Show Me the Money seems to have stabilized ratings wise, but that may not be good enough for the show's longevity. SMTM finished 4th overall in its timeslot last night and a dreadful 5th (that's dead last, behind the CW) in the 18-49s. Ironically I was hearing winds about the show being picked up for another 6 episodes, which seems strange given the show's cushy timeslot and continued underperformance.
This isn't meant as a knock on the show, which I think aired its best episode to date last night. The difficulty of the material finally started matching the stakes involved and it was paced pretty well. Actually, it may have been paced too fast, seeing as the last contestant was still being said good-bye to while the credits started whizzing by.
Something must have been in the air a month or so ago during these TPiR tapings. Today we had a crazy winning putt in Hole in One, followed by the contestant racing over to the car still waving the putter around. I thought she was about to break the car's windows in. That was followed up by a contestant who lost so badly at Buy or Sell that the readout malfunctioned trying to display how much she lost by.
Then, during the last one bid Bob brought an audience member on stage to basically take over his job handling the bids, which failed miserably as she mangled the names of every contestant down there. And in fitting fashion, we ended with a double overbid, which seems to be happening more often than not now.
All in all I thought the Match Game documentary on GSN this Sunday was pretty well done. It didn't contain too many tidbits for most people very familiar with the show, but casual fans (like one of my co-workers, who had no idea there was a falling out with Richard Dawson) probably found it intriguing.
The breadth of celebrities interviewed by the show was probably its strong suit, and I thought the appearance of Gene's daughter really gave the hour some credibility. The interviews with the writers and show staff were the crowning touch, and the geek in me loved seeing an actual index card with a typewriter-produced Match Game question dated from 1976.
The only knock I have on the show is that the segments directly dealing with Gene came off as kind of depressing, almost like an obituary for him. Gene is a legend and deserves all the respect coming to him, but his passing was 7 years ago and treating discussions of him like a funeral sort of seems dated at this point, especially given the overall theme of the documentary that the show was much like a party.
In general I'm looking forward to the other documentaries in this series. I think GSN has really done well in the documentary department. Obviously the Michael Larsen documentary is the highest rated thing they've ever shown (and may hold that title for a while), and I even dug most of the Anything to Win documentaries from earlier this year, even if they had little to do with game shows. I thought the Pennsylvania Lottery scandal documentary was particularly well produced.
Great moment on Price is Right yesterday. Monstrous (6'10") contestant playing Flip Flop. He flops (not flips) and then promptly whacks his tree trunk arm into the reveal button, taking away any drama from the game (he lost).
Was the math requirement in the Arkansas school system removed around, say, 1983? Because that might explain tonight's contestant on Deal, who could only be described as the dumbest player in the show's history. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say he's the dumbest contestant who will ever play the show.
We've seen people go down in flames before, but it's been a while. Those early contestants didn't have the benefit of seeing the show to know how to play it, even though common sense does seem to dictate gameplay. Some of the sub-$100 winners also had far worse boards than tonight's contestant, so their decisions make a little more sense.
But no contestant who is given 3 $100K+ plus offers in a row should ever leave the show with less than $50,000. It's just stupidity on display for the American public. It was such egregiously bad gambling strategy that I almost expected a PSA for Gambler's Anonymous to appear after the show: "Did you see the stupid idiot on Deal tonight? Don't let that be you."
There's a new Super Tape Giveaway up for grabs right now, so click on over to the giveaway page for a chance to get 10 tapes with close to 50 hours of material.
There's a good hodgepodge of stuff in there this time around, including even more Go episodes (I must have the entire run of that), $ale of the Century, and a ton of Pyramid episodes.
Show Me The Money didn't wow anyone in its 2nd week on the air ratings-wise, although the numbers could have been worse. A 2nd place performance in the slot overall and 3rd in 18-49s isn't causing anyone at ABC to jump for joy, but I don't think they'll pull the plug just yet. They may wait for a few weeks or let the initial allotment of shows (did they do 6?) play out. This may wind up having a similar place in history as another ABC show, The Chair, although I think this is a more solid format.
There's not much bad about the Match Game DVDs (now on sale), but I'll start with the negatives since they are on my mind:
1) No slates at the beginning of the shows. It would have been a nice touch, but it's on par with other TV DVD sets out for sale so you can't really complain.
