Some might say I’ve sunk into the abyss, watching game shows on current networks and in syndication on the Game Show Network. I watch over breakfast, lunch, and dinner because the news is not conducive to digestion. Or I watch when I’m bored. Or overwhelmed. Or anxious. Which is a lot these days. No one cares. I live alone.

Some GSN faves are 25 Words or Less, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Cash Cab, America Says, Split Second, The Chase, Switch, The $100,000 Pyramid, Master Minds, and even the old-old Match Game, with Gene Rayburn, where the hairstyles are hootable and the celebrities smoke!

Game shows are in my blood—Dad was a contestant on Tic Tac Dough in the late 1950s and lost only because his opponent was being fed the answers (see Quiz Show, the movie). Mom was an imposter on the original To Tell the Truth in the early 1960s, pretending to be Dora Jane Hamblin, a famous Life Magazine photographer. Orson Bean voted for her.

Over the past 40 years, I’ve auditioned for and failed to make the cut for Jeopardy!, The $25,000 Pyramid, Sale of the Century, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and The Weakest Link. Sometimes I’d get pretty far down the contestant path, but no luck. So far.

Here are this week’s five micro-memoirs about my game-show proclivities.

ONE

I’ve tried out for Jeopardy! three times and made it into the final contestant pool each time, in the days when Alex Trebek was still alive. Being in the pool meant a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” arrangement for up to 18 months. I’ll never know why I didn’t get on. Maybe they could hear my heart pounding. Maybe they needed to fulfill certain demographic requirements. Maybe they didn’t like my personality. Because it’s not enough to do well on the pre-test or in-person test. You have to pass the interview, be calm, clear, maybe even funny, have a pithy anecdote or … ? I don’t even take the test anymore because I would fail miserably at anything related to current TV or music or movies or most sports. So, I’m happy to walk my daily treadmill mile-plus at 7:30 every weeknight, my heart pounding for a different reason now.

TWO

Have you watched 25 Words or Less, hosted by Meredith Vieira? For a while it was my lunchtime not-so-guilty pleasure. Unlike Jeopardy!¸ which is almost all game, the total playing time in 25 Words is ridiculously short. I love the premise—two teams of two friends, family members, or spouses plus their celebrity partner compete to offer clues about a hidden list of five words using the fewest amount of words. The bidding takes a while, then each of three preliminary games lasts just 45 seconds. Then more non-game time while the celebs quip inanely as they select words based on the level of difficulty—the harder the word, the more points they’ll score for their team. Whoever wins that round then plays the 60-second bonus round. That’s it! 255 seconds of game equals 4.25 total minutes. So now I tape the show, fast forward through all but the game, and suddenly I have 25.75 minutes added to my one and only life.

THREE

I’ve written elsewhere about The Price Is Right and its small-d democratic demographics. I used to watch religiously but I don’t have the patience anymore. Another game worth fast-forwarding through? Occasionally, but only for the cars and the big money rounds. Who cares about an ugly living-room set or a popcorn-making machine? Life is short.

FOUR

Over breakfast, instead of Morning Joe, I’m now addicted to reruns of Cash Cab, hosted by Ben Bailey, which takes place in a NYC taxi. Contestants rack up cash at increasing amounts and, as long as they don’t strike out with three misses, they can keep the cash they earn or risk it on a double-or-nothing bonus question upon arriving at their destination. Most episodes are from around 2008 to 2010, which seems so recent, but, whoa, that’s over 15 years ago! I always wonder if the couples in the cab are still married or how the kids in the family groups are doing and whether they’re watching the reruns and saying, “Oh my God, we were so young!” Some of the anachronistic references are amusing or poignant—like mentions of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the White House. But, I’m telling you, those questions were hard! Beyond-Jeopardy! hard at times. I can’t believe how much those urbane New York passengers knew about, say, world history, geography, the Latin roots of words, politics, media, culture, foreign phrases, and so on. I’m pretty sure today’s passengers, as dumbed-down as we have become, would be tossed out of the cab with three strikes after just a few blocks.

FIVE

But if you really want anachronistic, watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?—the original version with Regis Philbin and the “fastest-finger” selection process, which aired from 1999 to 2002, now a generation ago. Regis, long gone, got away with sexist remarks that would never fly now: “Why aren’t you married, honey?” to a single woman, or “So, do you have a girlfriend?” to each single male. Or “Really?? Wow!” to a woman who says she’s a neurologist. Overall, though, the game-playing time is satisfying and the questions at the higher monetary levels are still challenging. Sometimes, however, a question comes up that, for a breath-catching moment, stops time, like the one in the screenshot below. And then I just have to turn off the TV and cry.

What are your guilty, or not-so-guilty, pleasures? Share in the comments!

Dear Readers: Hope you’re enjoying my new Substack. I’m keeping it free for the foreseeable future, but I’d be grateful if you’d lend your support by subscribing and sharing. And stay tuned for updates on my search for a publisher for This Is 70: A Life in Micro-Memoirs, a linked set of 70 micro-memoirs of exactly 70 words each to mark my 70th birthday last year.