“Springfield has a whole different meaning to me,” he said. “It’s my hometown.”
The word game – where partners work together to provide one-word clues to guess the “password” – is a reboot of the show that launched in 1961 and has showcased hundreds of celebrity guests and inspired several spinoff shows since its start, according to NBC Universal.
The show relaunched this summer after it became a hit game on “The Tonight Show,” according to NBC Universal. The show is hosted by actress and singer Keke Palmer and Fallon, who is also a producer of the show.
The episode featuring Bacon aired on Aug. 23 and can be viewed on NBC’s website.
Bacon worked with Fallon and actor and comedian JB Smoove to beat his competitor and advanced to the bonus round for the chance to earn up to $25,000, winning $6,000.
Bacon said he competed to help his two brothers, who have disabilities, to “live their best lives.”
The process to to be cast on a game show that was in production during the pandemic was filled with Zoom interviews, Bacon said. He originally applied to appear on the show Beat Shazam and was connected to Password following interviews with casting crew. After that, he had “Zoom auditions” for the show, where he played mock versions of the show with other contestants.
“There were people from all kinds of places, so that was a fun bit of competition,” he said.
But Bacon is no stranger to game shows: he competed on a Sports Jeopardy! in 2016, and when he was a child, he won a game show in the early days of Nickelodeon. He’s been a dedicated viewer of game shows since his childhood.
Bacon lived in Springfield for the better part of 18 years, only leaving during the school year to attend a boarding school in New Hampshire as a teenager. He later moved to attend the University of North Carolina.
He has worked for statistics teams for sports teams in the San Diego area, served as an announcer and mascot for a semi-pro basketball team, and has been a part of the national pool for an Olympic sport, Team Handball.
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