Each former contestant pulled the curtain back a bit to show how reality TV interacts with contestants’ real lives.
Brad Baker, “Shark Tank”
“What people don’t see is that the whole process to get to that point is pretty overwhelming,” said Baker, who in 2015 went on Shark Tank seeking a $200,000 investment in exchange for 10% of his company, VPcabs. Baker said there was over a year that separated his initial audition from when he filmed his episode.
“It’s not like they call you up and say, ‘Hey, come on our show!’” Baker said. “It’s a real deal that you’re making with the shark — but it’s still a TV show, so there’s all the things that have to happen to get there, and it [takes] months and months.”
Baker said he and many other prospective contestants were flown out to Hollywood, where he participated in a week of rehearsals, rehashing his monologued pitch before returning to his hotel room — all without knowing if he’d actually get a chance to pitch to the sharks.
“You’re there for a whole week in rehearsals and the day before [filming] they tell you, ‘Go back to your [hotel] room… and we’ll call you by nine o’clock to let you know if you’re even going to be on the show,” Baker said.
“I went back to my room and nine o’clock rolled around, no call; ten o’clock rolled around, no call. [By] eleven o’clock I was like, ‘I’m just going home, I guess,’” Baker recalled. “[Around] midnight, they called me and said, ‘You’re first up in the morning, six o’clock. Get some rest.’”
Baker ended up scoring a deal with Daymond John, billionaire CEO and founder of FUBU, for $200,000 in exchange for 25% of Baker’s company, even though he was thrown off by an extended awkward pause as cameras readjusted once he executed the show’s patented dramatic entrance.
“You have to stand there for 45 to 90 seconds staring at the sharks. You can’t say anything, and they’re just looking at you, and you’re just looking at them. That’s why I forgot my lines,” Baker said. “You’re terrified because you’re staring at five billionaires and you’re like, ‘What am I even doing here?’ I literally just wanted to run away.”
Baker said a benefit from the show was the friendship he built with John, whom he described as a smart and kind businessman that cares about the entrepreneurs he invested in. Baker said the two remain good friends, even after Baker sold VPcabs and began full focus on the Pinball Garage.
Baker noted that it was through the growth of the business after appearing on Shark Tank that Baker and VPcabs found a home in Hamilton.
“We moved to Hamilton for VPcabs to put the factory in the old Goodyear building with no intentions to open up an arcade and a bar, I had no business doing that,” Baker said. “It really just was a sequence of events because of VPcabs that have led to us finding a home here in Hamilton.”
“One of the biggest blessings from being on the show is that it brought us to Hamilton,” Baker said.
Susan Vaughn, “The Amazing Race”
Vaughn said the boosted bravery and confidence she felt after her stint on The Amazing Race in 2005 was the most notable difference once she returned to Butler County, where she worked as the director of ethics and student conflict resolution at Miami University for decades.
Vaughn, alongside her son, Patrick, became the first mother-son duo in Amazing Race history. The pair, both avid fans of the show, filmed a half-hearted, last-minute audition tape at the behest of Patrick and sent it in.
Vaughn said she first heard back from the show’s producers while eating dinner at Applebee’s, but she figured it was just her son pranking her.
“The phone rang and they said, ‘Hi Susan, this is Jared from the Amazing Race. Do you have time to talk?’ and I said, ‘No, I’m having dinner right now,’ … I thought ‘That’s Patrick, that’s not CBS calling me,’” Vaughn said. “The next phone call was Patrick: ‘Mom, did CBS just call you?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ [Patrick asked], ‘What’d you say?’ ‘I told him I was having dinner [and to] call me back.’”
Vaughn and her son had been one of 11 teams chosen from over 24,000 submitted tapes. Eventually, they were told they couldn’t be in contact with their friends for about six weeks and soon signed a $10 million non-disclosure agreement.
“It was mentally stressful from the very moment we started,” said Vaughn. The duo placed well on the first leg from the United State to Peru, barely escaped elimination in the two legs from Peru to Chile to Argentina, where they eventually crashed out in eighth place — eight days into the race.
“It was at that point that I think my life changed. I realized: I can do anything if I can rope llamas and jump off the Andes mountains and everything else that we did in between,” Vaughn said. She said that mindset stayed with her.
“When I retired a few years ago, I said, ‘This isn’t the end. No, it’s my next adventure,’ and I don’t think I would have done that if it hadn’t been for the race,” said Vaughn, who, upon retiring in 2019, immediately ran a successful campaign for Hamilton City Council.
After her elimination, Vaughn returned to find a flood of messages from viewers who were enthralled by the duo’s dynamic, which captivated viewers not only because of the unique mother-son relationship, but also because Patrick was openly gay.
“When I came back, the emails, the fans all over the world… just was humbling,” Vaughn said.
Rani Peffer, “Jeopardy!”
Peffer, a corporate finance manager from Crittenden, Ky., said her time spent filming a string of “Jeopardy!” episodes in 2013 was relatively stress-free, at least in comparatively.
Peffer said she was a lifelong fan of the show who suddenly decided to try her hand. Wannabe “Jeopardy!” contestants audition via an online quiz, which Peffer took in October 2012. By December, the show interviewed her in-person, administered another quiz and proctored a mock game with other prospective contestants.
“I didn’t think a whole lot about it. I had fun at the audition, took my free “Jeopardy!” pencil and left — I didn’t think much about it for several months,” Peffer said. “I got a call in July while I was in the middle of Walmart, Jeopardy called me and said I had been chosen to be on the show.”
Peffer said she hardly did any prep work before she bought her plane ticket to Los Angeles, where, once a week, “Jeopardy!” films five episodes back-to-back with a winner-stays-on format.
“There’s only so much you can do. Any topic is fair game, so I really just had to rely on a lifetime worth of knowledge,” Peffer said.
Upon arrival, Peffer joined a pool of other invited contestants that performed practice rounds in the “Jeopardy!” studio and ultimately waited for their turn on stage come filming day.
“I did not get called for the first episode, so I sat in the audience and watched it. I did get called for the second episode, so then that was my turn,” Peffer said. “I won that second episode, they sent me back to the dressing room to change my shirt, pretend it was the next day, and come back [to the stage], where Alex [Trebek] will talk about yesterday’s show, which was [actually] 15 minutes ago.”
Peffer won four games on the trot, ending the day of filming as reigning champion, but had to keep it all secret until her episodes aired. She returned to Kentucky for a week before being flown back out to the studio to defend her throne.
“[I] won the first episode, lost the second episode, and then left and went to Disneyland by myself for the whole day until I had to catch my plane, just absolutely giddy … riding everything at Disneyland by myself knowing that I was a “Jeopardy!” champion and nobody else knew it.”
Peffer, a mother of two who also appeared on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” just days after having her second child, won over $70,000 in her string of victories, but she said it didn’t impress everyone, despite gaining her recognition.
“After I had won five episodes on “Jeopardy!” and was feeling pretty good about myself, I was at a local gas station pumping gas into my car and an elderly man at the pump next to me was staring at me and he said, ‘Did I see you on “Jeopardy!”?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, sir.’ He said, ‘You did okay,’” Peffer joked.
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