|
Post by Flowgli on Sept 25, 2020 12:00:09 GMT -5
Hello, kids! Flo here, and welcome to the year seven premiere of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. The previous year of Game Show Corner has been a good one for me. With the change I made to it from being a weekly series to a monthly series, I was able to not only have future editions prepared ahead of time, but also do other things, like have a spin-off series prepared. As I mentioned in the year six finale, the spin-off series is called Game Show Graveyard, and in that series, I will be covering unsold game show pilots. That series will premiere next month. But getting back here to Game Show Corner, I’ve decided to kick off year seven with a Nickelodeon game show. So, get ready to Get The Picture! Get The Picture aired daily on Nickelodeon from March 18, 1991 to December 6 on that same year, lasting two seasons. It was hosted by Mike O’Malley, who later hosted another Nickelodeon show called Nickelodeon Guts. It was also announced by Henry J. Waleczko—or just Henry J.—who was also the announcer of season two of another Nickelodeon game show called Think Fast, which I already covered back in year three. Speaking of Think Fast, season two of that show and Get The Picture were taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, with Get The Picture replacing Think Fast after the run of that show ended entirely. It was also created by Marjorie Cohn, developed by Gwen Billings and Herb Scannell, packaged by MTV Networks, and the music was composed by Dan Vitco and Mark Schultz, with the latter also having produced the show. The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of two kids. The two teams wear jumpsuits, with team one wearing orange jumpsuits and team two wearing yellow jumpsuits. The two teams play two rounds. In each round, hidden images are placed on the game board, which is split into sixteen monitors on a 4x4 grid. With each image that comes into play, a clue to that image is given. Then, the teams are asked questions. What the teams have to do is earn control of the board by buzzing in and answering the questions. Each time a team buzzes in and answers a question correctly, they get control of the board; but each time a team buzzes in and answers a question incorrectly, the other team gets to answer that question. The team who has earned control of the board then must choose numbers to reveal a part of the image, and they have the option of whether or not to guess the image afterwards. If the team in control chooses to guess the image, they are either credited for the image if their guess is correct or penalized if their guess is incorrect. The team, however, has only a few seconds to choose whether or not to guess the image, but they are not penalized for not making their choice in time. After a question is not answered correctly by either team or a team either makes an incorrect guess on an image, chooses not to make a guess on an image, or doesn’t make their choice of whether or not to guess the image in time, another question is asked. Also, after an image is correctly guessed, another image comes into play. At one point in the game, Mike asks a ridiculously-complicated math question that’s impossible to solve. When he reaches the end of the question, he takes a turn in a completely different direction by asking a different and ridiculously-simple question. Each round ends when time runs out. If time for a round runs out while an image is in play, all the remaining portions of the image are revealed, one at a time, and the teams can buzz in as many times as they like. At this point, there’s no penalty for making an incorrect guess on the image. In season one, each question and image is worth money. In season two, each question and image is worth points. The values of the questions and images are the same in both seasons, though. During the two rounds, the penalty for making an incorrect guess on an image is that a team that has done so loses $20/points. Also, in season two only, a toss-up image is played before round one begins, with portions of it being revealed, one at a time, and the team buzzing in with a correct guess on it scoring 20 points. Round one is called “Connect The Dots”. In this round, each image that comes into play has a series of dots that represents something or someone on the board. Each portion of the image is numbered, and each time a team answers a question correctly, they score $20/points, and they get to choose a portion of the image by number. Then, all the dots in the chosen portion are connected, and the team in control of the board has the option of whether or not to guess what the image is. Each image guessed correctly in this round is worth $50/points. Round two is called “Dots”. In this round, twenty-five numbered dots are on the corners of the screens on the board, and all questions asked in this round have either two, three, or four correct answers. When a team buzzes in to answer a question, they must give the required number of correct answers before giving an incorrect answer or running out of time in order to score and earn control of the board; if not, then the other team gets to supply the remaining correct answers to the question. Each time a team answers