2) Bizarre ordering of the episodes. I was pretty much expecting them to go in chronological order, but they're all over the map. While the 1st episode is indeed on Disc 1, Disc 4 has shows from the 2nd and 3rd weeks.
3) The included booklet doesn't really give much information about the shows other than the celebrities, which makes finding out what exactly made each episode special a bit difficult. To be honest, I haven't really figured out what half of the episodes are doing on there, but at least they got the School Riot, 1st episode, last syndicated episode, Kirstie Alley shows, and Gene's door destruction episodes in there.
Now the good:
1) Tons of bonus materials, way more than would be expected of a DVD set like this. The Brett Somersinterview spans all 4 discs, and while it seems like she's reading most of the material from a script, it's a nice to have, especially since it seems to go on forever. The picture gallery is nice as well, and the topper is having the 1962 pilot for The Match Game. It's a rarity and really gives the set some credibility as a definitive source of information about the show.
2) TICKET and FEE PLUGS! Yeah, that's the game show dork in me wanting to see those, but they've never been shown on GSN, even in the good 'ol early days of the network. The late '70s ticket plugs were legendary on Match Game with the hilarious face disfigurations and that kooky theme song that played along which never really seemed to fit with the rest of the musical suite of the show. Having full credits is also nice in a day when GSN wouldn't dream of showing them.
3) Overall good video and audio quality. There's some reports of a defect or two with a couple of episodes, but overall the majority of the discs look really good.
I'd say this gets at least an 8.5 out of 10, maybe a 9, and is a must have for any fan of the show. Here's hoping the set takes off and we can see some more G-T shows on DVD anytime soon (you have to imagine Price is Right could easily be done).
Show Me the Money is growing on me. Tonight's episode, in a far more tolerable hour long format, was paced better (still could go a little quicker) and was easier to watch the whole way through. The dancing segments were kept at a good minimum and the contestants are generally likeable.
But staying on the topic of contestants, well, how should I put this. It seems like Endemol wants contestants with Deal or no Deal brains to play a Q&A game. This leads to obscenely easy questions for the amount of money at play. The female winner who took home a huge haul tonight answered questions that would have never appeared beyond the $8,000 level (and that's being nice) on Millionaire. Admittedly, the material seemed to triple in difficulty for the two rounds after she got her 5th question right, but then her final answer was a slam dunk.
It's a shame they can't do this format, which has promise, without having to dumb it down.
*We had two hilarious definitions, both of which found their way to blooper specials later on. Plus an uncomfortable definition of "Abraham Lincoln" that was nearly racist and required a disclaimer on the part of Bill before it was read.
*Breckin Meyer made his first appearance on the show.
*During Breckin's definition in the Fast Play round, the losing contestant clearly buzzed in before her opponent, although the light went up for her opponent instead. The cameramen got a great shot of the disgruntled look on her face. Luckily her opponent missed, negating the mistake and what surely would have required an edit.
As promised, I bought the Deal Or No Deal PC game and I have to admit that overall, I'm impressed.
Gameplay: There's a few game modes to play, but the standard one-player game plays like the TV show to the T, without a lot of the obnoxious distractions the actual show has to offer. One of my favorite features is an ability to speed through the game with the click of the mouse, allowing you to skip over dialogue or rules that you don't want to hear. If you do want to sit through the entire process though, it follows the show exactly, which is always nice.
Graphics/Sound: The set is quite faithfully reproduced, and Howie Mandel appears in picture and in voice. His motions, as well as the motions of the models, are a bit robotic-looking on a computer, but overall it looks nice. The music and sound effects are taken directly from the show and sound great.
Nitpicks:
*They include an "advice" feature which allows you to pick three people to help you with your choice of dealing or not dealing. I'm not a fan of this feature on the real show, but I can understand that to make it authentic, they had to include it here. Unfortunately, while you can choose the "aggression" level of your friends, you can't actually hear them give you advice--you only see text of what they're trying to say to you. Jellyvision, had they built this game, surely would have handled this with real audio, as shown in their fantastic Millionaire adaptation from a few years back.
*Howie reads allow the bank offer, which is nice, but given the vast number of amount sound bites he would have to record, it looks like the developers decided to go with rounded amounts to make his life easier in the recording studio. It's a minor detraction, but a nitpick nonetheless.
