Local woman enjoys her moment in game show spotlight
Is it possible to over strategize a simple game of tic-tac-toe,
maybe, but don’t tell that to Julianna O’Hara.
”
I walked around Ridgemark thinking if X goes here where do I go?
I was trying to strategize in my head, thinking ahead two
moves,
”
O’Hara said.
Local woman enjoys her moment in game show spotlight
Is it possible to over strategize a simple game of tic-tac-toe, maybe, but don’t tell that to Julianna O’Hara.
“I walked around Ridgemark thinking if X goes here where do I go? I was trying to strategize in my head, thinking ahead two moves,” O’Hara said.
The 39-year-old Hollister resident, who works in Gilroy as a dental hygienist, recently taped an episode of the game show Hollywood Squares, which will air Friday at 7:30 p.m. on CBS.
The show features six celebrities sitting in the squares of a giant tic-tac-toe board. The celebrities are asked trivia questions, which they either answer with a joke or a bluff that they are given to read – or they give the correct answer if they think they know it.
The contestants are awarded their respective X or O if they correctly guess whether the celebrity’s answer is correct.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Not when your husband is a physicist at Lockheed Martin and you ask him to help you figure out tic-tac-toe mathematically.
“He didn’t want to help out at first because it seemed so simple,” O’Hara said.
But with a little convincing the couple soon was playing games and developing a strategy that makes quantum mechanics sound easy.
O’Hara admits it’s confusing and even her husband couldn’t figure out what she was talking about until she pulled out a grid, but it goes something like this: pick a square that is not adjacent to the opponent’s square so if you miss the answer they will not be at an advantage. The least powerful position is the middle square of the sides because it limits you to winning in only two ways. The corner squares are the best because they give you three chances to win. And, finally, don’t place yourself in the vulnerable position of the middle square.
The formula almost paid off.
Closely following her strategy, O’Hara started out in the upper left hand corner, correctly guessing the answer, which awarded her an O. Her opponent, a man named Charlie Brown, went for the middle square, where former basketball star Magic Johnson sat and guessed correctly, giving him an X.
O’Hara then went to the upper right and guessed correctly, “should I have lost it I would have pulled him to my side of the board strategically,” O’Hara said.
Going for the block of the top row Brown went for the upper middle square and guessed wrong, giving O’Hara the chance to win.
Sitting in the square was Doris Roberts, an actress from the television series Everybody Loves Raymond. Before taping the show the producers told the contestants that Roberts was very bright and knows the game very well.
So when the question ‘who the most popular television detective of all time?’ was asked and Roberts confidently answered, “the guy with the trench coat, Columbo,” O’Hara thought the game was hers for the taking.
“She never looked down,” O’Hara said of Roberts. “She was looking like she was thinking of the answer.”
Unfortunately Roberts was wrong. The correct answer was the Rockford Files.
“My strategy was I wanted to trust my instincts. I wanted to look at the celebrity and get the feeling of whether they are lying or not,” O’Hara said.
Unlike the role of the loser that his cartoon counterpart usually takes on, Charlie Brown won on the next question, going on to become the most winning contestant that has ever appeared on Hollywood Squares.
“You never think of getting that far and not winning anything,” O’Hara said. “It’s an ordeal to get on the game show.”
The process began shortly after O’Hara moved to Hollister from South Carolina with her husband Michael six months ago. She called a hotline to let producers know when she would be in the Los Angeles area to take a test to be on the show.
In January she went to the CBS studios in Hollywood, where 65 people crammed into a room to take a 25-question test.
“The strongest structure in the world is tooth enamel?” O’Hara said, recalling one of the questions on the difficult test. “I knew it was the strongest in the body but not the world.”
Three hours later only people 11 emerged victorious from the exam.
After playing a mock game, the prospective contestants were released, hoping to receive a phone call in the next few weeks letting them know whether their names would be placed on a list of shows being taped during the next year.
On Sept. 15 she again drove to Hollywood with her husband, this time for a full day of taping.
Hollywood Squares tapes a week’s worth of half-hour episodes in one day in front of a live studio audience of 500 people.
Twelve contestants wait in a room, having no idea when their show will tape or if they will have to come back the following weekend. Once their name is called they have 15 minutes to get ready.
“Nobody is eating and everyone is a nervous wreck,” said O’Hara, who had her name drawn for the last taping of the day.
“We were completely chaperoned, we could not go to the bathroom or use a cell phone without a chaperone,” O’Hara said, referring to the stringent rules that game shows follow after the controversy that arose during the 1950’s quiz show scandal. The scandal found that some quiz shows were fixed and that producers propped up contestants that they wanted to win in order to rake in more viewers.
Despite the close scrutiny of the show, not everyone is convinced that Hollywood Squares is not fixed.
“My husband thinks the games are rigged,” O’Hara says. “If a celebrity likes a person they help them out.”
O’Hara’s husband, who was in the studio audience, found it ironic that they would keep such a tight reign on the contestants while it was apparent the celebrities were helping out the contestants that they wanted to win by making the real answer to some of the trivia questions obvious.
“Off camera the celebrities were nodding their head or shrugging their shoulders,” O’Hara said of the celebrities that helped the favored contestant with subtle hints that alluded to whether they knew the answer.
Even though O’Hara lost she does not regret the experience or her strategy.
“I would do the same thing again,” O’Hara said. “Mathematically it was the right thing to do.”
But she does not plan on going on any more game shows.
“I don’t think I’ll ever do it again,” O’Hara said. “I’ve never been so nervous in my life.”
O’Hara left with memories, parting gifts and $500, the minimum amount that contestants take home.
She already knows what she is going to spend it on.
“I’m going to buy a watch and I’m going to say that I won it on Hollywood Squares,” O’Hara said.