a question correctly, they score $40/points, and they form as many lines on the board as there are correct answers in that question. The team in control of the board forms a line by choosing two dots that are next to each other, either vertically or horizontally, such as 12 to 17, 17 to 18, and 18 to 13. As soon as four lines are formed around one portion of the image completely, that portion of the image is revealed, and the team in control of the board has the option of whether or not to guess the image. If a portion of the image is not revealed after all the earned lines are formed, the option of whether or not to guess the image is not given to the team in control of the board, and another question is asked immediately. Each image guessed correctly in this round is worth $75/points. During the game, there are Power Surges hidden in a few portions of images. Each time a team uncovers a Power Surge, they play a mini-game that involves guessing images. In season one, there are two Power Surges in “Connect The Dots” and one Power Surge in “Dots”, with the Power Surges in “Connect The Dots” being verbal games played at the team area, and the Power Surge in “Dots” being a physical game played at center stage. In season two, there are two Power Surges in both rounds, and they all are verbal games played at center stage, with the team standing behind a switch-like railing or a podium with a telestrator and an electronic pen—depending on what game is being played—with these props handled by stagehands. There are many different mini-games in the Power Surges, but they all involve guessing images, and the differences between each mini-game aren’t so big. So, because of this, I’m not gonna make a list of the many mini-games and provide detailed descriptions of those mini-games, but I’ll give brief examples of what those mini-games include. The mini-games are usually played within a time limit of 20 or 30 seconds. The games in the Power Surges include solving a rebus, guessing what all the images in a set have in common, guessing an image that’s blocked by stuff that gets removed a bit at a time, playing a Simon-style game with a set of three images that rhyme without making a mistake, guessing images that are shown through randomly-appearing handprints, guessing images of celebrities whose faces are shown in half and mirrored, guessing images of celebrities whose faces are shown in corners and mixed up, guessing images that start off distorted and get more cleared up as time goes by, guess images that start off zoomed in on and get more zoomed out as time goes by, guessing images that fit in a category, finding images of a character called “Chiphead” and circling them, drawing an image for a teammate to guess, and revealing parts of an image on a 3x3 grid by tossing rings at numbered capacitors and resistors, tossing microchips at three-sided flipping panels, playing shuffleboard with large floppy disks, or putting golf balls, and guessing that image afterwards. Okay, that’s enough. That sure is a lot of mini-games in the Power Surges that I have just briefly explained in the best way that I can. Each Power Surge is worth $20/points in “Connect The Dots” and $40/points in “Dots”, with an actual portion of the image revealed on top of that, especially in “Connect The Dots” instead of the dots connected in that portion. The team that has just played the Power Surge scores the money/points and gets the option to guess the image if they succeed, but if they fail, the money/points and the option to guess the image goes to the other team. After the two rounds, the team with the highest score wins the game and advances to the bonus round called “Mega Memory”. If the game ends in a tie, one more image comes into play, with the rules from when time runs out in a round while an image is in play in effect. In season one, both teams keep their money, with a house minimum of $100. In “Mega Memory”, the winning team is shown a 3x3 grid of nine numbers ranging from one to nine, and behind each number is an image. The team is shown all the images behind the numbers for ten seconds before they get covered back up. All the images fit into a theme, which is announced by Mike before the images are revealed. The team then gets up on a giant number keypad, and they are given clues to the hidden images, one clue per image. The two members of the team take turns answering clues. On each clue, the team member in turn chooses an answer that they think is correct by pressing its corresponding number key, which reveals the image, while their teammate helps out by pointing out which key has the correct image corresponding to it. If a clue is answered correctly, the team is awarded; but if it’s answered incorrectly, it’s read again later if there’s still time left on the clock. The team has to answer all nine clues correctly within a time limit—45 seconds in season one, and 35 seconds in season two—in order to win the bonus round. The first six correct answers are worth $100 each—with each team member receiving the full amount in season one, and the two team members splitting the money in season two—while the last three correct answers is worth a prize each, with each prize won more valuable than the previous one, and the third and