Pleasant Surprises:
*The game keeps track of how many times you play, so the models' outfits change after every game. I'm sure they repeat after a while, but it does give you the impression they put a little thought into the game.
*The silhouetted picture of the banker changes its behavior based on how well you're doing in the game, including a frantic waving of the hands when you're beating him up.
Neither Here nor There:
*The game includes a 2-player mode that allows you to basically draft up your own prizes. It's a nice thought, but while is it only a 2-player feature?
*The game also includes some random mini games that have little to do with the actual show, including a ridiculously easy 3-card monte game. They don't really add much to the game, but seeing as the game is somewhat limited in its scope to begin with, you can't fault the developers for trying to change things up a little bit.
Overall the game gets an 8 out of 10 and is definitely playable for return trips. At $19.99 it's a good buy and definitely passes the time.
My friend David gives me constant grief for the bids I gave when I was a TPiR contestant back in 2000 (I offered up gems like $1729 and $576). But I look like the world's most savvy bidder compared to Sharon, who was in Contestant's Row today.
After the 2nd bidder offered up an odd $2125 bid, Sharon thought things over for a second and slowly said "$21...25." Bob of coursed chided her endlessly for it, and in desperation to prove she wasn't an idiot, Sharon promptly replaced her bid with $2124.
(insert audience groan here)
Wouldn't you know it, she eventually gets up on stage with a perfect bid ($599, of all things). She then proceeds to play Money Game and become the first player in eternity to get neither the front or the back of the car.
Someone finally played the rules-intensive Wild Card in the bonus round on Wheel today. And in fitting fashion, the bonus consonant the team picked wasn't in the puzzle. In fact, none of their extra consonants were in the puzzle. Wild indeed.
This new wedge reminds me sort of the ill-fated Double Play card from the late 90s, so I wonder if it will suffer the same fate.
28 million people watched the end of Dancing With the Stars. As Show Me The Money progressed last night, most of them danced right on to another network, with less than 10 million watching the end of the show.
I don't think that's bad enough to prevent another showing of the show (i.e., it won't get Rich List-ed), but unless the numbers pick up I doubt we'll see the full order of shows aired.
Man I feel stupid for not knowing this. Jay Wolpert, the producer who never met a confusing game show format he didn't like (how many other men have come up with a 70-second clock for a bonus round?) was/is heavily involved in the story creation for the mega-successful Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Wow. To go from Professor Price to that is truly a comeback.
I realized that Show Me The Money had the potential to be very bizarre, so I think it warrants my first "Watch 'n Blog" entry, where I'll be typing along as I watch.
*The opening is jazzy. I like the Charlie's Angels dance motif. Clearly this is a rip off of Deal--pretty models, contestants standing behind a podium in the center of the stage, and a ridiculous catchphrase. But sometimes imitation is more than just a sincere form of flattery--it can be an improvement as well, so I'll withhold judgement.
*I thought the first contestant was ready to climb Diamond Head with that bag around his shoulder. Instead it's just his man purse or "murse". Maybe he should have held out for the 1 vs. 100 casting call I mentioned below?
*Wow an extended dance number 3 minutes into the show. It's Dance Fever!
*The scoring format is solid. At first you're horrified that someone can walk away with $220,000 for knowing about Seinfeld but then you realize the contestant has to get 6 correct answers.
*Wow. There is a LOT of dancing.
*The material leaves a lot to be desired. Allowing a contestant a stab at 3 different questions within a category and only needing to get one right seems a bit too easy, especially with some of the softballs thrown towards the 1st contestant.
*OK, now they're *salsa* dancing.
*A same sex couple and a Shania Twain question to this contestant?
(more dancing)
*Contestant #2 has already forgotten who Howard Dean is? That's not a good sign if Mr. Dean is hoping for another run...
*The dollar reveals are very DonD-esque and I think a lot of viewers might be turned off by this.
*You don't know Elmer Fudd?? Show Me the Lobotomy.
*Well, at least the 2nd guy left with no money, as he did not deserve any.
Overall I think this is a decent format with some correctable flaws wrapped in a very bizarre package. This could have easily been done with a simple set and without the distractions and theatrics that will most likely lead most viewers to think it's a ripoff.
I would watch it again, but I'm thinking most people won't agree with me.
