Sarah Murphy spent years reporting on TV shows (among other things, such as countless stories about Beyoncé) as a contributor to Exclaim! from 2015 to 2020 (as well as an intern in 2011 and 2012). Now the shoe is on the other foot as she appears in an upcoming episode of the beloved TV quiz show. Danger!
Murphy (god, it's weird to call Sarah by her last name!) appears in the December 3 episode of the show, and Exclaim! met with a former employee to discuss studying at Danger! watching Ken Burns' documentaries, Ken Jennings' “non-threatening cardigan” and her long day of recording immediately after the Toronto Blue Jays' 18-inning World Series game.
Good luck, Sarah! I hope the 12,978 stories you've written for exclaim.ca come in handy in the game!
Are you big? Danger! fan?
I watched Danger! at home with my parents, and always watched it when I had cable TV. That is, not when I was at university or living in shitty apartments when I was 20 years old. It's definitely easier to catch up now thanks to streaming and a complete lack of interest in leaving the house on a weeknight.
Canadians are at a bit of a disadvantage. Danger! thanks to prompts that are often American-centric. How did you prepare for the show?
I prepared by spending a lot of time with my close friend Ken Burns. (That's a joke, I don't know him.) My husband watched Baseball several times since the 2020 lockdown, so I feel like I got everything I ever remember out of it through osmosis.
We revised it Vietnam a series I've seen most of before.
Then we drank it Civil war series after I got a call to the show, which helped me get a ton of responses to the episodes I watched before taping. You'll have to tune in to see if my newfound knowledge comes in handy.
What was the day like?
Call time was early (especially considering I taped the day after an 18-inning World Series game), around 7:30 am. We met in the Sony Pictures Studios garage, which was funny, but the studio itself was great – a lot Danger! and Alex Trebek memorabilia.
Me and the other participants were locked in a green room without phones for the whole day. We needed to rehearse on a studio stage to get used to the bells, screens and platforms behind the podiums. Ken Jennings came out and talked to us right before and he was the nicest guy in the world. He even told us he wore a non-threatening cardigan to make us feel at ease before appearing on air as Ken in a suit.
They record five episodes a day, so we were basically hanging out in the green room waiting for our turn to play. There was a screen where we could watch the upcoming games, which were the most competitive. Danger! views of my life.
Do you have experience working at Exclaim! help me become good Danger! player?
This can be useful for music or movie categories. But did I get these categories? Let's see.