final prize won being the grand prize, which is often, but not always, a trip. And that’s Get The Picture. It’s got a good format involving buzzing in and answering questions in order to uncover portions of images and guessing what those images are, but I think a 4x4 grid for images is too much. Shouldn’t the game board be a 3x3 grid instead? After all, every image has been guessed correctly after less than half the spaces are chosen, that is, before time for a round runs out. Five or six, at most, very rarely seven. The Power Surges do add some variety and a great number of energy to the game, whether they’re verbal games or physical games. Without the Power Surges, the game on its own would be kinda dull. The scoring is messed up, though. The values of the questions are $20/points in “Connect The Dots” and $40/points in “Dots”, and the values of the images are $50/points in “Connect The Dots” and $75/points in “Dots”. Shouldn’t the value of the images in “Dots” have been $100/points to keep the scoring consistent? You know, have all the values in “Connect The Dots” doubled in “Dots”? Or even better, since each team’s scoreboard holds up to three digits anyway, they should’ve had the values in “Connect The Dots” be the values in “Dots” and the values in “Connect The Dots” being half those values. As in 10 for each question and 25 for each image. And the values of everything in the game should’ve always been points, because even as they are, the values aren’t good enough to be dollar values, not even in season one. The Power Surges in each round are each worth the same value as that of a single question in that round, so that’s good, and that should stick, no matter what changes anyone can come up with in the scoring. The penalty for making an incorrect guess on an image during a round just adds to the sloppiness in the scoring. In both rounds, a team loses $20/points for making an incorrect guess on an image. The values of everything else are not the same in both rounds, so why is it the case for the penalty? Come to think of it, with the values of the questions and the images as they are in both rounds, there shouldn’t be any penalty; I just think that the additions of the penalties makes the scoring kinda disjointed. Man, I’ve talked about the scoring a lot more than I probably should. But if the scoring wasn’t so complicated, I wouldn’t even have this much of a problem, to begin with. Continuing on. Going back to the Power Surges, those are almost always hidden behind any of the four central portions of an image, and those portions of an image are almost always chosen first. I get the feeling that the people behind this show actually planned the Power Surges to always be found that way. They should’ve had the Power Surges randomly scattered on the board. The “Mega Memory” bonus round is okay. It’s a memory game that’s played like Eye Guess, though it’s timed, and there are no moments of laughs from the audience not just because of that, but also because of the fact that the clues and the images are not put together for that. All that’s good, and the reducing of the time limit in that round for season two is understandable, since in season one, the round is won a lot more often than not, so they had to come up with a way to make it harder for that round to be won so that would no longer be won so easily. Of course, with that change in that round, there have been teams who only won some money and didn’t make enough correct matches to win any prizes. Speaking of cash and prizes won in this round, it’s just a bit messed up that the first six correct answers are each worth money and the final three correct answers are each worth a prize. They should’ve done one or the other; it would’ve made more sense to do that. The prizes are good for the time, but in some episodes, the grand prize is a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, which I find to be a problem, because that’s exactly where the show was taped. This was the case for season three of Make The Grade, which I already covered in the year three premiere, and there are other Nickelodeon game shows I haven’t covered that were taped there and had a trip there as the grand prize. It’s really ridiculous for any game show to have a prize played for being a trip to where that show is taped. There’s also some inconsistency about how the “Mega Memory” bonus round is won. In some episodes, Mike would read the clue to the last image remaining, and in others, he would just tell the winning team to press the numbered key corresponding to that image. Really, what is up with that? There are also even times when the winning team would be told that they have won the grand prize without even making the last correct match needed. The set and the music package, though, are really good, and they all fit the theme of what the show is about. I like the changes that they made to the set for season two, even though it isn’t that much, such as the colors being brighter and the buzzers being large buttons instead of keyboard-like buzzers. There are a few special episodes of this show. One is a celebrity episode featuring stars of Nickelodeon shows Welcome Freshmen and Clarissa Explains It All playing for charity, with Chris Lobban and Jocelyn Steiner of