NBC doesn't give the viewers much reason to watch most of Deal or no Deal as it is. The first 4 rounds are essentially a waste of time because no contestant would ever dream of dealing that early. So consider my surprise when, while eating dinner last night, I heard my friend David say "Oh, it looks like they're going to get down to just two cases tomorrow night." I look up from my Cajun pasta to see a DonD promo showing just that. I feel for the poor viewers who don't own a Tivo watching this show, although I suppose it's the perfect program to watch while you're folding laundry (you can always put that down for the few minutes of exciting game you see in each episode).
The good news is, greed lost on DonD tonight, which is always a victory for the viewers (at least this viewer). Seriously, I think if you ever wonder how foreigners get such a bad impression about Americans, you could look at the DonD contestant pool and have your answered summed up right there. There have been notably a few exceptions, and it seems in general the female contestants are a lot more tolerable. But who wants an obnoxious guy to win $1,000,000, even if he is a cop?
Well we know that 1 vs. 100 loves to do some interesting casting for its mob members, but this must be the most unusual pairing (from Craig's List):
"Hey! This is an opportunity to win lots of money on a primetime gameshow that airs Friday nights at 8pm on the nation's biggest network!! We are currently preparing to shoot a Christmas Special on Dec. 4th that is themed by the 'Twelve Days of Christmas'. That's where you come in...... For the show we need 10 gay men to be part of a group of 100 individuals that will be answering pop culture based questions for thousands of dollars!! Trust me, this is a no brainer! You have an opportunity to win money because of your pop culture knowledge, not to mention the show averages 10 millions viewers! So, if you are gay, or have friends who are gay....please have them contact me ASAP so they can participate in this Christmas special."
Meanwhile, while the household ratings for 1 vs. 100 remain stable, there's been some slight erosion in the 18-49s. We'll see if this trend continues or if the show levels off as a modest (if not overwhelming) ratings performer.
Last night's 1 vs. 100 ep. was a bit better than the last couple, which was nice. But I'm wondering if it came at the expense of (once again) dumbing down the material. It's kind of cute to see a question where no members of the mob are incorrect, but it shouldn't be happening on the 4th question of the round. Luckily the current contestant still has a help left as he climbs into the nether regions of the dollar ladder. I seriously wanted to hit him when he didn't know his Roman numerals though. After all, any good game show fan learned these as a kid when trying to figure out the copyright date in the credits of Family Feud episodes, right?
In the meantime I've put an order in for the Deal or no Deal computer game, so I'll have a review of that when I get it. I also managed to get my hands on a Nintendo Wii, so I hope some game show games come out for that platform soon. I'm looking forward to making an ass of myself waving that crazy remote/controller at the screen to spin the Wheel of Fortune.
I'd like to know what the judge on Body Language was smoking when he decided Patrick Wayne's answer of "Counterfeit" for a puzzle was acceptable for "Forgery". Give me a break.
You have to admit though there's no more natural of a pairing than Patrick Wayne and Mary Jo Catlett. And how great was Patrick's career at that point when his high point he mentioned on the show was doing summer stock in the Texas panhandle? Signs of greatness to come.
Lot of weird stuff going on with today's Price. Bob chose the time before the 3rd Item Up For Bids to chat a little with the audience about the previous contestant on stage. It's not something he normally does because of the time rush they have these days, but it was a nice reminder of the days of old on the show. Naturally the next contestant called takes 20 minutes to get from her seat to Contestant's Row. Then there's an overbid. Then said slow contestant asks for more information about the one-bid prize, which she gets, and then she complains it's not enough info.
Result, Bob is rushing through the rest of the show like a drill sergeant.
Then said contestant gets up on stage for Five Price Tags, earns 4 guesses, and loses.
Then we have yet another double overbid in the showcase. I'll never understand why contestants, on average, bid so low in Contestant's Row, yet so high in the showcase.
...was when G.W. talked about having "been in rodeos" before. Yeah, instead of TPiR in L.A. we got the Prez trying to put a positive spin on Tuesday night's electoral blowout. Did the East Coast get the show?
I got more email asking me about the retirement of Hit Me then I did the retirement of Bob Barker. Bizarre.
Of course the first email I got on the subject said something like "After 26 years, Hit Man is finally being retired." That naturally had me all confused, wondering what small station in Iowa had been airing its own local version of Hit Man all these years without the rest of the world knowing.
