“The Host Was A Jerk”: 30 People Who Have Been On Game Shows Expose Off-Screen Secrets

I was on Love Connection decades ago. They did keep us separated from the guys we dated before we revealed if we wanted a second date. They choose three guys and you have to pick one to go on the date. Plus they give you a long list of things you can’t do on the date, like go to the movies. They want you to interact. They give you notes on what to say based off of what you told them after the date. Chuck Woollery had cue cards. And it appeared he was looking at you but he was only looking at the cue cards.

I had a cousin win my country’s version of survivor. He finished the final competition about 45 min before everyone else but the producers cut it in a way that made it seem like he barely won with just a few inches ahead of second place. But I guess that’s to be expected with reality tv.

Another fun fact - the host of the show tried to get all of the women to gang up and get my cousin voted out, and it was so bad that the producers had to step in and tell him to stop (that part didn’t get aired ofc).
Also the host of the show, who was a “respected” tv host in my country at the time, was a raging alcoholic during the whole trip

Edit: another thing I remembered was that they had to halt the shooting of the show and get the contestants into hotels on the mainland for around 2 months because a lot of the people got hit by some kind of virus or bacteria that made a lot of them extremely sick.

Closet I've come was on a radio competition, I was about 8. Yes, no game (not allowed to answer yes or no)

Host: what's your name?

Me: Neil

Host: Neil?

Me: Yes.

I was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 17-ish years ago. There was a lot of interesting stuff told to us by the show workers.

One thing they told us was to use the Ask The Audience lifeline early. They said pretty much everyone on the audience tried out for the show, but didn't make it. As such, they told us we probably know more than them, so if it's a high level question and we aren't sure, the audience probably doesn't know either.

They also said we should listen to the audience reactions, though. Since there was no time limit on answering questions, we should talk through the options. If we said something like "I'm kinda thinking the answer might be C" and a bunch of audience members gasp, at least rethink that option.

Was on Let's Make a Deal.

1. The camera lenses tend to make the studio look larger than it is in real life, I was surprised how much smaller it felt sitting in the audience

2. They do a group interview thing before the show starts to help pick people and weed out the ones that won't make for good TV

3. They have costumes there you can pick from but if you bring your own you're more likely to get picked. They'll make you ride a bus to the studio though so make sure your costume can fit in the seat (I learned that the hard way)

4. They tell everyone to stay smiling/hyped the whole time because if they picked you from the interview process, they can change their mind at the last minute before Wayne calls you if they think the cameras will pan to you and you look like a sour puss. This makes everyone there stay really energetic the whole time which I thought was clever.

5. Lastly, I know this makes me sound like a psycho but Wayne Brady smells *amazing* 👏.

Not exactly a game show, but those House Hunters shows (my family's old property was featured on a spinoff) feature people who've already selected a property weeks or months before production started. These shows just feature people d*cking around making up complaints about houses and then going "I guess we'll go with this one we already own!".

I was on Jeopardy in 2021 then again in 2023. It was literally the most fun of my life, plus I got lucky and won over $50k. When they asked me back in 2023 I had to turn them down because I won't cross a picket line, and it broke my heart. Fortunately I got The Text again after the strike was over, but that time I lost. Before I went, my self talk was "Don't worry about winning; all things equal, you will lose. Just don't bring shame upon your family by betting or answering stupid." My one idiot moment came from leaving the verb out of an FJ answer and asking "Who Nathaniel Hawthorne?" I took quite a bit of s**t for that.

Not me on the show, but my dad

In the early days of Countdown (UK show) during the Richard Whiteley era (so mid 1980s), if the numbers game was a particularly tricky one they weren’t solved by Carol Vordermann immediately at the end of the round as portrayed on tv, rather, she would work on it as the programme continued and would record her solve later which would then be edited in to make it look like she had solved it there and then.

If it was a really difficult one, then Carol didn’t solve it at all, it was a behind-the-scenes guy called Michael Wylie that worked it out and then Carol would present it as though she had solved it herself.

I was on Ink Master, which not exactly a game show for human canvases, involves a prize so I’m posting lol.

The show was set in NYC and even had city backdrops in the opener, but it was filmed in a studio in NJ. The artists all had personas to play, selected by the producers, and did their best to abide. Most of the judges barely stuck around set; they’d film their stuff in quick succession then left, and they edited to make it seem like they were always there. The art was real, obviously, but there was much more time than depicted spent on deciding. I remember it taking FOREVER to film the skull picks though, because we had to be given the skills with the name on the bottom, film that, wait, then read the names slowly. It took two days to film a 30 minute episode. All in all it was an amazing experience!

Wasn't quite a game show, but some friends and I did the Red Bull FlugTag in Tampa in 2008.

They had an audition / application phase, where you had to drop off your plans and what you were going to try to design to fly off the pier

they chose us, and about 30 other people. We had to agree to news interviews and promotions, that were setup by the marketing team. We were building our craft in my backyard, and the news came out to my home a couple times.

The day of the event blew my mind... there was hundreds of thousands people there... it was nuts. Hundreds of boats, people in the parking garages watching, the hotels all had people out on the balconies... It was absolutely insanity.

They lined us up around the block, like a parade, and everyone did their skit and went off the barge. It was a LOT higher up than I thought it was going to be. I think it was between 30-40 feet off the water, it was pretty high

They gave us all safety briefings, telling us how to tell the lifeguards on jet ski's that we were ok (or hurt)

They keep it quiet, but a lot of people got hurt. Tampa General Hospital was just across the water from where the event was (Tampa Convention Center). The ER had a quite a few people in it from the event, including my cousin (who was the pilot). Cousin shattered his nose, broke it big time

I don't think they do that event anymore, heard lots of people got hurt, one person broke their back too

Was super fun, I have some videos on Youtube from the event.