00:00Good morning. Good morning, 104.3 Jams. It's Sonic and I'm here with Debra Norville, the icon, I want to say.
00:06You hosted Inside Edition for 30 years. Yeah. Now you're a game show host after winning a couple Emmys.
00:12What got you into this? Honestly, I had been doing Inside Edition over 30 years and it was just time for a change.
00:19You know, I love doing the show, but it was a couple of things. One, news is not a lot of fun right now.
00:24It's pretty challenging. And there were two jobs that I'd never done before that had been hired for.
00:29I'd never been hired to do a game show. I'd never been hired to do a talk show.
00:32And the opportunity to do this game show came up and I thought, you know what? Let's see.
00:37And nobody knew if I could do this, right? Because I've been news for so long, but I loved it.
00:42I get to interact with the contestants. I get to give other people's money away to people who want to have it.
00:47What's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that.
00:49First of all, the perfect line, Game Show Network weekdays. Check it out.
00:53Are there any stories, like a crazy story that you had to cover that you weren't that interested in
00:58and then all of a sudden it blossomed into just something chaotic and just...
01:01Well, you know, it's so funny you ask that because it actually happened here in Chicago.
01:06I was a local reporter at Channel 5 and they wanted me to go interview a mom
01:11whose son had been killed by a drunken driver.
01:14I'm like, you've got to be kidding. Don't make me do this.
01:16And the mom had been injured. She's in her bed recovering from the injuries.
01:19They'd been hit in their car. And I said, give me a normal car that doesn't have all the paint job on it.
01:26And the crew stayed in the car. I walked up to the door and I said, I am so sorry to disturb you during this difficult time.
01:33But my bosses have asked me if you would like to talk about the accident and, you know, if you have any message for people.
01:40And I completely understand if you want me to go away and I will do so.
01:43But I wanted you to have that opportunity. And they said, let me get back to you.
01:47And I stood at the door. They checked with mom. And she said, yes, I'd like to talk to the TV lady.
01:51So I came in with the crew and she gave the most heartfelt explanation of why it is the most awful thing in the world
02:01to get behind the wheel of a car if you've been drinking alcohol and what it had done to her family and the loss of her son.
02:08And as we're doing the interview, I hear the camera, not the cameraman, but the sound guy.
02:12And they're usually the tough ones, right? You know, with a heart of granite.
02:15And he's he's sniffling. He's weeping back there because this woman's story was so impactful.
02:21And so what that told me was it's not my place to decide whose story gets told on the news.
02:30My job is to give people the opportunity to be heard.
02:34And if they want to take advantage of it, to honor their story in the best way I can.
02:39So that was a really important lesson that I learned here in Chicago.
02:41Man, I love that. I was about to start weeping.
02:44I know.
02:45I'll get all soft. Don't do that to me, Debra.
02:47With you getting into The Perfect Line, did you study any game show else?
02:51I mean, Bob Barker is like, would you say he is the goat, the Michael Jordan?
02:54Oh, he's totally the goat.
02:56Let me tell you what.
02:57I filmed the pilot for The Perfect Line in the same studio where Bob Barker was.
03:07And you know who was there before Bob Barker? Carol Burnett.
03:11Oh, I'll put it up on my Instagram.
03:12Sorry, I thought you were going to say The Price is Right, girls. I was going to get it.
03:14Well, they were there. Bob Barker was there. They were there.
03:16But before that, Carol Burnett, with the Carol Burnett show and the barn doors of the studio when you go in, they open up.
03:23It's got Carol Burnett in the cartoon she had with the wash woman with the bucket.
03:28It was like there was so much television history there.
03:30So to answer your question, yes, I did.
03:33I watched a lot of game shows, mostly to sort of see what the rhythm was.
03:38Because you've got to be you. I can't go be somebody else.
03:40If me being me doesn't work, then it's not going to work.
03:43Because I'm not an actor. I can't do that.
03:45But I did watch to see how they pace it, how they keep it going.
