Sang's Scrabble Sprint: Sometimes there's no excuse for Ineptness

Sang's Scrabble Sprint

Sometimes there's just no excuse for ineptness

NBC: (1985)

Scrabble has never been a game for mental giants. It has always been known for its funny clues & great hosting in Chuck Woolery. Another reason it's so memorable is that there are great contestants on the show that make this show very popular, even after it's been cancelled for 17 years. There's also the fact that it was replayed like mad on the old USA Game Show Block, which housed its sister show Sale of the Century, and others like The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough, Press Your Luck, Hollywood Squares, and the $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramid. But back to the memorable contestants. Probably the most memorable contestant on this show was the most inept Sprint Player in the shows history. I'm of course talking about Sang.

Sang was weird in his own right. Whether it was his flat top hair, or his blue blazer with red undershirt, or what we're about to delve into, he would cement his place in game show history, albeit a dubious one. He won his Crossword and now he's going up against Stephen, the Sprint Champion. So we get to Sang's first word.

It's a Laugh was the clue. And even before the two letters could pop up in the bottom of the screen, out of sheer reflex, he hits the plunger and stops the clock. And without even thinking of a possible answer, we hear the buzzer. He calls it a bad habit.

Well, according to Chuck, it was a "10 Second Bad Habit" So, we continue through this word and he manages to get the word, "Titter". But because it's Sang, he forgets to hit his plunger. So, instead of having a time of 21 seconds...

He now has a time of 23.8 seconds. He manages to get the next one, Monkeys, with no real problems at all. So, we figure that he might have actually learned from his "first word jitters", which happens sometimes during the playing of the game. So, he's at 29.5 seconds. Not good, but not terrible either, but then we get to this one.

8 letters and the clue is, there's no excuse for it. He doesn't have a clue, so he proceeds to place letters, like any decent Scrabble player would do, but at 39 seconds when he has one letter left to place...

He Blanks and forgets to place it. He has to have Chuck to remind him to place the letter. After he places it, he buzzes in with..."Nudeness."

Well, that was wrong.

Chuck aptly quips that there are excuses for nudeness. But the answer was Rudeness. So, that's 10 seconds added and now he has a make-up word to do, with 54.8 seconds as a time. So, Sang is thinking about giving up, and Chuck asks if he wants to forfeit. Sang shakes it off and goes "High spirits, High Spirits." We get to the infamous Make-up Word.

5 Letters, a Type of Training. And just like the first word, Sang buzzes in while he calls out a letter. So, chuck quips that we need a re-education for Sang on how to play this game. Which, is probably the most apt thing in the world right now.

Sang, as inept as he is, continues his make-up word at 65 seconds. He continues to place a couple of letters and buzzes in with...Music.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*

So, that boosts his time to 79.8 seconds. I don't think there's been anybody this bad in the shows history. But it gets worse for Sang. He shakes it off and places that last letter.

But he forgets to buzz in. So, he wastes 5 more seconds before answering...

Basic. Finally, this sprint round is OVER! But Wait! There's more. We need to see how his opponent does.

Here's Steven, Sang's opponent. Let's see how he does with this. Remember, he's got 87 seconds to play with, so this should be a cakewalk. We get to the first word, and he doesn't know so he continues to place letters until the last one, which is good strategy, if you have this much time to kill.

He guesses Tither? *BUZZZZZZZZZZ*

Whoops. He did just as bad as Sang did on that one. So, he has to have that make-up word that Sang did. He nails the second word in Monkeys, just as Sang did. So, he's on par with Sang, and that's not good at all.

Then he gets to "There's No Excuse for it." He continues to place all the letters he needs to, because that's good strategy. It's such good strategy, that since he doesn't know...

*BUZZZZZZ* He runs out of time, and he has to do two Make-up words. He's doing just as bad as Sang did. He has to get through two Make-up Words in 39 Seconds. Chuck asks him to guess after time ran out and he says..."Nudeness." The crowd goes into hysterics. So now, let's get to his makeup words. First one was a Type of Training. He continues to eat the clock up...

And nails Basic. But now we have a second make-up to do because he didn't get Rudeness.

It's a 5 Letter Word, and the clue is "Table Cloth" he continues to follow Standard Sang Beating Procedure and places them all.

And he Nails it with Doily. He took about 1 minute to get those words.

Now believe it or not, if Sang's reflexes didn't get the better of him, Sang would have won this quite easily. But who knows, maybe Steven would have guessed eariler on Monkeys and the make-ups. But you never know. But what we do know is that this was easily the worst pair of Sprints that we've seen in Scrabble's history. I think there was a worse overall time, but it probably wasn't as memorable as these two Sprints. It's great for laughs to go back as Sang's ineptness and his opponents lack of knowing what Titter is and his copying of Sang's Nudeness answer. It's right there with Frog & Alligator. I just wish GSN or somebody will get the rights to this show so we can relive Sang's ineptness again.