LAUREN HOBAR
Staff Writer
I think I will try my hand at the art of celebrity article writing.
His blue turtleneck hugged his illusive frame. His face seemed like a baby being born through a blue curtain, a delight. His eyebrows perched as Red Robin breasts, and his face supported a great sea of red hairs lapping around an archipelago of baldhead. A charming red goatee, like a star atop an upside-down Christmas tree, bottomed off the pleasantry of his aesthetics.
His pink cheeks sat like two little lady apples on the tip-top of a tower of other less fortunate little ladies. They, by their nature of sweetness and position, should have been plucked by delicate white-gloved hands and dabbled with kisses, or touched to the cheek and held there for a tender moment.
I sat down with this turtlenecked fellow for a chat. Bill, from the revised version of the board game “Guess Who?” let me in on a few of his lesser-known secrets. He has juggled his busy life of fame ever since 1998 when he crossed the meager threshold of ambivalence into what he calls “the Land of a la Mode.”
“You know appearances, galas, celebrity rings, you know – success, what have you,” he said as he stared at me over his goblet of Pellegrino.
“It’s pretty much me, Ask Jeeves and Quaker right now. It’s pretty tough being this big and stuff. I was thinking about changing my name from Bill to Billy or Mac or Buddy or something.”
I pondered the significance of his change of accent, use of pop-song lyrics and the constipated expression on his face.
“It’s hard being famous – especially when both players pick me. It takes a lot out of me to appear in both my blue and red turtlenecks at the very same time, facing opposite players. It’s really an art of pleasing everybody, even the nobodies who play this game, and I just happen to be one of the best.”
Bill hasn’t always been a star. He spent time as a tour bus driver for the other “Guess Who?” characters. It was his co-game piece, Anita, who saw Bill’s potential.
Bill: “When we were on tour in Houston, I thought, ‘This city is ug-ly, I should spice it up.’ So I used my creativity to make up these rhyming nicknames for the characters. ‘Anita the Sonogramita’ was the name I had for her. She really liked it. I think it is because she is old and a sonogram reminded her of being young and having babies. Anita liked me as more than a friend; she asked me out. But I said, ‘You are old and that is gross.’”
Bill then used his charming personality to manipulate Anita’s emotional urges for his behalf. He pushed the limits with the nicknames, adding -ita to Anita’s love for bran, and then sealed the deal with an impromptu spoken-word song.
Bill: “I spoke, ‘Tell you what, Ann (I shortened her name from Anita for the purposes of a sure rhyme), I will be your man (paused here to vomit in my mouth and to rethink if this was really worth it) or at least give you one dance if you, Ann, will give buckets of your bran to the game board man on the behalf of my man (referring to himself), so I can replace Stan or Dan or Graham or even you, Ann, if you’re not careful.
“Ha ha, no – I am only being a ham. I only want to replace the aforementioned Stan, Dan or Graham. I would say thanks, Ann, but this is a deal, not a favor.’”
Needless to say, Bill’s life of fame started here when Anita agreed. The board game executives arrived at his house the next morning to sign the contract and photograph Bill. Anita waited outside for her man. Bill pretended like he didn’t remember their deal and she eventually went home lonely.
“It all happened so fast,” he said. “I understand now what people mean by the term ‘honest work.’ Now I hear my name in random preteens’ conversations all the time. It’s great they are talking about things that really matter.”
09-15-2005
