Super Fan's paid trip to the 'Arsenio Hall Show' Not So Super

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. - Sept. 19, 2013 - PRLog -- Gaddis, 36, was one of nine winners in a national contest to identify Hall’s most devoted fans. The video she submitted earned her a round-trip flight to Los Angeles, two nights at the Hilton Universal City, $350 in expense money, a front-row seat for the fourth taping of Hall’s new late-night talk show (http://www.arseniohall.com/), and what Hall’s team called “a chance to hang out backstage.”

Upon reflection, Gaddis has decided the trip wasn’t what she expected. Neither was the show: “If it wasn’t for the applause lights, I would have fallen asleep.”

She’s gone from Super Fan to tuning out. When Hall’s syndicated program airs at 11 p.m. weeknights on WKBD-TV (Channel 50), she’s most likely watching an old movie.

A co-manager at Jaws Jumbo Burgers (http://www.jawsjumboburgers.net/) in Farmington Hills, Gaddis had concocted a Welcome Back Arsenio Hall Burger after he won the last go-round of “Celebrity Apprentice.” She ordered a T-shirt to wear in the audience that featured the burger and cost $45, with a minimum order of six.

She felt invested in the process, and it strikes her now that Hall’s team wasn’t, at least not emotionally. Maybe that’s the difference between the view from the stage and the one from a living room.

It doesn’t make anybody a villain, but it makes for a far-less glowing memory than she would have ordered.

Shabby treatment

Gaddis understands that no one looks sympathetic complaining about a free trip. “I’m not an entitlement junkie,” she says. But still:

The $350 for expenses disappeared quickly for some of the winners when cabs to and from the airport cost $85 — though fortunately, having spent two years as a model on the auto show circuit, she knew to arrange $20 shuttle rides beforehand.

On Thursday, they took an early tour of the studio, then were ushered outside for a hot four-hour wait before the taping, with nothing in hand except water and potato chips.

There was no acknowledgment of the nine during the show, she says, and Hall seemed considerably less engaged than his guests during a 20-minute meet-and-greet afterward.

“I wanted to get recognized for the work I put into this,” Gaddis says. Hall mostly wanted to get to dinner.

Martin Short used to do a character named Ed Grimley on “Saturday Night Live” whose aspiration was to appear on “Wheel of Fortune.” Maybe, Grimley would say, he and Pat Sajak could become friends.

Maybe, Gaddis thought, Hall would ask her to make him an Arsenio Hall burger or offer to come to Michigan for one.

More likely, he’d just pose for a few quick snapshots and hand out pre-signed photos.

Disappointment lingers

Gaddis’ hopes can trace their roots all the way back to middle school, with a detour to The Palace of Auburn Hills.

A teenager when Hall had his first talk show, from 1989-94, “I remember sneaking out of bed to watch him. It was fresh, sharp, exciting.”

By 2006, she was part of the team at Jaws, a nifty little restaurant in an Orchard Lake Road strip mall where the core handful of employees has never changed and they gleefully point out that they’ve outlasted the defunct Burger King 100 yards away.

In 2009, Jay Leno put on a free show for out-of-work Detroiters at The Palace — and Jaws drew a fair amount of attention for putting a Thank You Jay Leno Burger on the menu.

Since then, Jaws has named burgers for Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, Chelsea Handler and now Hall, with standing offers to all to fly them out for a sample.

Backstage, Hall idly asked Gaddis what’s on his. (Two beef patties, four strips of bacon, double American cheese, lettuce, tomato, sweet barbecue sauce.) To him, it may have seemed engaged.

To her, it felt dismissive. Expectation, reality, disappointment.

The more she’s thought about the trip, the more she wishes she’d stayed home — or that someone else had held a contest.

Leno’s show, she’ll tell you, would have picked everyone up at the airport.

nrubin@detroitnews.com
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@nealrubin_dn