It's another Lucy week on Body Language. Today's episode had a puzzle of "Room Service", which happens to be a movie Lucy starred in. First off, Lucy missed the puzzle, which was funny enough. But when they showed a still of the movie, Tom turned to her and said, "You know who else was in that? Ann Miller." Lucy looked him like he was a moron and said she wasn't. Well, a check of IMDB shows she was one of the stars.
Today's Press Your Luck rerun contestant, Andres, I'm wondering if he was clued into the Larson pattern 4 months before Michael nailed the show for $110K. Three spins in a row he hit the Big Bucks square, each time hitting it right as the light flashed on square 7, and sometimes stopping quite suddenly. It could be coincidence, but he seemed kinda confident in his spinning as well.
On the other hand, maybe I just need to get a life and stop analyzing reruns from 23 years ago.
Another pretty good documentary tonight on GSN with the Women in Game Shows Special. But was anyone else wondering how not one breath was mentioned about Kitty Carlisle? She was one of the first 3 names that came to mind when I could think of women who had shaped the genre. This woman was (and is) educated, witty, a genius game player, and a total legend, and she gets overlooked for Anne Robinson? I mean, Anne was surely a household name at one point, but she was a total fad on a show that barely lasted a year. And who on Earth says "You are the Weakest Link" anymore anyways?
Also, I love Meredith Viera to death and I wouldn't want anyone else hosting Millionaire right now, but seeing as we just devoted 20 minutes on *last week's* special to what a great person she is, rehashing it again for 20 minutes tonight just seemed a lot like overkill.
It's usually impossible to score more than $700 in the main game of Body Language, but thanks to a puzzle that the 4 celebrities all whiffed on, an extra $250 was rolled into the playoff puzzle, making it worth $500. Lucy and Isabel got it and with $350 already in their account won $850. I suppose then the $950 would be the highest possible score that could be earned in the main game?
Not too many Spelling Bee contestants miss all three grocery items in the card earning portion of the game. Today's contestant did just that, and on her second card happened to have one of the two "CAR" cards, beating 15-1 odds. She seriously debated taking the $1000 before deciding to play on. Instead she gets a Chevrolet Aveo. Hmm. Is that worth $1,000?
Today's PYL rerun was an all-time classic. The episode where a total of 3 spins were earned for Round Two. It was a great showing by Peter as he vamped to fill time in what was obviously going to be a short round. This included detailed explanations of the new Double Your Money space, as well as Pick a Corner, which really doesn't need explanation. Before the final, very anticlimactic spin, he also gave details of what would happen in the case of a tie (and with the difference between the two players at $3050, that wasn't likely to happen).
The episode featured the first Pick a Corner hit (to which the contestant nearly had a heart attack), and also the ridiculous rants of old lady Meredith, who was constantly looking for a mythical "trip to China" that never ever existed on the board.
Set #20 is up for grabs with some unusual stuff (does anyone remember Giant Step?), and some regular goodies (TPiR from 1983 anyone?). Click here to see the list.
The GSN documentary train got back on track last weekend with the Game Show Hall of Fame tribute to Millionaire. The interviews really sold it for me--Davies, Regis, Meredith, all were there. I was impressed with the amount of airtime they gave to Meredith; the show is much more well known for Regis, despite his version being off the air for a few years now, so it was good to see Meredith get the attention she deserved.
Couple of things that seemed to be left out -- no mention of the show's Emmy win or Meredith's hosting trophy; that seemed odd. An interview with Chris Tarrant would have been nice, since he was the original host, although he was shown in clips. And no mention of the show's international fame. I think the show holds a record for having aired in the most countries around the world (if not, it's a close #2 to Wheel).
One real annoyance about the special was the *constant* plugs for the new Game Show Hall of Fame that was created for this special. I have no complaints about the idea of such a Hall, but they really seemed to be over-selling it to the viewer. I lost track of how many times I heard the phrase "And that's why Millionaire is being inducted into the Game Show Hall of Fame", complete with the GSHOF logo flying all over the screen. Even more curious was that these shout outs seemed to happen smack in the middle of a segment in the special. It was sort of jarring and was the only detraction from an otherwise high-quality production.
One other question I had to ask. Assuming the GSHOF is going to be an ongoing series on GSN, why was Millionaire the first inductee? I can't think of a more recent show that would be in such a Hall (except, sigh, Deal or No Deal), and it's common practice in the life cycle of a Hall of Fame to start with the earliest inductees first. But maybe I'm just too old fashioned.
Richard Hatch's idiotic fall from fame is old news now, but it was just honored as one of the 101 Dumbest Business Moves on cnn.com this week. Included is a surprisingly hilarious quote from a lawyer:
Says prosecutor Eileen O'Connor, "Our nation's federal tax system is not a reality show to be outwitted. It is a reality, period."
