years now, and I have to tell you, when it comes to hosts, you're almost as pretty as Chuck Woolery."
After all the booing, Anne then branded me a smart ass - a proclamation edited out of the final show.
Too bad. Chich probably would have bought a steak dinner for Anne, too.
XII. This is getting serious
The three wise men (guys) left were anything but in the next round. We banked some miserably small amount of money, and I missed this question:
"What basketball star wrote an autobiography titled For the Love of the Game?
"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar."
Oops. Anne not only reminded me it was Michael Jordan, she proceeded to tell an audience waiting to kill me that I worked for ESPN. A proud moment for the Worldwide Leader in Sports.
The vote among the final three is the most nerve-wracking, because it is the last one in which the contestants' fate is in someone else's hands.
During the break, after the votes were locked in but before they were revealed, the audience warmup guy asked who everyone thought should be eliminated.
"Ron!" they all sang - almost as one.
Behind my back - but toward the audience - I waved a good-natured good-bye.
I actually thought that was it for me.
"Alex," I voted.
Next came Fred.
"Alex."
Gasps from the crowd. Alex's vote for me was moot. Fred and I - the two men who seemed to have a genuine bond in the Green Room - would be in the final round.
Yes, we had our penultimate, 90-second swap of questions and answers and banking to pad the pot. But that was almost window dressing. Fred and I kept yelling "House money!" to one another in a production break.
Then Fred and I hugged as we came to the middle of the stage for 20 of the most tense minutes of my life.
XIII. Oh, well, it was fun trying
Until this point I never counted on winning. Never thought about what chance I had. But now it was down to my own ability - and Fred's. Finally, the thought of $80,500 - and what it could mean - was overwhelming.
As the strongest link in the previous round, I had the option of going first or second.
"I will go first," I said, almost robotically, thinking I could pressure Fred with each ensuing correct answer of my own. Little did I know.
The music swelled. The cadence of the backlights moved my internal Richter scale. Then everything went silent.
I really was nervous now.
The music heard on the show henceforth was added later. That was because we were advised to take as long as we needed to answer any question. They would edit out any dead time used for thinking. Good thing, too. I wasted a lot of their time.
The first question was about "Star Wars." No shot. I was just trying to think of a credible, incorrect answer. Ten minutes later - 10 minutes! - I came up with a sorry excuse for the response. Somehow, "Starship Jedi" was not an acceptable alternative to "Millennium Falcon."
Fred got his first question right.
My second question was "Which aide to former President Bill Clinton wrote the book The Horse He Rode In On: The People vs. Kenneth Starr?" Another 10 minutes later I came up with "Warren Christopher."
When I was reminded it was "James Carville," I wanted to scream. We had Carville on ESPN Radio every week to do football picks with Tony Kornheiser.
Fred got his second question right.
At this point I thought what the heck. I got on national television, I got off Chich's "Chuck Woolery" line, I won a steak dinner, and I had enjoyed a free trip to L.A.
Then things turned around.
I got a question right about Charles Atlas. Then Fred missed his. I got another one right. Then Fred missed his about the play Equus.
All tied 2-2 going into the last question.
"Ron, what international news service was founded in the 19th century using carrier pigeons in place of the telegraph?"
The thought of UPI ran through my head, but I answered "Reuters."
"That is correct."
I stared down Fred, who was not looking back at me. Finally, my going first was putting pressure where it belonged.
"Fred, you must answer this question correctly, or Ron will win $80,500. What word for a machine that performs human tasks literally translates to the Czech term for 'compulsory labor'?"
Fred thought and thought and thought. When he did not come up with this right away, I was pretty sure I had won. I just needed to hear it.
Two minutes later Fred responded.
"Automaton?"
Anne wasted no time.
"No, the correct answer is 'robot.'"
I didn't hear anything else. My jaw dropped. Literally. You can see it on the video. My jaw dropped.
