I have fond memories from my school years. Like my crush on Julie Donovan. She was always so organized. In German class, Mr. Krueger always choose her to sort the students. He was eventually arrested by Israeli commandos.Okay, educationally, the New York public schools were sketchy at best, and this was reinforced last week as I nearly broke out in flopsweat at the production offices of “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?”
Let me scroll back a bit. My mentor, Stuart Robinson, always preaches to his acting students to get themselves on game shows. “They’re just giving away money,” Stuart pleads. “Get on, win as much as you can and use it to finance a film.”
My friend Avis, an actress here in LA, did just that. A couple years ago, every time I called her, she was studying every subject imaginable for her upcoming shot on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”
Avis won $180,000.
The questions Avis handled were impossibly difficult – hardly the stuff I remember from crappy New York fifth grade. But when the show came calling my way last week, offering my own chance at up to a quarter of a million bucks, I hightailed it over there for a tryout.
They put me on camera and asked me a dozen questions. I got the first ten right, then was stonewalled by #11: Who was the first American to win a Nobel Prize? (Teddy Roosevelt), and #12: What is the lightest gas? (Helium – though an argument could be made for my answer: hydrogen.)
Did anyone else know the answers to these types of questions when they were in fifth grade? If so, get your butt over to my place if they wind up wanting me on the show. I’m gonna need access to that oversized brain of yours, Doogie.