Instead it's Hit Me being retired, curiously because it was "too confusing". That's sort of like when I heard that the original Caesar's Challenge bonus round was killed because it was "too easy".
Hit Me is one of two or three games on TPiR that should never be lost. Find the item with the exact price. Find the item ending in zero. Win something you probably don't want. End of story.
Weaknesses aside, any blackjack fan could at least enjoy the portion of the game which involved the blackjack hands getting played out. Since most contestants never hit blackjack, there was at least some drama involved there.
I have two observations about Monday's playing of Credit Card on TPiR:
1) For what seems like the 250th time in a row, the two prizes to avoid were on the top tier. 2) Nobody wants a handcrafted model ship as a prize. Nobody.
And how cursed was the Dice Game contestant to roll 4, 3, 4, 3? Don't head to Vegas any time soon.
It turns out there's a ton of game show stuff for sale these days. No less than 4 different Deal or no Deal items are out, including a handheld game and a PC game coming out this month. There's a new Family Feud CD-Rom out as well as a ton of "DVD" games, most notably Price is Right and Pyramid, the latter of which has been smartly advertised on GSN.
What I'm really craving is a Wheel of Fortune CD-Rom that isn't about a decade behind the actual show. We haven't had a new version in 3 years, and even that version was woefully behind the times, lacking the current bonus round and toss-up puzzles. Any additions to the show (with the exception of that baffling "WILD" card) should be easily integrated into a PC game. Of course there's always the awkward issue of dealing with Vanna as "host", but that's another story for another day.
As a rambling aside, PC and video game integrations of game shows have been around for 20+ years now, and as a kid I was a rabid collector of both. Some were definitely better than others. What follows is a brief discussion of the hits and misses:
The Good:
Wipeout - Despite only existing one season, the underrated Wipeout came out with one heck of a PC version, especially for 1989. The great-for-the-times EGA graphics really matched the look and feel of the show and the adaptation was dead on for both the main game and bonus rounds. One added bonus--the question files were stored as text files, so viewing them in a simple text editor allowed you to wow your friends with your knowledge of which movies did or did not star Marilyn Monroe.
Hollywood Squares - The Nintendo version of the game included some good joke answers, including a few that probably weren't appropriate for me as a 12-year old. It was besieged by the frequent repetition of questions, but that was par for the course at the time.
The Bad:
Press Your Luck - I nearly wet myself when I got this for Christmas (randomly, in 1990, 4 years after the show's cancellation), but I have to admit it wound up being a bit of a disappointment. The board spun at a dizzying speed on my not-so-powerful 286 computer, there was only one Whammy animation, and the board, while faithfully replicated in most areas, contained some confusing spaces like a $300 in round two and something called "Lose One Spin". I was amused to see that they had also copied the questions from the show verbatim, including leaving in the infamous "Sylvester" mistake from 1985.
I also remember the PC adaptation of Fun House and the Nintendo version of Double Dare being particularly bad.
The Ugly:
Price is Right (1990) - There's not much to love about this version, namely the ugly adaptations of the games (Plinko was just sad) and the random assignment of prizes to pricing games. I believe I once played One Right Price for a car and a blender. There's a tough one.
Family Feud (any version) - Family Feud definitely lends itself to an at-home version, but the subjective nature of determining whether an answer is correct or not became maddening, especially in earlier versions of the game that would not allow for misspelling.
Also, in a slight twist, as for games that *became* game shows, You Don't Know Jack has to be one of the best party games ever invented. We played that thing at least 500 times in my college dorm. In the super early days of my website I got an email from the game's creative staff asking to get some copies of some game show tapes I had. The reward was a pre-release copy of the game's 2nd edition. Nice swag when you're a poor college student.
Last night's Amazing Race episode kinda solidified why the show is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the reality pack, especially compared to Survivor. The casting is better--finding "real" people who have compelling stories, rather than a crop of good looking people who aren't altogether interesting. Clearly the show had a bit of a bias towards the departed Kentucky team--they spent a lot of time on their farewell last night, compared to other losing teams this season--but it actually meant something because there's more of an emotional investment in these players than you'd find on Survivor.
Survivor thrives on gossip and he said - she said. This is prevalent on the Race as well, but it usually takes a back seat because the contestants are always in a rush to do something interesting, rather than sitting on a beach and cooking or complaining about not sleeping the night before.
