Sometimes, even with a bunch of advanced warning, the train still derails. Such is life working in live television.

For an unusual and welcome change, the WWE audio department was given some advanced warning about an idea that the ‘creative minds’ had. Vince McMahon has decided, for some reason, probably low ratings, to give away a million dollars a week for the next few weeks. And to give away this money, Vince wanted to take live phone calls on RAW- yes, LIVE phone calls on the air, on the show. The contest would begin in two weeks. Mr. McMahon himself would call a lucky fan live on the air, and if the lucky fan knew the password, they would win serious cash.

It might sound simple, but in reality, it’s anything but.

Normally, this type of technical information fails to dribble down to us poor guys that have to figure out how to accomplish whatever it is the ‘creative’ people dreamt up over their LSD covered Corn Flakes that morning. Normally, this lack of information is followed by a lot of yelling when it doesn’t work perfectly.

“Oh, by the way, we are going to be wrecking a limousine under a trailer truck in a half hour, and we need to hear the driver until just before he jumps out… “or, “Guys, tonight we have a fifteen piece bagpipe band with a harmonica soloist that we need to hear as they march towards the ring, and we’re also going to have a chipper shredder that we need to hear as it grinds up a coat…” or, “Right after the new champion wins, the music hits and the crowd goes nuts, with everything in the arena as loud as it can possibly be, it’s extremely important we hear the loser whisper a single word in the middle of the ring.” (These are all actual examples of a typical week’s work with the WWE.)

So, by giving us a two week heads up, we had the luxury of some time to prepare for this latest, greatest idea.

Besides the obvious disastrous potential of putting a live phone call on the air (drunk fans swearing on TV, a busy signal, a phone malfunction being just a few) – there are other details that the ‘creative’ types never consider. Without getting into mind numbingly technical aspects of this train-wreck-in-the-making, being able to dial a phone while simultaneously hearing that phone dial live on the air is close to impossible, thanks to the current state of technology. Any devices that exist to put a caller on the air now are designed to be dialed first, THEN put on the air. *** WARNING*** MORE Mind Numbing Details Ahead*** Also nearly impossible, it turns out, is hearing only the caller come out of the phone while simultaneously sending Vince’s voice to that caller. This little trick is essential to preventing feedback, or worse, the caller not being able to hear the Chairman of the WWE tell them they’d just won $250,000 live on the air with five million people watching.

These are things you only learn by trial and error, and at the very least, we had two weeks to make as many errors as we could. And make errors we did.

After two weeks of experimenting, we thought we had it figured out. By cutting the phone handset microphone wire, we eliminated the ‘on air’ feedback issue. We also figured out a way to send Vince’s voice to the caller even though the phone’s handset microphone was disabled. Amazingly, we even had time to test the whole contraption in the arena a few times. With all that time, we were able to come up with something that, technically, would work, and though thus far we hadn’t rehearsed taking phone calls with Mr. McMahon, the audio department felt fairly confident that, at least on our end, when the time came, putting a live phone call on the air most likely should work. How’s THAT for high confidence?

Now, before I continue, I have to say if the WWE ratings are in fact a problem, I have a solution. Don’t piss away millions and millions of dollars with a contest. Just create a ‘Behind the Scenes’ reality show about a typical day with the WWE, covering the crew, setup and how the show is actually created week to week. It could air right before RAW does. Call is something catchy like, “BeforeRAW” or maybe even “Which Department Gets to be the Football This Week?” This show would have WAY more drama, more swerves and more unbelievable scenarios than even the best written RAW ever would. And people would watch, because everyone loves an underdog.

Anyway, we knew they gave us too much time to prepare, and, this show being the soap opera that it is, there had to be a swerve coming. Three hours before the show went live and one million dollars was given away, it did.

The swerve? Instead of using the phone that we’d spent two weeks rigging to work perfectly, someone decided Vince needed to use… a speakerphone. A fucking SPEAKERPHONE?!?! And, just to sweeten the deal a bit more, twenty minutes before the only rehearsal we’d get with the Chairman of the company whose weekly paycheck I depend on to pay off my bar tab, the runner they’d sent to OfficeMax to buy this fucking speakerphone was stuck in traffic on the freeway. So, thanks to those LSD Corn Flakes, California Freeway Congestion and the fickle gods of television, we’d have no chance to test this unknown device before rehearsal, we didn’t even have time to take a look at the damn thing.

