THUNDER BAY — Perseverance has paid off for a city woman who always wanted to appear on a TV game show.
Lisa Dampier and her family appeared Monday night on CBC's Family Feud Canada, almost two years after they submitted an application.
"I've watched game shows my whole life, and it was kind of like a goal that I had, that someday I'd get on," Dampier said.
She first had to talk her family into preparing an audition tape.
"And then we wait, and a couple of months later, they reached out and said 'We really like what we saw. Now we'd like you to answer these 15 emails with all kinds of crazy questions.' So we went through all that process, and then waited some more."
When the producers eventually got back to them with an invitation to appear on the show, the timing wasn't good as the family couldn't get their schedules to align.
But everything came together after the invitation was renewed last spring.
"We don't get to do a lot of things together as a family, with all of our schedules now. So having that opportunity together to go and have some fun was just fantastic," Dampier said.
She was joined for the taping of the show in Toronto by husband Joe Dampier, their children Alex and Kaitie, and their goddaughter Alexa.
Dampier said they made some deliberate choices as to where they would position themselves on the set.
"We decided to kind of stagger us in a certain strategic way. We put Alexa down at the end, and our daughter in the middle so that she was kind of between two others that we knew could kind of balance her out if she got nervous. We thought about different viewpoints, and kind of how we'd give different answers. So it was definitely strategic."
Alex Dampier believes his family has the right set of personalities for a game show.
"Whenever we told people we were going on, they were like 'Of course it's you guys that are going on TV' . . . I think we were well-balanced. We had lots of different experiences, different ages -- so it was a good team."
He said appearing on a game show that he grew up watching was "super-exciting" but it was also an eye-opener.
"It was nothing like I've ever experienced before. Watching it, you think you have an idea of how things go. And then when you're actually there with the host, and the cameras are rolling, and the live audience, it's a crazy experience."
His mom agreed there's a big contrast between seeing the set on TV and actually standing behind it as a participant.
"It's just so different, and we were all nervous for sure. But all the families that are there really pick each other up. So it became a lot of fun," she said.
Contestants aren't permitted to reveal the outcome until after all the episodes they are on are broadcast.
But the Dampiers came out on top on Monday, returned for Tuesday evening's show, and will make their third and final appearance Wednesday evening.
Family Feud Canada airs at 7:30 pm.
A previous version of this story was updated after the completion of Monday evening's and Tuesday evening's telecast of Family Feud Canada.
With files from Jonathan Wilson/TBT News