Seeing double? Nope, it's just that the last two Deal or no Deal episodes have been carbon copies of one another. Once again, perfectly good deals are passed up for ridiculous gambles (that really couldn't offer much more money anyways) and a contestant ends up losing everything.
I got a lot of comments on an earlier post saying something along the lines of "Well at least it was entertaining" and "You can't fault their guts", but I just don't agree with that whatsoever. I don't think it's a good example to show people throwing money around like it means nothing. Yes it's house money, they're not going to go into debt by playing the game, but this show offers people a great opportunity. Given the total lack of skill involved, it pretty much is the game show version of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". And a lot of these contestants come with their own sob story too.
But the strategy these last two contestants has employed would be akin to one of the families on Extreme Makeover taking their new house and burning it to the ground. Even if you don't get the biggest offer that is given to you during the game, there's no shame in taking it. But I'm sorry, guts or no guts, I don't think their is anything particularly heroic about acting like an idiot on national television and throwing good money away.
Today's contestant yakked on an on about her dream of opening an animal shelter. There's a good deed right there. She could have definitely worked towards that with some of her many offers north of $20,000. But where does leaving with $425 get her? And I'm sorry, I wasn't with the models and audience members oohing and awing and feeling sorry for her, because in the end, she made a decision that greed was a little more important than her dreams.
What a fantastic Deal or no Deal tonight. At first I felt bad for the poor woman; she had two big cases left and two to open out of 7, usually good odds, but she got screwed.
But then, all reason went out the window as she continued to play on...and on...passing up decent offers north of $20,000. And then she blew it all. I may be reading more into this than I should, but watching games like this reminds me of those people that go to Vegas and lose thousands of dollars and think they can win it back, only to lose thousands more. It just makes the person look like they have a problem with gambling, and it's accentuated so much more on this show because the contestant gets to play so long. You rarely saw too many people on Press Your Luck act this stupidly, which is about the only show I can compare this to in terms of gambling potential.
The ironic thing is, after gambling tens of thousands of dollars away earlier in the game, she neglected to play the double or nothing game at the end with her whopping $1,000 winnings. Where was that sense earlier in the game??
Today GSN cycled back to the early 1984 episodes of Press Your Luck. The fans on the GSN board were hoping for a continuation from the late 1985 point onwards, but I was secretly hoping for them to somehow get access to the first episodes of the show from 1983. They were so bad they were good. Completely unpolished, terrible edits everywhere, but still gold. In comparion, the 1986 episodes saw most of the board values slashed in a budget saving move as the show moved to 4pm (and consequently fell off the daytime radar).
The one good thing about the early '84 episodes is we always start off with the Ann episode, immortalized in two different clip sequences in later shows. She was nervous as all get out, hands shaking as she spun, and ultimately wound up losing to Richard (whose $4000+ in winnings paled in comparison to the $100K he won as the first tournament winner on $100,000 Pyramid).
A lot of classic Wheel fans (like myself) are big fans of Susan Stafford, so it was nice to find out today she has her own webpage:
http://www.susanstafford.org
Interesting items on the page:
*Pictures of Susan with Barry Goldwater, Jr. *Information on how to hire Susan for motivational speeches, including topics like "How To Build Your Immune System"
Normally I wouldn't write a post about the advertising that appears on my website. I don't really endorse most of it. It's mostly silly incentive offers for "free" items that really require you to sign up for like, 20 credit cards.
However one of those incentive ads that just popped up when I made my last post has me cracking up. The text says "Should Bush legalize gay marriage?" and has a picture of Bush in a tux in the arms of his new happy gay husband. For some reason that is hilarious.
The latest GSN doc, Game Shows Greatest Moments (or whatever it was called) was probably the weakest of the series so far. Given how great the other 3 were, that still means it was quite watchable.
At this point we may have exhausted the gamut of funny/surviving/good video quality bloopers out there, but that's probably thanks to the 10+ blooper shows we've had in the last 5 years.
This particular special leaned a bit too much on Dating Game and Newlywed Game and even most of those were clips I'd seen already. What I did like was that it wasn't specifically a blooper show and they mentioned some of the "positive" moments in game show history, namely Ken Jennings and Thom McKee. But they could have probably extended that to some other big winners, like Norma from Card Sharks and Michael Larsen, both of which are obviously in their library.
I wasn't keen on Chuck's involvement in the show. Not because of him specifically, but because they had him interjecting a little comment about almost every individual clip. It was kind of overkill.
Overall the documentary series remains more than strong and I'm looking forward to the upcoming installments.
