Tiny Tiki Delights on NBC’s Game Show “Small Fortune”

I’ll admit, I never thought that what we miniaturists do on a daily basis – carefully and meticulously handle and arrange the tiniest of treasures – would be the subject of a game show, but NBC’s latest competition show “Small Fortune” proved me wrong!

Hosted by Lil Rel Howery, “Small Fortune” is an eight-episode team competition game show with itty bitty challenges for huge stakes – a cash prize of $250,000!

As we all know, working with miniatures requires a great deal of dexterity, focus and patience, and that’s exactly what these contestants need to win.

That’s all fun and games, of course, but imagine my surprise when I saw a clip from Episode 2, titled “Grandma Knows Best,” where the contestant, Alyssa, was carefully balancing a tray of miniature cocktails at a tiki bar… and they sure looked familiar!

In fact, Alyssa’s challenge included balancing my Mai Tai (complete with cocktail umbrella) in a pineapple cup and my Piña Colada, along with a couple other tropical drinks!

I created those as a special order for the show’s Games Production Designer all the way back in November 2019, but I didn’t know what they were going to be used for, so this is just a delightful surprise. I never imagined my little mini drinks would make it to television!

If you’d like to see how Alyssa competed in the “A Little Tipsy” challenge yourself, click here for the video (it starts around the 29:00 mark). I hope it makes her feel a little better knowing that I’ve knocked them over dozens of times while photographing them myself. And that’s without $80K on the line and the pressure of competing on TV, so I think she did a great job!