Michael Brody ’04 appeared yesterday on the television show, The Weakest Link. Brody’s appearance as a contestant is part of the show’s “Greek Week” theme.
The show has approximately a hundred casting events around the country every year, which attract many students.
“We tend to get a lot of students … so we decided, let’s make an episode featuring Greek students,” said Todd Beck ’94, a spokesperson for the show from Beck Media and Marketing.
The television show has “six contestants who have to work together as a team to bank as much money as possible by answering trivia questions … [however] someone is voted off at the end of each round,” Beck said. The decisions are made strategically so the contestant voted off can “be the smartest guy or someone that doesn’t know anything.” A sudden death round occurs between the final two contestants.
Brody, a member of Sigma Alpha Mu, first heard about the show from friend and fraternity brother, Adam Orgel ’04. The two of them went to open casting calls in New York City at the beginning of last summer. The casting call was not targeted at Greek members, or even students, but was open to anyone.
“There were a lot of interesting characters there who were imitating James Earl Jones and telling stories,” Brody said.
A short quiz containing general knowledge and simple trivia questions was given. Both Brody and Orgel were selected for the next round where they actually played a round of The Weakest Link, but only Brody was chosen for the show.
“I was happy for Michael and wished him the best of luck before they flew him out to Cali for the show,” Orgel said.
Brody was flown out to the NBC studios in Burbank, Calif. last fall. Of the actual experience of filming for the show, Brody said, “The whole idea of how it’s run was really interesting. The coolest part about it was just seeing the people because they really got a wide variety of people to be there.”
“We were all just kind of typical college kids, but it was very diverse at the same time. I don’t think they look for one person but we were all smart enough to show that we’d make the show interesting. They look for interesting dynamics … and see how you react with other people,” Brody said.
“He has yet to tell me the results of the game but I am looking forward to watching him,” Orgel said. The show will air today at 9 a.m. on WENY-Elmira.
Archived article by Diana Lo