On Thursday, July 22, I finally got the chance to let my 'big balls' shine at the River Rock Casino for the Wipeout Canada callback auditions.
I decided to go to the audition dressed up as the ultimate Canadian superhero (and ultimate NHL team mascot), Johnny Canuck. The Vancouver callback was the last of 3 Canadian short-listings for Wipeout. Previous to this one, there were auditions in Toronto and Calgary. Apparently there were over 44,000 Wipeout Canada applicants, which got cut down to about 1000 people for these three short-listings. These 1000 people must now get cut down to about 260, which I'm hoping to be a part of. I would say there were about 200 people at the casino for the Vancouver auditions.
Although there was a lot of waiting around during the day, it was quite a bit of fun. There were more than a couple of interesting characters to keep me entertained throughout the day, including "Mickey" and Tiffany, who I spent the first half of the day with in line, waiting to get into the theatre.
Talking with my line buddies
Best of all, I was able to share in the day's festivities with Lydia (who took the day off so that she could do the trip with me and help document the day).
Some of the other interesting characters of the day included:
The "Black Noodle" (aka Venom, aka the Canuck's green men's evil twin, aka the smoke monster from lost, aka Shinobe, etc.)
He was very, very sneaky!
and a biker guy with big balls on his head (not his legal name, but it gets the point across).
Probably the funniest character of the lot was a guy named "Spandy Andy", who was busting moves all over the place (seen below). Of all the Olympians, wrestlers, professional football players, etc. that were at the auditions that day, he's probably the guy I would want to face the least (as he's one spry mofo)!
Spandy Andy Break Dancing in the waiting room
Interviews went on throughout the day two at a time, behind the curtain of the stage. This meant that we couldn't see the interviews as they went on, but we were kept entertained through other activities, like costume and talent contests.
Costume Contest
The costume contest was ran by Ennis Esmer, who will be one of the hosts of Wipeout Canada (alongside Jonathan Torrens). I honestly hadn't heard too much about him before the day, but found that he was quite funny, which bodes well for the show.
Needless to say, due to CANUCK POWER, I took home the prize for the best costume!!! Pictured below is me, with my fellow costume prize winner "Sexy Anny" and Ennis....
Can you guess who is who?
We also had a couple scary talents shown while we waited:
Finally, after several hours of waiting, and a couple shots of red bull, I was ready for my audition:
Drum roll............................................................
And now, what you've all been waiting for - my interview with the Wipeout producers (as taped by my lovely "videographer" Lydia):
All in all, I have no idea how they're going to go about making the last set of cuts, but I do know that more people will be cut than will make it, and that I won't find out if I made this cut until mid Aug to mid Sept. Based on my assessment of the judges reactions alone, I think I did pretty good.... and by pretty good, I of course mean pretty good at making an ass of myself (which I'm hoping is what they were going for).
So stay tuned, I might just get the chance to Wipeout yet!