I normally blow right by the ticket plug on TPiR but I watched it today. I'm glad to know they've gotten rid of that ridiculously lame self-addressed stamped envelope option (although those ticket plugs were legendary). But the instructions on how to get to the CBS.com ticket website seem a bit overcomplicated. You know it's too difficult when they have to give a step by step instructional video of how to get there. Why didn't they just create a website with a simple url like www.ticketstpir.com (still available) or something that gets you right there, rather than having to navigate through the hokey CBS main site?
Also noticed on today's show that Bob considered Plinko "a win" even though the contestant only hit the $10K slot once. Is that really all it takes?
And continuing our streak of bizarre final (Bob) season moments, Bob spent a minute before the 4th IUFB cutting some woman's hair, although it was for a good cause.
I think tonight might have been the best episode of 1 vs. 100 yet. Not only did we have a contestant finally use his helps perfectly (and win a fortune in the process), we had some absolutely hilarious mob members. My favorite had to be the Child Geniuses who were immediately kicked out for the most part. The drag queens from the first game were great too. Kudos to the casting department on the show.
I enjoyed GSN's best hosts documentary from the last weekend. Mainly because I thought they got it right for the most part. You can't please everyone and obviously there were some people who thought it was flawed. Here's where I think they went wrong and where they went right.
Right:
Bill Cullen - Thank God they got him in there.
Chuck Woolery -- Could be a controversial choice, but there's a reason he's there. 30 years of hosting, still a household name, and "2 and 2" cinches it. If we think outside the game show super fan world, this guy would be named by casual fans everywhere when asked to name a famous host. Not to mention the fact that he's a walking blooper tape and can ad lib better than almost anyone.
Wrong:
Only one guy, and that's Regis. Millionaire is an instant classic, but in the long run his flirtation with game shows only lasted 4 years total. If he'd had a few other shows under his belt it would have made sense.
To replace Reeg? Hmm, it would have to be Dick Clark, all those years of Pyramid, he was a total pro, despite being totally unlikeable off camera. Peter Marshall would have been my #11, but he really did kind of end up being second banana to the stars on Squares, so I don't think that helped him much.
Who I wouldn't have added to the list? Tom Kennedy. Maybe I'm reflecting more on his final shows, but on Body Language and Price he just seemed lost all the time, even on Password Plus as well. He did nail Split Second though, and that's a super tough quiz. But in the long run he wouldn't beat out Dick.
And did someone mention Hal March? Man, it's hard to put a guy on a serious list of best hosts ever when his only big show was a total sham.
I've been watching the GSN reruns of Child's Play for a few months now, and I can honestly say, no contestant has ever gotten a definition given by Sascha Segan wrong. He's just frighteningly accurate. Like, he's reading them out of a dictionary. Basically they throw him in for the 3rd clue when they're desperate to give the word away. Way to go kid!
Of course he's now like 30 or something, and has his own webpage: www.saschasegan.com
Total whacko moment on today's Press Your Luck rerun. The contestant who wound up finishing in 3rd place hit Virgin Islands early in Round 2, worth $3200+. Not really relevant until the very last spin, where the guy playing catchup has one spin left and needs, coincidentally, $3200 to win. Somehow he manages to hit Virgin Islands, which has popped up on the board for a second time during the show (in the same location, mind you). Only this time it's worth just $2800 and he loses by $400. What the heck?
Every time I think Price has gotten too boring, an episode like today's comes along and totally proves me wrong. We had a near meltdown in the 2nd Showcase Showdown with ties galore and Bob nearly forgetting to give a contestant a chance at a 2nd spin. Then said contestant makes the showcase and goes nuts thinking she's won, only to realize she's over by $181. Good stuff.
Body Language judging hit a new low on today's episode with this puzzle:
A nurse will hold your wrist to take this thing that races when you are on a pogo stick or a roller coaster.
Contestant guesses "Heart".
DING DING DING! As "Pulse" appears on the screen.
Now, I'm all for accepting forms of the word, which ironically they seem to do or not do at random. But pulse and heart are not the same thing. Especially in that context. A nurse does not take your heart.
On tonight's Deal or no Deal, which was pretty much a bloodbath as far as contestants were concerned, I kinda felt bad for the first guy. He got a pretty crap board for one thing, although I would have pulled out at $40K, which turned out to be his highest offer. I guess I was pulling for him because he was an avowed game show fan, although they chose not to go into that whatsoever. The girl with the neon green fetish from last month though, they practically did a thesis on that, so go figure. Maybe it turned out his favorite game show ever was Your Number's Up and they just didn't have an angle on that.
It looks like we are now into Price episodes that were taped following Bob's retirement announcement. I usually blast through the non-game portions with my Tivo, so has anyone out there noticed if any contestant (or Bob himself) has made mention of his leaving in June? Would be interesting to hear.
