Live television can’t be easy, and folks who don’t spend much time in front of the camera can’t be blamed for fumbling under the spotlight from time to time. The popular daytime game show Family Feud sees plenty of bloopers from contestants. One woman’s recent appearance on Family Feud, however, resulted in a slew of truly terrible answers on the series. Normally, a terrible answer is bad, but when that terrible answer is repeated over and over again… well, the results are pretty hilarious. Check it out!
The goal of the video was for contestants to describe other ways to say "mother." After the obvious "mommy" and others were chosen, one team got stumped and just kept throwing out variations of "nanny" and "nana," with one final guesser, Sheila, repeating choices verbatim.
In Sheila’s defense, this category wasn’t an easy one. Once “mom/mommy” and “mama” were on the board, thinking of another common word for “mother” could have been tough for anybody. Still, giving the same answer over and over again with only very slight differences in inflection is something that maybe not all of us would have done. At least she kept smiling. If Sheila had done what I probably would have done – that is, fake an illness or scowl into the camera – then this clip would have been awkward instead of hysterical. Her beaming smile at Steve Harvey and the camera just made everything so much funnier.
Of course, the laughs of Family Feud wouldn’t come quite so naturally without Harvey’s reactions. We can always count on him to mug at the camera a few times when a contestant gives a particularly bizarre answer, but he was in fine form during the “mother” category. Between addressing the audience, jumping into an energetic dance routine, and then rousing the entire room into a chorus of “Na na na na, goodbye!” by the very end, a back-and-forth that could have been uncomfortable is one that pretty much needs to be rewatched a few times.
Funny as Sheila’s unfaltering grin and Harvey’s antics were, my favorite part of the clip might just be the audience reactions. Even they didn’t entirely know what to do after the first two or three times that Sheila gave the same answer as one of the other contestants. It was as though they couldn’t tell if they were being pranked or if this was really a thing that was happening at a taping of Family Feud.
I can’t help but wonder if Harvey didn’t think the same thing at any point. Steve Harvey has been spending a lot of time in the limelight recently thanks to his infamous flub at the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, and his recent Super Bowl commercial lampooning his mistake only served as a reminder. He seems to have developed a sense of humor about the incident, but Sheila flubbing her answer over and over again had to feel a little bit deliberate. For poor Sheila’s sake, it might have been better if she had been taking part in a prank.
All in all, it’s a fun clip to watch for plenty of reasons. Throw them all together, and rewatching over and over again could be a tempting way to kill an afternoon. Not every episode may provide such hilarious material, but tuning in to Family Feud is always a fun bet.
