Yep, I sat right in that chair and on that screen making an ass of myself. Photo courtesy of Yesterland.com

One of my favorite Disneyland memories happened a few years back when they still had the “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” live game at California Adventure.

I was a fan of the quiz show as I’m usually pretty good at trivia myself. And I wanted to get in that hot seat and win whatever they hell they were giving away.  Pins, I think it was.  But I wanted to do something to make it a little more interesting.  Because I have the kind of sense of humor where people feeling embarrassed for me makes me laugh.  Hence this video.

(Side Note: One thing I would love love love to do is get on a game show, having passed the audition with flying colors… then answer every single question in the worst possible way and generally make everyone wonder how the hell I ever got on the show.)

I tried to get in the hot seat a few times during my stay, but couldn’t quite do it.  So one morning I went pretty early to the park figuring there would be a smaller crowd.  It was a smaller crowd, but still big enough. 50 people or so.

In the first round, a little kid made the hot seat.  An adorable 8 or 10 year old boy that had the whole audience “awwwing” like crazy.  Perfect.  He only answered a couple questions right before blowing it and it was time for round two.  But he got monster applause for everything he did.

Now, while in the hot seat for this game, you were also plastered up on giant tv screens around the place.  So everyone could get a good look at you while thinking, “I’m totally smarter than that guy.”

In the second round, I got up there.  And as I plopped down in the seat onstage, my mug up on the screens for everyone to see, I could see the audience getting overly quiet and the host trying not to laugh.  He was looking at me like, “If we weren’t on Disney property right now, I’d high five you.”

Why?  Because of the t-shirt I was wearing.  It featured this logo:

Way back when I made some awfully good money dealing in the adult side of the internet.  And Porn City was a company that hosted some of my sites.  At some point they’d sent me a t-shirt.

So the “Millionaire” crowd got real quiet. I answered six questions correctly, I think.  After all that monster applause for the cute little kid?  I got zero.  Nada.  Any other time I was on stage it would have been called bombing.  But in this case it was hilarious.  After getting the third question correct with a response of absolute silence from the audience, the host even prodded them along a bit with “Come on now, give him some love!”  A small smattering of clapping followed.  The host just looked at me with a “I’m trying not to laugh” smile and just shook his head.

I wiped out around the sixth question, collected my pins, and exited the stage to near silence.  There aren’t a lot of times that I go on stage that I’m looking for that response.  But this one went off without a hitch. 🙂

You may be wondering how I even got in the park wearing the shirt.  I could have worn a jacket, but it was July and I hadn’t thought to bring one with me.  Disney won’t let you in the park if you have any foul language on your clothing.   (They used to be even tighter.  A girl I went to high school with got turned away because she had a mohawk.) However, “porn” isn’t a dirty word.  The cast member gave me a thrice over and went, “Hmm… Alright, go in.”

That’s always been my MO…. Bend the rules just enough to tweak the people in charge without actually breaking them. 🙂