The other week I was asked to make a guest appearance on the Belgian TV show ‘Scheire en de Schepping’, which is a bit like the British QI – a comedy panel game show with Quite Interesting sciency facts. I’d be the Mystery Guest, taking place in the Mystery Guest Throne. The panel would then have to find out what I discovered, asking me questions to which I could only answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. How fun!
I travelled to the studios near Brussels after school, taking fellow Zooite Els – once called the Secretary of the Universe in a newspaper – with me. On my way I ended up chatting to a guy who asked me things about the show which I couldn’t answer, as I had never actually seen the whole show yet (I had only done a quick search when I was asked). He frowned upon the fact I was going to be on TV, not entirely sure what I would be doing. Yeah, it’s a long story.
As the panel had to guess what I had discovered, I was told I couldn’t let them see me before the show. This turned out a bit tricky, as I didn’t really know the (very famous, I’m sure) Belgian panel members. And we were bound to run into each other while getting our make-up done. I think they were as curious about me as I was about them and I quickly found out I actually knew two of the members! So Els and I were escorted to a place in the audience…
Have you ever been to a recording in a TV studio? You know how there’s often a ‘warmer-upper’? That funny guy preparing the audience for what’s about to come, who makes sure you know when to applaud and stuff. They’d sometimes pick a few people from the audience to chat to. Well, Jeroen in this case, picked the one person out who was not supposed to tell anyone who she was…! So I said my name was Els and I pretended to be a secretary, while Els was laughing next to me.
Answering the questions from Philippe Geubels, Gert Verhulst, Karen Damen and Adriaan van den Hoof was easier, as my short answers were pre-recorded and I only needed to tick a button. When Adriaan guessed it was a ‘something in space’ (with help from the lovely presenter Lieven Scheire, ‘cause who’s going to guess a Dutch biology teacher discovered a Voorwerp), I was asked to explain it a bit. Meanwhile they showed ‘how to Zoo’, which was a nice surprise!
Afterwards, a guy from the audience asked me if that story about me was real (!) and Lieven said I was his favourite Mystery Guests so far (aw, thanks). And before you’re going to say that he probably says that to every guest, he also told me he had been trying the different Zooniverse projects himself! In all seriousness, it was a great evening with a wonderful crew. Now, I can’t watch the episode myself just yet, as we don’t have the channel over here, but if you’re in Belgium…
Thursday 21 March, 21.05 on channel VIER
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