Like his father, Mark Morse tries to impress upon his child to be bold and take chances.
So when his teenaged daughter Bridget suggested he apply for Fox's I Can See Your Voice game show a year ago, Morse did. And nothing happened. No acknowledgement, no thanks.
Until early July.
That's when he got a call from a Los Angeles casting company about a new competition show called The Floor, Fox's latest trivia game show hosted by Rob Lowe that premieres tonight (9 p.m. Channel 19) and airs on Tuesday nights through February.
"Casting decisions were made by July 20, and I flew to Ireland for filming the first week of August," says Morse, 48, brand marketing director for Ferguson Enterprises.
Morse is one of the 81 contestants on the huge human chess board. Each person has a trivia specialty, and can challenge a person standing on an adjacent square to a 45-second bout of trivia. The winner gets the loser's square. The goal is to capture all the squares on the board.
"It's almost like playing a game of chess," he says. "You do these duels, in which you must identify pictures flashing on a giant monitor. It was very intense."
During one of several Zoom interviews with producers last July, Morse talked about growing up working for his father's restaurant, Al Morse's Ribs King, at 8340 Reading Road across from the old Carrousel Inn, between Roselawn and Reading. It operated between 1978 and 1992.
So Morse will be the BBQ expert on The Floor. Other contestants are experts in hip-hop, U.S. presidents, rock stars, child stars, bugs, birds and the human body.
"I grew up in the barbeque business before it was hip and trendy," Morse said. Montgomery Inn founder Ted Gregory provided his father with his rib rub and sauce as Gregory was looking to franchise his Montgomery-based restaurant, Morse says.
"Before my dad passed (in 2013 at 82), we had a moment where he passed the secret recipes on to me and my four siblings. My brother Mike and I became Kansas City BBQ Society (KCBS) judges to honor our dad," says Morse, who, like his father, is a graduate of St. Xavier High School and Xavier University.
"What I like about barbeque is that it brings everyone together."
All 10 episodes were filmed in one week in Dublin, he says. Eight contestants are eliminated each show. Of course, he can't talk about his outcome on the show. But he can talk about chatting during a break with Lowe, who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, as a huge Reds fan. (Before his one-man show at the Aronoff Center in 2019, Lowe talked to me about Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall, Riverfront Stadium, the Uncle Al Show and Bob Braun.)
"Rob got a big kick out of me being from Cincinnati. The Reds were doing well, and we talked about the Reds. He has a lot of love for Cincinnati," Morse says.
The Floor is not Morse's first brush with stardom. He appeared in Airborne, the 1993 Seth Green-Shane McDermott rollerblading movie shot in Cincinnati, and Milk Money, the 1994 Melanie Griffith-Ed Harris movie shot in the Mount Lookout neighborhood.
If he wins The Floor's $250,000 prize, Morse told producers he'd give some of it to the Alzheimer's Association (his dad suffered from Alzheimer's), designate some for Bridget's college education, and also "eat my way through Italy. It's on my bucket list."
He apparently charmed casting producers by saying he's "just a dad from Cincinnati," says Morse, who enjoys watching TV game shows with Bridget and his wife, Lisa.
"Having a 13-year-old daughter, game shows is the one show we can agree on," he says.
What would his dad think about his being on the Fox primetime game show?
"I know Dad is smiling down from heaven," he says. "He taught me to take risks and go for it."