I also have to applaud the choice of locations for this year's race. It had seemed they'd run out of places to go, with many countries starting to be repeated. But adding little-known locales like Mauritius and Madagascar definitely adds to the educational element of the show, and the tasks to perform seem to really show an up-close side of the country's society you'd never see on a travel show. Survivor's attempts to the same thing are valiant, but they often come up as hokey, such as tacky team names or challenges that seem far removed from the local people, despite their best attempts to be culturally relevant.
Looks like despite another lackluster 1 vs. 100 episode, the show stabilized in the ratings slightly. It lost by a bit to CBS, but the 18-49s (as of yet unreleased as far as I can tell) will probably show it in or near 1st place for the night. Had the show eroded further, we may have seen a halt put to the 201 or so game shows that networks seem to be rushing into development.
Speaking of, with The Rich List now in limbo, thoughts must turn to the poor contestants on the episodes that haven't aired yet. Game shows that are taped but never air are always a dicey predicament, as networks aren't obligated to pay out unless the show actually sees the light of day. That was certainly a controversy back when Winning Lines got scrapped in 2000. Let's hope that Fox finds a nice place to dump the remainder of the shows so these people can get their checks.
I always have had a bit of an affinity for Child's Play, so I'm glad to see it back on the GSN schedule. But I have to imagine Mark Goodson worrying a little bit after this first episode was taped back in 1982, when it took 10 minutes for the first point to finally be awarded. To the young fans out there who have never really seen this show, don't fret: the shows start speeding up more around the 4th or 5th week, and the new bonus round that comes in 1983 is a step above the original format.
Best moment on the first episode hands down was this definition of "religion"--"It's like when you're Jewish, or Christian...or Canadian..."
Normally Deal or no Deal is an easy 5 minute breeze through with the Tivo. I have to give them credit, tonight's episode was a keeper. Obviously that has to do with the amazing luck of the contestant. The shots of the banker in distress were classic.
In the Body Language intro, which shows clips of the celebrities doing charades, er, pantomiming, the nametag of the celebrity in the upper left is always shown backwards. Are they filming her through a mirror?
That screeching sound you hear could be the 2006 Game Show Revival grinding to a halt. After the Rich List's shockingly bad performance in the Nielsens, the question arises, will they even attempt a 2nd airing? Could this become the shortest-lived primetime game since the classically bad You're in the Picture?
And how does this bode for Show Me the Money, bowing later this month?
I don't think my initial impressions of The Rich List are positive. It really is the Tic Tac Dough category Auction turned into an hour long game show. Coming soon, the "Secret Category" Hour??
The show plods along a little too slow and the material is just too narrow. It seems like one could study for this show with a simple pop culture almanac. And I imagine most people in the home audience were wondering how knowing 12 Disney movies was worth anything close to $150,000.
There is a play along element here, but the slow pacing of the show means it's more likely that people will just give up and stop caring rather than shout answers at the TV (and stick around through the commercials).
The set and music are a bit too much--it's too dramatic and brooding considering the lighthearted material. And soundproof pods??
Also, there's no accounting for making sure both partners pull their weight, which was plainly evident tonight. The World Series of Pop Culture, a series with similar material but with a far lower budget, handled this dilemma brilliantly and is a superior show.
That being said, the pairing of the contestants was nothing sort of genius, especially the self-proclaimed (male) Golden Girls nut and his obviously frightened blue collar partner. I also was happy to see the return of Mark Thompson as announcer, one of the best around right now.
Also of note:
*Eamonn's quote, "One of you is smart, and one of you is beautiful" inherently also meant "One of you is dumb, and one of you is ugly."
*I laughed out loud during the reveal of the Stephen King question. "Here are the 150 answers you could have said..." Yikes!
*Always a good sign of a continuous production--the host and returning contestants had a complete wardrobe change during a commercial break.
*Missing from the complete Disney movie answer list--Song of the South, which was most definitely partially animated. Would it have been accepted?
*I think the claims of unlimited money are a bit overstated. I mean, you'd have to be on the show for months to win anywhere close to $10,000,000, especially at the pace the show took in its first episode.
It's game show legend Mandel Ilagan as a frighteningly accurate Howie Mandel. Hmm...Howie Mandel Ilagan...I sense a Same Name puzzle in here somewhere.