As the rehearsal started, I’ll be honest. My asshole was puckered so tight I could’ve made a diamond out of a piece of coal. After some tinkering and adjusting, miraculously, it worked! As we’re often told when something goes right, “Even a blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then.” It didn’t go perfectly, but considering the odds and variables, I have to say it worked better than expected. We rehearsed five or six phone calls with Vince, and the last three or four were satisfactory to him. That’s it, rehearsal is over. Whatever we had was all we were going to get. In other words, it’s time to roll the train down the tracks.

Doors opened, and the fans came in. And then swerve number two (actually, for this day, it was swerve number three-hundred thirty-six, but who’s counting?) came. “Oh yeah, one more thing. After Vince gets off the phone with the winner, but without hanging up on them, we want someone else to pick up a different phone and interview the winner off the air.”

Well, isn’t that nice? Would’ve been nicer to rehearse this beforehand to make sure adding another phone to our rickety, half-assed, cobbled together contraption won’t fuck anything up, wouldn’t it? But those pesky details are why they have to keep us annoying and underpaid technical people around, isn’t it? Oh God, somebody get me some LSD covered Corn Flakes!!

If I was making diamonds during rehearsal, I was crushing them by the time we went on the air. Ho. Lee. Shit. We’re so not ready for this, we’re giving away a million dollars on live TV, we haven’t checked the additional phone’s effect on everything, and to make things just a little bit more exciting, the brand new speakerphone that Vince is going to use in a few minutes has been unplugged and removed from the stage, and it isn’t going to be set up and plugged in again until just before he makes the first phone call. Hello, unemployment???

(On a lighter note, if they DID fire me, at least then I would be eligible to win some of the money next week!)

Then, because time never stands still and the show must go on, the familiar pre-show drill began:

“Black the arena. Standby to roll and track Z full. By the way, everybody, this would be a good night to have a good night. Five… Four…. Three… Roll Z and track!”

This was it. We were on the air; and the runaway train was barreling full speed down the tracks. Nobody can save us now. Whatever happens, happens. I held my breath as Vince’s music hit, and he strutted out to the stage, fans cheering and applauding wildly. So many things could go wrong, and they were all swirling in my head. What if…. What if…. What if… I felt like the blind squirrel was about to get kicked in the nuts.

After explaining the contest to the audience, the moment I dreaded for the past two weeks arrived. My billionaire boss walked up to the speakerphone and dialed.

Miracle of miracles, it worked! We heard the dialing phone, and then… wait a minute… And then, the unbelievable happened. No, my heart didn’t explode, it was worse. Instead of having a fucking phone that just rang like everybody in the world should, the lucky fan that Mr. McMahon called had some goofy ring tone that played music while the caller was ‘located.’ I certainly didn’t see THAT swerve coming! I later learned that people can pay Verizon a little extra for this ridiculous ‘feature’, but at that moment, for all the things we prepared for, I now had to prepare some quick lies and excuses to explain to irate creative people how we heard awful 70’s disco out of that phone instead of a thrilled fan screaming after winning $200,000.

Vince hung up, looked confused, then looked pissed. It’s live TV, what else can you do? Finally, my angry boss called that prick of a fan back. The crappy disco music played again. My ulcer and my aneurysm competed to see which one would explode first. Then, the final swerve. The gods of television swerved back on my side. The stupid fan’s phone finally rang. The fan answered. The fan heard Vince. Vince heard the fan. Everyone heard it all happening on the air. And, to put this first segment over the top, the fan even knew the password – ‘WWE Universe.’ And because he knew the password, and because of all the WWE audio crew’s collective head scratching and hard work to pull this little feat off, the whole production crew’s Christmas bonuses were given away to this lucky bastard.

I resumed breathing. Whew!

We repeated this heart-stopping segment five or six more times in the show until Mr. McMahon gave away one million dollars. Technically it worked better than I thought it would, though creatively I’m not sure it was what they had in mind. I will say this much, it certainly looked like live phone calls were on the air.

And next week, it’ll all be somebody else’s problem, as I’ll be somewhere up in the Great White North riding Rain Cloud Follows, with Stormbringer and Fireball following close behind, taking tons of pictures, drinking gallons of local beer, and gathering tidbits for the long-awaited Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition!

Author: frenchy