Honolulu Lite. Extra. Charles Memminger

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Chance at big ‘Deal’ draws extroverts to Pearlridge

A 30-second tryout can make or break the hopes of possible contestants

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In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to tell the "Urinating Horse Story" in my bid to become a contestant on the hit TV game show "Deal or No Deal."

I was among several thousand people who clogged Pearlridge Center yesterday for a long-shot chance to become a millionaire and, more importantly, meet the show's comic host Howie Mandel.

Everyone had just 30 seconds to convince a member of the casting staff they were ready for prime time. I panicked and crammed a funny true story that usually takes 10 minutes to tell in 28.5 seconds. I didn't even breathe. Unfortunately, the story's punchline involves a urinating horse, which seemed to less than thrill casting director Mary-Rachel Foot. She told me sweetly, "You can go now." Which I think in game-show-speak means "No Thanks, No Howie and, sadly for me, No Deal."

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If anyone misplaced several thousand crazy people yesterday, I know where they were. I was in the thick of them, aswim in them, engulfed by them, squeezed, jostled and occasionally in much too personal contact with them.

We were all at the Pearlridge Center trying out for a chance to win a million dollars on TV's hottest game show, "Deal or No Deal." You've got to be perky and energetic to get on a game show. These people had passed perky and energetic before they had parked their cars. Inside the mall they were crazed, maniacal, dancing, crying, shrieking, gibbering, rolling-on-the-floor wacko. In short, everything "Deal or No Deal" casting director Mary-Rachel Foot could have asked for.

As Foot explained to me, "Anyone can play the game, but not everyone will be a good contestant." To be a good contestant, you have to be spontaneous, like, I guess, an explosion. It was pretty clear that when you get 7,000 spontaneous people together in one place you might want to have a detachment of riot police handy. But everyone, even the people standing in the hot sun in a line that wound around the Pearlridge Center for at least a mile, were well-behaved in an excessively perky and spontaneous kind of way.

Everyone had just 30 seconds to convince a member of the casting staff that they were game show material.

Naomi Rivera hula'd her way past the first tier of judges. The 36-year-old Polynesian dancer with Germaine's Luau apparently wowed the judges with her movements, muumuu and a fabric hibiscus flower the size of a baseball mitt behind one ear. Two U.S. Post Office employees who went "postal" in a non-felonious way -- dancing, singing and acting relatively insane -- moved to the next level. A police officer armed with a police scanner charmed the casting table by pointing out he actually was on duty. "When I pull over speeders and show them the radar gun I say, 'Deal or No Deal,'" he said.

I hadn't really planned what I was going to do with my 30 seconds. In the end, I kind of panicked and told a funny true story about how I used to be so fat I made a big horse urinate when I climbed up on him. The story usually takes about 10 minutes to tell but, without breathing, I cut it down to 28.5 seconds. And I had to tell it twice. First to a nice blond lady who then passed me on to the Big Table, manned by Foot, the main casting director. Foot seemed less enthralled with the urinating-horse story.

A crowd favorite was 26-year-old Regina Plante, who everyone called "Miss Maui," because she flew from Maui the night before and waited outside the mall all night to be one of the first in line. She told me she need to win the game to make money to go to dental hygienist school so she could take care of her two girls, Kayla, 2, and Tysja, 6. She had pictures of the girls on a large molar-shaped placard hanging from her neck.

The star of the event, though, was 38-year-old Maui resident Brad Falcon, who is the only Hawaii resident ever to win on "Deal or No Deal." In an episode that aired in January, Falcon not only struck a deal with the show's "banker" for $235,000, but he also was paid another $25,000 just to cut off his long goatee on air. Falcon apologized to the crowd for having gotten on the show by an online application process instead of having to wait in line for hours like they were having to do. But they didn't seem to mind, wildly cheering him like a conquering hero.

The thing is, even if you nail your 30-second tryout, you don't really know whether you'll be called to be on the show. Foot told the crowd beforehand about a contestant who didn't get a call back for six months and ended up winning nearly a half-million bucks. Another winning contestant didn't get a call back for more than a year. So, technically, I've still got a chance to meet Howie Mandel and become a millionaire. I'm betting the urinating-horse story just gets better with age.