She eventually locked in “Austria” as her answer, before someone in the audience quickly corrected her and yelled out: “Poland!”
The contestants could not quite believe it.
“[That’s] absolutely illegal,” host Montgomery said to the audience member, much to the amusement of others in the crowd.
Speaking to news.com.au about the hilarious incident, Montgomery said, “it was just a moment of, not madness, but something got away from them [the audience member] where they had to pitch in”.
He continued: “The show does draw an audience of word nerds or people who believe in themselves as spellers and there is a sense of excitement and frustration that can occur when they’re watching a contestant who’s approaching a word or so close to being able to spell it.”
When asked if he had any words of advice for future audience members, Montgomery joked: “Keep your mouth shut! Pull your frickin’ head in!”
Roll with the punches
Whereas most taped TV quiz shows would have edited the moment out, Montgomery was adamant he wanted to leave it in the final episode.
“I like that in the world of the show, we can just sort of roll with that,” he told news.com.au.
“It’s like, ‘well that is incredibly unusual and kind of funny and I guess builds on the lunacy and the madness of the universe that we’re trying to have inside the spelling bee.’”
Other contestants
As mentioned, Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee has featured some of Australia’s favourite personalities as contestants.
Tim Minchin, Wil Anderson and Tony Armstrong are just some of the big names who competed in the show’s first season.
New Zealand comedian Urzila Carlson has also featured.
When asked which contestant he was most excited about in the upcoming second season, Montgomery named Australian comedian and TV host Hamish Blake.
“I grew up a fan [of his] … he’s such an influential Australian television comedy figure.”
Others who’ll feature in season two include Julia Morris, Rove McManus, Denise Scott, Becky Lucas, Josh Thomas and Dave Hughes.
– News.com.au
