60-year-old Greer resident John Wickham will make his first appearance in FOX’s Domino Masters, a domino toppling and chain reaction tournament show, on March 16 at 9 p.m.
While the computer programmer has worked with dominos since he was 16, he thought he was done with any toppling events.
“I’ve pretty much toppled dominos all my life,” Wickham said. “About four years ago, I came out of domino retirement and did a fundraising topple of almost 29,000 dominos for Prince of Peace Catholic School. I thought was going to be the last topple of my career.”
Following the event, Prince of Peace Catholic Church called Wickham to let him know that someone working on casting Domino Masters was trying to reach him about being on the show. Once he connected with the casting representative, he was told he needed to put together a team, which surprised him.
“I was like, ‘What?’ because I pretty much toppled by myself for most of my career,” Wickham said. “When I started, my high school friend Erez Klein and I did a couple of world records together in 1979 and 1980. I contacted Erez and he couldn’t commit to the time, so he had to back out.”
With his friend out of the running, Wickham’s wife Katy recommended he reach out to his niece Kristine Kazian and her husband Brian to help him since they lived closer to Los Angeles, which was where the show was being filmed, and they could work remotely.
Wickham said he reached out to the Kazians and they agreed to join his team. Since they had not worked with dominos before, he taught them how to topple during the holidays in 2020 and the trio filmed the show in spring 2021.
On the show, teams of three will face off against each other as they are given 16 hours to brainstorm and build the episode’s domino design theme, which will be judged by a panel including actress Danica McKellar, former NFL player Vernon Davis and professional domino artist Steve Price.
At the end of the competition, one team will walk away with a $100,000 cash prize and trophy.
Domino Masters airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m., EST on FOX. For more information, visit fox.com/domino-masters.