03:50Because I think that's an important part of it.
03:51Because if you don't keep the, people get bored and they just click the channel.
03:58Dang, that's crazy.
03:59So when you're filming The Perfect Line, I don't want to put your business out there, but do you mess up?
04:03And if you do, what happens?
04:05I'm so interested in the production part of everything.
04:07So let me tell you, it was really cool.
04:08So we shot the entire year of the game show, which airs here in Chicago on WCIU at 7.30, weeknights.
04:16We shot the entire year in just under seven weeks.
04:19So we did between five and seven shows a day.
04:22So it's a 30-minute show.
04:24It probably took about 40 minutes to tape a show.
04:26We'd have a 15-minute change clothes, redo the hair, put in the new contestants, change out the audience if need be.
04:32And so it was like boom, boom, boom.
04:35It was really fast-paced.
04:36And if I screwed up and I screw up, or if the contestant, you know, whizzes something, or it just takes them too long for it to get an answer, no big deal.
04:44It's only tape, right?
04:45So you stop down, you like, you fix it.
04:47Or there, and I'll be honest, there were a few times I inadvertently gave away the answer.
04:54And that is, like, obviously the biggest no-no.
04:58And when they do that, they have to completely stop.
05:00And then the man who's, like, the person who cares about, like, legal stuff, he comes running out.
05:04That's never a good sign.
05:06So that man comes running out.
05:07And I'm like, I am so sorry.
05:09I just screwed this up big time.
05:11And the audience loves it because, you know, it's no fun if it goes right.
05:14It's only fun when it screws up.
05:15So I gave them something to laugh about.
05:17And we literally had to take that category and just toss it away, which meant all the research, all the work, I'll use it for promotion or something like that.
05:26I can talk to you about it, but I couldn't, like, use it on the game.
05:29Right.
05:29Some bloopers or something.
05:30Yeah.
05:30When you're in those moments, how do you keep your confidence in your, I'm going to sound so young, your swag, like when you're tiptoeing the line of maybe we're going that way, inadvertently giving away answers or whatever?
05:42No, no, no, no, no, no, if I know, if I, it's either I blew it or I didn't blow it.
05:46So if you've blown it, just like, I am so sorry, you just look at the camera and you're talking directly at that guy who you have just annoyed greatly.
05:52And you just look at him and say, I'm really sorry.
05:55And everybody, what can you do?
05:57You know, we're human.
05:58But, like, to keep the swag as you, the swagger, I kind of get in the headspace.
06:04And this has actually been the case my entire career.
06:07Right.
06:08My very first reporting job when I was still in college in Atlanta.
06:12And what I tell myself is, and I even tell myself before I walked into this studio to talk with you, I have something to share that someone who's listening is going to be glad they heard.
06:24And when you tell it to yourself that way, it's not about me.
06:28It's about the information and it's about lifting someone else.
06:33So if I tell a funny story with you and you laugh and some of your listeners laugh, then that was good.
06:40Or if I share some information that they can put in their back pocket and go kind of amaze their friends.
06:46Like, okay, friends, amaze yourself with this one.
06:4885% of the carrots grown in America come from Bakersfield, California.
06:53You can save that little fact.
06:54And the next time you're Thanksgiving dinner, they're going to have carrots on the table.
06:57You can share that over Thanksgiving dinner.
07:00And I just gave you something that you can use to kind of make people go, oh, wow, really?
07:05And who doesn't like to have somebody look at them and go, oh, wow, how do you know that?
07:09Just like that's a nice thing.
07:10Yeah, you're like a walking chat GPT.
07:12I am so annoying.
07:14Debra Norville, the perfect line.
07:16You got to watch it.
07:16Game Show Network, weekdays.
07:18And where else?
07:19Well, here in Chicago, it's weekdays at 7.30 on WCIU, the U, 5.30 p.m. on Game Show Network.
07:27And if you're listening from somewhere else, go to my website, DebraNorville.com, and you can click and see where we are in your town.
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