MEDDLING KIDS

When I was a kid, on one glorious occasion, I actually solved a Scooby Doo Mystery before the last commercial break. (If I remember correctly, the culprit was the son of the creepy old woman who ran the carnival.) It would be years before I realized how minor this accomplishment actually was, but I was so proud of my eight-year-old self that I immediately ran to tell my mom. I knew she didn’t care about Scooby Doo, but I needed to tell somebody — anybody — that the creepy old caretaker was the one who was haunting the carnival.

Anyway, I know nobody cares, but I’ve figured out who the Celebrity Mole is. I’m pretty sure I’m right, so if you’re a spoiler-phobe (and good for you if you are), then you might want to stop reading here.

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I suspected early on that it was Dennis Rodman. Something about the way Ahmad Rashad keeps stressing how “the game is always on” and “the Mole is playing games” and “game, game, game, game, game“. Having watched three previous Mole seasons, I know this is just the kind of lame clue they’d use to hint that Dennis, who plays basketball games, is the Mole. (If you don’t believe me, watch the explanatory show in two weeks when they’ll try to make you feel dumb for not picking up on things like this.) Plus, the longer Dennis stuck around, the more obvious it seemed that he had a free pass. I mean, there’s no way he was making it through those quizzes on merit. I’ll bet Dennis never figured out a Scooby Doo Mystery before the last commercial.

But last night, they totally gave it away. In the game where they asked ridiculously easy grade-school questions (i.e., How many continents are there on Earth?), and the players still got them wrong (flashbacks to SNL’s classic “Common Knowledge” sketch), one question stuck out: “How many minutes are in an hour and thirty-one minutes?” Not only is it easy even by the standards of that particular game, but unlike the other questions, it doesn’t test any real grade-school skill, except possibly knowing that an hour equals sixty minutes. (Duh. Even Dennis Rodman could get that one right.) For some reason, they wanted to introduce the number 91 into the game.

Knowing nothing about basketball, I went online to check a hunch. Well, lookee here! That is definitely the kind of lame clue they use on this show. Dennis Rodman is the Celebrity Mole.

Okay, I just wanted to share that. Now I’m going to call my mom.