Celebrity Skin

Monday, April 07, 2008


On Saturday night, I accompanied my friend Brian to a birthday party. In addition to wonderful ice cream and snacks, the goal of the party was to play the game “Celebrity.” Brian gave me a quick low down on the game, but little did I know how much fun it would be.

Here’s how you play…


Pick Teams. I started having flashbacks to elementary school where one kid is left standing as the last one picked for dodge ball. But in this game, all participants’ names are put into a hat. The first three names picked were captains. Next, names were selected and added to each team.


Write Names. Each person was given five strips of paper. The goal was to jot down five celebrities – living, dead or cartoon. Once you had your list, the names are put into a bowl. My choices included some of my favs – Miley Cyrus, Heidi Klum, Charles Barkley, Lauren Conrad and a crowd pleaser – Miss Teen South Carolina 2007. One tip for this round. Because you are picking names out of the bowl for each round, be sure to do a double fold and only a double fold on the paper strip. This makes it easier to open.


Begin Round One! The captain begins by drawing names out of the hat and describing the person without saying their name, something in their name or “sounds like.” The team needs to guess the person and you are given one point for each correct answer. Each team is given one minute to get through as many names as possible. You keep going through teams and names until the bowl is empty.


Round Two: All names are put back into the bowl. In this round, you must describe the celebrity by only using three words. I of course bombed this round because I got up and said “Okay, this person’s name has three words.” Obliviously that was seven words. Again, you go through the bowl until all of the names are gone. In this round, you only get 45 seconds.


Round Three: The names are put back into the bowl for the final and most difficult round. You must act out the person’s name without speaking. Again, you have 45 seconds.


My team, which included Brian and his friend Curt (from the Basic 8) totally won the game. I must say that I was the weakest player on the team, but when you are in a room full of people who all graduated improv classes, you are bound to suck. Not to make excuses, but there were some tough names in that bowl. I mean you try and act out Millard Fillmore or J. Robert Oppenheimer.

(photo seeing-stars.com)