by Al Porotesano

I’ll be honest. I only saw Let’s Make A Deal once or twice when I was at the Veterans Administration Hospital waiting room.

I was at the Central Casting registration line two weeks ago and a gentleman named Brett approached me to be on the show. He wore a Boston Red Sox cap and fulfilled his hometown truism with a townie accent I can’t miss in my times at Boston a decade ago. I filled up the application card, he took a picture of me on his phone, and then I recieved an email from Sandy the Contestant Agent to be on the show. Sandy has Rafael email me a confirmation of the ticket to be on the show at Van Nuys, California.

Coming from the Long Beach area, It’s a drag to go to the Valley. It takes an hour to two hours, so timing is not even an issue of rush hour traffic anymore, the 405 from LAX to UCLA is an everyday standstill and adjusting my time accordingly is common. I digress on this tangent though.

It’s a cattle calling process. The ticket directs you to the industrial part of saticoy by the 405 freeway at Van Nuys. The decor feels like a DMV office with a metal detector whose studio stagehand is more thourough to inspect my backpack than a TSA agent at LAX. The line goes through a snake pattern giving me some time to read the eight pages of paperwork. Enough to get the jist of knowing some rules about winning prizes and paying taxes. There’s some paragraphs about deferrment, Calling CBS a direct number about contestant irregularities during the selection proces (which I took a picture of on my camera), and acknowledgement of terms as a contestant to the producers and CBS. It’s enough to make me forget the hot and humid DMV-like office when the studio is three miles away from the processing office.

The Contestant Producer is a perky yet bulky bodybuilder whose intimidating job is to weed out the boring, aspiring actors, hyperactive fans, and intelligent outasts from the center-stage to win prizes with a group interview. We have to show him our high-powered energy by screaming and cheering and all that at-will razmatazz. I fell into the intelligent-outcast category and coming from Long Beach lowers my chances of winning anything from Wayne against the transplants from Michigan to Maryland.

After the group interview, we’re called to the room next door. A booth on the left offers costume rentals followed by a booth selling snacks and coffee, both charging extortionist rates. The producers must know how to make supplemental income this way. The line leads to a photographer taking photos of me (or a group) behind a dark green wall. I look at my cheerful self superimposed to the set of Let’s Make a Deal. It looks great, but taking it home would be $20 to $40. Would a casting agent look at that photo and think I’d be great for their show or movie? I’ll leave that answer up to them (my realiistic answer of this would be lol.no).

At the waiting room, we’re seating in our assigned seats based on our contestant numbers. The Contestant Director and Producer are on the stage pumping up the crowd of contestants who’ve never been on a television show. The atmosphere feels like cheers recycled from a high school pep rally. They put on some improv comedy based on past seeasons of episodes telling us what to do and what not to do when they’re with Wayne Brady. I’m thinking is something I want to see at the taping. Their tales of terror include a woman trying to make out with Wayne Brady on the show. An another example was a contestant dismissive of the prize that led to Wayne being snarky with the guy.

They take us to the studio by bus. We arrive and wait outside the humid garbagescape of porta-pottys and warm water coolers under a tent with paralleled benches for contestants to cheer and greet with high-fives. At this point, the producers are testing our cheers with the elements of the Valley’s brutal sun, the hygenic conditions testing the contestants’ germaphobic paranoia, and the patience of those who are broke. The ones who will brave through this happiness bullshit of a day’s work by not giving in the temptation of paying $2 for an ice cold can of coca cola. It’s the feel of a survival reality show within a game show that won’t be appealing for me to watch, but okay for my friends and family to laugh at.

Four hours pass and I’m finally on the set of Let’s Make a Deal. I’m surprised at how spacious the set is. Most show sets are cramped and small, but it’s pretty spacious here in Van Nuys.

The ushers in red shirts assign us to our seats. It seems like the process is randomized based on the types of contestants. If I’m here on my own, I’ll be sitting next to a couple or a trio of friends. I ended up sitting next to a duo of friends, one of which was sitting next to me and she got called in by Wayne to to win a car.

During the commercial breaks, the contestant selection process is prompt based on my interview with the perky-bulky Contestant Producer and the cameras on us if our energies have drained out. Perhaps by stagefright. In this process, we dance to the composer’s laptop playlist with his synthesizer of beats. It’s not how outrageous the costume or how louder your cheer can be, but rather how approachable and likeable you are to Wayne in a conversational setting. You don’t want to get snarky or he’ll just humiliate you on the set. That would pretty much shoot you down from winning anything, let alone come back for an another episode.

I also learned it’s a big plus if you served in the Military or if you’re a struggling contestant (whether you’re a single mom or you own a boutique store to make ends meet) who’s looking at Wayne as their savior. So I kinda blew it when I told the Contestant Producer I was a software engineer from Long Beach, CA since they frown on raised Angelinos.

I’m like: this is not working out for me.

That episode is done, and I head to hacker drinkup. Our usual crowd is at Las Vegas for DefCon 24, and I’m with Elliot contemplating whether if I ever did this again, I’ll head to one of those casting agencies where I’ll get paid to fill in seats for a talk show.

I’d like to think mixing freelancing and acting would work simultaneously on location or on the set. It’s just not going to work if I’m ever going to be a game show contestant.