Welcome Freshmen on the orange team, and Sean O’Neal and Melissa Joan Hart of Clarissa Explains It All on the yellow team. Another is an episode where the game is played by two sets of twins, with twin brothers on the orange team and twin sisters on the yellow team, and some of the questions asked in this episode are twin-related. One more is a rap-themed episode, where Mike and Henry J. try to be hip—and fail—and some of the questions are related to rap and hip-hop music. Adding rap to game shows is a really lame move and a desperate attempt to be relevant and hip with the younger crowd. The biggest example of this is when the dragon and dragon slayer rap in a later weeks of the 1990 revival of Tic Tac Dough, and we all know how that turned out. In the case of Get The Picture, though, at least the use of rap is only done for one episode and not a huge chunk of the show’s run, and it’s done as a special episode and not a desperate attempt to be relevant and hip with the kids, whom this show is intended for. This show had international adaptations in the UK and the Netherlands. The UK adaptation is also called Get The Picture hosted by Peter Simon, and the Dutch adaptation is called Snap Het. I could only find very short clips of these International adaptations, so not much in terms of gameplay is shown. From what I got from those clips, though, they seem to have the same general idea, but the gameplay isn’t exactly the same as in the original US version. Okay, I’ve said all that I had to say about Get The Picture. Now, I know I already talked about this at the start of this edition, but I have a spin-off of Game Show Corner that will be premiering next month called Game Show Graveyard. That spin-off will have a Halloween theme to it. So, because of that, and because of the fact that Game Show Corner is still a monthly series, I’m gonna be celebrating Thanksgiving a month early here on Game Show Corner by covering a food-themed game show. Join me next month, and I’ll share with you guys what that show is and what it’s about. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Oct 30, 2020 12:03:14 GMT -5
Hey, people! This is Flo, and welcome to this month’s of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Earlier this year, a food-related show called Hot Ones got a game show spin-off called Hot Ones: The Game Show. It airs weekly on TruTV. However, this was not the first time that a food-related show got a weekly game show spin-off. Back in 2003, a game show spin-off of a food-related show called Unwrapped premiered, and it’s called Trivia Unwrapped. Trivia Unwrapped aired weekly on Food Network from August 25, 2003 to March 8, 2004. It was hosted by veteran game show host Marc Summers, who, four months prior to the show’s premiere, just finished hosting another game show called WinTuition, which I already covered back in year one. It was also announced by veteran game show announcer John Cramer and packaged by Get Real Entertainment and High Noon Productions. The game is played by three contestants, and they are each started off with 500 points. The three contestants play three food-related rounds, with each round having contestants score points for correct answers. Round one is called the Fast Food Round. In this round, a video clip from an episode of Unwrapped is shown to the contestants. In that clip, Marc is heard providing “fast food facts” about the food that is the subject of that clip. After the clip ends, the contestants are asked ten questions about what they have seen and heard in that clip. Each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer, they score 50 points; but each time they buzz in with an incorrect answer, the other contestants can buzz in and answer that question for those points. There’s no penalty for an incorrect answer in this round. Round two is called the Jambalaya Round. Before the show, one of a variety of games has been chosen to be played in this round. Regardless of which game is played in this round, each correct answer is worth 100 points, with no penalty for an incorrect answer. As I put together this edition, I’ve been only able to find a couple of full episodes and one condensed one on the Internet, and only two of the games played in this round are featured within all those videos. So, I’ll only go into detail about those two of the games for this round. One of the games played in this round is Cast From The Past. In this game, a series of four old commercials are shown, each of which features someone who has later gone on to achieve fame. Before each commercial, Marc reads a clue to the identity of the future celebrity featured in that commercial. While the commercial is shown, the future celebrity in it is pointed out. The contestants each write down the name of the future celebrity in that commercial on a small chalkboard while it’s shown and have ten more seconds after it’s finished to have their guess written down. Each contestant who has written down the correct name scores the points. Another game played in this round is called Chew On These Clues. In this game, five sets of five words or terms that have a food-related common bond are played. Before each set, Marc reads a clue to the correct answer to that set. Then, the five words or