The next few seconds were a blur.
Fred congratulated me, then Laura C and the contestant coordinators did the same. I think.
We were on our way past the cameras and upstairs to the top of the old "Tonight Show" audience area. That was where they set up a booth for contestants to offer their final thoughts after they were voted off. Or for the 12½ percent who won.
As I started to walk up, Fred broke down and cried. I stopped, and I was ushered away for a moment. While he was recovering I caught the eyes of Alex. He was smiling. Then I saw Marcia and Julie and the other Laura and Amanda. They were not.
Then there was Janine. No come-hither glance now. This was absolute anger.
Or so it seemed.
A contestant coordinator then ushered smiling Alex and the women out of the studio. Fred had recomposed himself and done his valedictory in the little booth. I fumbled my way through my turn, saying something about how life-changing $80,500 would be.
Little did I know.
Fred had to wait for me to sign a bunch of paperwork in the dark of the area just off stage while Anne was doing some retakes of some lines. I was told he and I would go back together in a town car to the hotel. The others were shipped back in a van.
"We've had some problems with losing contestants getting angry with the winner," we were told.
Prudent move, I thought.
Fred had gotten over the initial shock of the loss, but he seemed a man filled with genuine good nature. I am pretty sure I would not have taken such a close call that well.
He and I agreed to have drinks in the hotel lobby once we had changed.
My only burst of bad luck for the day came when I got into the elevator to go back downstairs. The car stopped two floors from the bottom. There were three of the five women - including Janine.
"Did you really have a plan to eliminate all the women?" she asked.
"No, we didn't."
She didn't believe me.
Or so it seemed.
XIV. Epilogue 2006
It was nine months before my episode of "The Weakest Link" finally aired. By then the show was canceled by NBC. That Oct. 26, 2001, taping of "Link" finally aired January 2003 - on the Game Show Network.
Since winning contestants were not guaranteed being shown the money until after the show aired, this created some nervous weeks and months. I actually was at the speed-skating venue at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 when I was telephoned by a "Weakest Link" staff member and told the money would be mailed out later in the year.
The fact that probably was one of his last acts before being laid off left me wondering whether I ever would see the money.
It finally arrived in July 2002, as the production was shutting down, and bank accounts no doubt had to be closed.
In a burst of strange incidents relating to the final payment, it sat in the management office of my apartment complex in Connecticut for nearly a week. No one in that office bothered to tell me a registered letter had arrived for me. It was only after a bookkeeper for the production office called to ask why I had not deposited the check that I realized something was up.
The biggest thing I bought with the money was a $22,000 ticket to remain a U.S. citizen. That was mailed to the IRS on April 15, 2003.
I bought into a retirement fund dominated by a morass of go-nowhere Disney stock. I made a lot of trips to sporting events in 2002 - including that disgusting World Series. And I made a long-desired trip to Australia to see the 2002 Australian Football League Grand Final.
It was then I made contact with the people for whom I now work at Radio Sport 927.
XV. Epilogue 2021
Where are they now? I moved back from Australia in 2007, worked in New York radio for 10 years and got married. Tina and I have since moved to Las Vegas and then six months ago to Kentucky. I am the racing correspondent for the Vegas Stats & Information Network, started by Brent Musburger's family and owned now by DraftKings. I am also managing editor for the website Horse Racing Nation.
I never again heard from Janine. Unfortunately, I lost track of Fred. Laura C and I actually dated briefly, cross-country and all. I see on LinkedIn she is now a genealogist.
For a while I would hear from someone who said I was on a rerun of "The Weakest Link" on GSN.
Chich is still at ESPN, because someone has to be. Old mayor Giordano is doing hard time in South Carolina. And that Borders where I took the phone call that changed my life was closed in 2011.
While I lived in Australia I would see Anne doing the British version of "The Weakest Link." Now I see she is hosting the durable game show "Countdown" on Channel 4 in the U.K.
