Ep 377: Rhonda Jefferson, Andrew Krein (February 7, 2012)

Rhonda is involved in her local theatre group (the Highlands Theatre Group); she makes particular mention of playing Mrs. Squeezum in a production of Lock Up Your Daughters five years ago.  She says that it was a lot of fun and she sang some really funny songs, then adds that it was set in the 1900's and would have been very risque in those days but not so much now.  She enthuses that it had some wonderful songs, and names The Gentle Art of Seduction and When Does the Ravishing Begin? specifically.

(The play is actually set in 1735, but it was first performed in 1959; I'm guessing that this is what Rhonda meant by the 1900's, unless her theatre group put on an adapted version of it.)

Tonight's challenger is payroll manager Andrew Krein.  He describes it as a job where you're either everyone's best friend or their worst enemy, depending on whether you've got it right or wrong.  Richard suggests, and Andrew agrees, that this might mean that Andrew is better with the numbers than the letters.

I'll make an aside here that Andrew got married a month or so after this episode was filmed.  If you happen to read this, Andrew: Congratulations!


It ends up being a close game, aided by several invalid answers.  The contestants did find some good words along the way, and the net result was a slender two point advantage to Rhonda from them.  The numbers went each way -- Andrew did drop crucial points in the first numbers game when he only managed to get five away from the target -- so Rhonda carried that lead into the conundrum.  She buzzed in just after the five second mark with an invalid answer, giving Andrew a chance, but he was not able to solve it within the remaining time.  Rhonda scraped home, 39 to 37.

I felt off-balance early today, with the first round feeling like it should have produced a longer word (although it turns out I had matched David) and only just getting my second-round answer down in time.  I settled down a bit, and it was actually a decent performance except for the second numbers round where I delayed looking at the right idea for too long.  This time I was faster to the conundrum than Rhonda's buzz-in (although only just), and ended up with another comfortable win.

As usual, details after the jump.