terms in that set appear, one at a time. A contestant scores the points if they buzz in with the correct guess on the common bond in that set, but if they buzz in with an incorrect guess, they are locked out for the remainder of that set. Round three is called “Today’s Specials”. In this round, the contestants are shown a board of nine categories—referred to as “today’s specials”, hence the name of the round—each of which is food pun-laden and has three questions. The round is started off with the contestants with the lowest score making the first choice of category. After a category is chosen, a question in it is asked, and the contestants buzz in to answer that question. Each question in this round is worth 200 points. Buzzing in with the correct answer to a question scores a contestant the points, but this time, there’s a penalty for buzzing in with an incorrect answer; each time a contestant buzzes in with an incorrect answer to a question, they lose the points, and the other contestants can buzz in and answer that question. After each question, the contestant who has last answered correctly makes the next choice of category. Also, after all three questions in a category have been played, that category is “sold out”—in other words, no longer in play. One of the questions in this round is a bonus question called the “Blue Plate Special”. If that question is found, and a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to that question, they win a food-related prize on top of the points. This round is played until a triangle dinner bell sounds, meaning that time for this round has run out. After this round is over, the contestant with the highest score wins the game and chooses a food-related prize from a 1950’s-style refrigerator by choosing the fridge or the freezer. The contestant wins the prize inside their choice of part of the refrigerator and advances to the bonus round. The bonus round is called the “Big Pie Payoff”. In this round, the winning contestant spins a wheel that looks like a pie with six slices. Three of the spaces on the wheel have categories on them, while the other three spaces have bonuses that change the round a bit should one of them be stopped on. If the wheel stops on a category, the contestant is asked a series of questions in that category and must answer ten of them correctly within 60 seconds. The questions asked and how they must be answered are explained by Marc before time for the round begins, and all the questions asked in this round are read from a menu. The three bonuses on the wheel are “Lucky 8”, “Choose A Category”, and “Who Wants Seconds?” If the wheel stops on “Lucky 8”, the contestant only needs to answer eight questions correctly within the time limit instead of ten. If the wheel stops on “Choose A Category”, the contestant gets to choose any of the categories on the wheel themselves. If the wheel stops on “Who Wants Seconds?”, the contestant is given 10 extra seconds, for a total of 70 seconds, to answer ten questions correctly. In any case, the contestant can pass on a question if they get stuck and return to it if there’s still time remaining, and answering enough questions correctly within the time limit wins them a grand prize trip, while failing to do so wins them $100 for each question answered correctly. That’s Trivia Unwrapped. It’s an enjoyable food-related game show with a great deal of variety in the gameplay, especially in the Jambalaya Round. The Fast Food round is interesting, and it’s a better version of round one of Hit Man—which I already covered back in year one—since all three contestants get to answer on each question in this round rather than just the first contestant to buzz in. The Jambalaya Round has a good variety of games, even though I wasn’t able to find enough episodes or clips to see more games in that round than I was able to, but the number of questions or puzzles in that round isn’t consistent, as there would be five of these sometimes and four of these other times. And even though the point values in that round are doubled, contestants can score in total up to as much as can be scored in the Fast Food Round or less than that. The “Today’s Specials” Round is good, especially with one of the questions having a prize up for grabs, but depending on what game is played in the previous round, this round doesn’t last long enough to have enough questions played in it or have the prize found in it. The bonus round is standard, with the object of it being that the winning contestant has to answer ten questions correctly within one minute, but the addition of the wheel makes it interesting, especially with some of the spaces on it being special ones that can give the contestant an advantage in winning the grand prize trip. Speaking of which, the prizes overall are good for a game show that aired on Food Network, though I find it ridiculous that money is only awarded if the bonus round is not won. I think the winning contestant should receive their winning score in cash, as the point values in this game is good enough for that. The winning contestant should also use the fridge and freezer options to choose a grand prize trip to play for in the bonus round, the “Big Pie Payoff”, and they should receive a food-related prize as a consolation prize for not winning the “Big Pie Payoff”. Well, I’ve gotten a good game show set for Thanksgiving out of the way. Next month, I’ll be covering a game show that’s not so good. Yeah, this game show that I will be covering can be considered a game show turkey, and since we’re in the fall of 2020, this game show that I’ll be covering will be the very first on here that aired back in the 2010s. The summer of 2010, to be exact. See you on the day after Thanksgiving. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Nov 27, 2020 13:00:16 GMT -5
