I don't like it when Deal or no Deal contestants are obnoxious. But when they ARE obnoxious, I do like to see them fall flat on their face.

Something about this game makes people act idiotically and make decisions no rational human would. On Millionaire, nobody would dream of answering the $500,000 question unless they absolutely knew it. On Press Your Luck, no one would dream of spinning if they had $40,000 (unless they knew the board pattern...)

So on Deal, why on earth do contestants that risk going broke continue to play on, passing up perfectly respectable offers? Have they forgotten that they required no skill to get on, and are basically being handed free money by the producers? Is $70,000 nothing these days?

The "Power Move" guy who lost tonight? Good riddance to you and your greedy family. I only hope that the rest of America delighted as much in your loss as I did.

 

posted by Brad @ 11:29 PM   0 comment(s)

Wow, a guy on Deal or no Deal wearing a shirt that looks like the Texas flag with a huge belt buckle. Is our next contestant going to be a woman wearing a Southern Belle outfit?

 

posted by Brad @ 11:22 PM   0 comment(s)

About twice a year, a bunch of us game show freaks out here in LA get together to watch some classic tapes and DVDs. This Saturday I had such a get together and we got to see some great stuff. I had a bunch of late 70s NBC stuff, including High Rollers with Alex and Wheel with Chuck. If you thought the prizes on Wheel were gaudy, High Rollers took the cake with the most bizarre combinations of prizes in columns ("Elephant" and "Reno" was my personal favorite). The Wheel episdoe we watched wasn't much better, with Chuck ranting and raving about an intercom system up for grabs in the next round's prize showcase.

We also got a chance to watch some things that never saw the light of day, including the recorded-for-air (but never aired) ABC episodes of Deal or no Deal from 2004. Talk about night and day differences. The game was pretty much the same, with the exception of a lame play-in game that whittled 26 contestants down to one (shockingly, the main contestant was chosen by the host himself). The main game played exactly like the current version, but it was paced unbelievably slow. If that wasn't bad enough, the show had a horrible musical package that was more suited for something like Family Challenge rather than a high stakes game like Deal. And the coup de gras may have been the fact that the audience was the most disinterested of any audience in TV history. I mean, they looked and sounded like they were at a funeral. I suppose the saddest fact of all is that the one episode we watched had a $250,000 win, and since the show never aired, the poor guy probably never got paid.

The other lost gem we watched was the original Monopoloy pilot. There's not much good you can say about this pilot, other than the fact that is has great camp value. Peter was host and performed admirably, but what can you say about a show that has a little person dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags running around the board in response to the roll of the dice? There was a second round of house/hotel buying that occurred in a commercial break following the 1st half of the 2nd round, and hostile takeovers were far more available. But the best part of the pilot may have been the soft shoe dance routine Peter, the little person, and the winning contestant engaged in as the credits rolled. That, and the fact that the pilot led off with an intro by Merv Griffing claiming that the show would one day be as big as Wheel and Jeopardy!

Hmm.

 

posted by Brad @ 6:09 PM   0 comment(s)

A week has passed since we lost Peter far too early, and if the response to my website is any indication, a lot of people out there are missing him as well. I've had over 200 emails from fans as well as the highest page volume in the site's history, far eclipsing even the premiere of Whammy! 4 years ago.

What's there to say that hasn't been said already? Peter died serving humanity, performing an unselfish charitable act that he never seemed to advertise he was even part of.

Peter was a class act until the end. We should be thankful that we have GSN re-airing classic Press Your Luck 7 days a week, further cementing his legacy in game show lore.

 

posted by Brad @ 6:07 PM   0 comment(s)

I just got the Game Show Marathon DVDs from the UK and I have to admit I was pretty impressed. They played 7 games over there like we will have here; 4 of which are US standards:

--Card Sharks
--Price is Right
--Sale of the Century
--Family Feud (this was the finale)

The recreation of the sets was top notch. In the case that a show had several incarnations, they actually used a mix of the sets (for example, Contestants' Row on TPIR was from the 80s version, while the wheel used was from Bruce's PIR from the 1990s). They showed plenty of old clips from the old version, and even brought back the contestants shown in those clips in the studio for the day!

Ant and Dec were the hosts. They started off kind of annoying me during their first game (TPiR), but by the finale they seemed to be taking things a little more seriously. The celebrity knockout format was cool, although it all depends on the celebrities I imagine.

All in all, this is something every game show fan should be looking foward to.

 

posted by Brad @ 1:41 PM   0 comment(s)