A Little Family Teamwork

In July, my sons Tyler and Chase came bouncing down the stairs screaming, Dad, youve got to see this!

- Derek James

It was a Disney Channel commercial looking for Nintendo-loving families to compete in something called, “The Nintendo Switch Family Showdown,” a game-show style video-game competition. The boys convinced my wife and I to create and send in a 60-second audition video. Working in TV, I had a pretty good idea of what they were looking for, so we gave it a shot. As it turned out, that video of us on our stairs — shot on my iPhone while it balanced precariously on our ironing board — got us a ticket to Hollywood.

In August, Disney and Nintendo brought the four of us to Los Angeles for a three-day, two-night stay culminating in a family videogame competition in front of TV cameras and a live audience. Before the trip, we were given an idea of which games we’d be playing and were sent copies of the games to practice — and boy did my sons practice. They even “practiced” on games we wouldn’t be playing in the TV showdown.