Hello, my little puppets! This is Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Last month, I’ve gotten a good game show about food out of the way. So, now, we’re in the day after Thanksgiving, and you know what that means! That’s right! The subject of this month’s edition of Game Show Corner is this year’s game show turkey! This game show turkey was around for a short time in 2010. Yes, for the first time here on, Game Show Corner, I will be covering a game show from the 2010s. And to make things really interesting, this game show was given to us by the company who would give us The Happytime Murders eight years later. That’s right! Today, I’m covering a game show called Late Night Liars. Late Night Liars aired on Game Show Network—simply known as GSN at the time—on Thursday nights from June 10, 2010 to July 29 on that same year. It was hosted by comedian Larry Miller and announced by a puppet simply known as The Weasel, performed by Victor Yerrid. This show was also produced and distributed by Henson Alternative, the banner of The Jim Henson Company that specializes in adult content. The game features four puppets as panelists. I’ll go over them before I explain how the game is played. Shelley Oceans - A big-breasted and big-lipped woman who is a parody of Joan Rivers and Shelley Winters, performed by Donna Kimball. William A. Mummy - A mummy who is Shelley Oceans’s ex-husband and a parody of Paul Lynde, performed by Brian Clark. Cashmere Ramada - A pink poodle who is a parody of Paris Hilton, performed by Colleen Smith. Sir Sebastian Simian - A monkey who is a parody of Simon Cowell and a revamp of Joey from an unsold pilot show called Late Night Buffet With Augie And Del, performed by Tyler Bunch. On two episodes, a panelist gets filled in for by a special guest puppet who represents a real-life celebrity. Each special guest puppet is performed by the same person who performs the panelist that that special guest puppet is filling in for. On one episode, the special guest puppet is Mickey Rourke, who is the Nerd Girl from Puppet Up! redressed and has filled in for Sir Sebastian Simian. On another episode, the special guest puppet is Rosie O’Donnell, who is a female Whatnot from The Wubbulous World Of Dr. Seuss redressed and has filled in for Shelley Oceans. That takes care of the puppet panelists. Now, it’s time to go over the gameplay. The game is played by two contestants. The contestants play three rounds, with each round having the puppet panel giving answers to a question in a category and the contestants deciding which puppet panelist is lying or whether a puppet panelist is lying or telling the truth, depending on the round. Each correct guess scores a contestant a random amount of cash. In round one, each puppet panelist gives an answer to a question in a category, with two of them telling the truth and two of them lying. After the puppet panel has given their answers, the contestants each lock in which puppet panelist they think is lying. The puppet panel will make a slow reveal, two at a time, of who is telling the truth and who is lying. Each contestant who correctly locks in with a puppet panelist who is lying scores the dollar value of the question, with that dollar value being revealed at the start of the round by The Weasel, who determines that dollar value based on a random fact. The dollar value of the question in this round always ranges from $500 to $600. Round two is played in the same way as the previous round, except that three of the puppet panelists are telling the truth and one of them is lying, and the dollar value of the question usually, but not always, ranges from $800 to $900. In round three, each contestant chooses a puppet panelist to hear from, with the contestant in the lead going into this round going first. After a contestant chooses a puppet panelist, that puppet panelist gives an answer to a question, and that contestant chooses whether they think that that puppet panelist is lying or telling the truth. If that contestant makes a correct judgment on that puppet panelist’s answer, they get to stop a randomizer—referred to by Larry as the “randomometer”—hidden behind the portrait of that puppet panelist by pressing a button on their podium, and they score the amount of cash from there. The “randomometer” holds up to four digits, and the minimum amount that can be scored from the “randomometer” is always stated to be $100, but the maximum amount that can be scored from it is never stated. The digits on the reels of the “randomometer” are revealed, one at a time, from the ones place to the thousands place. After three rounds, the contestant with the highest score wins the game, keeps their money, and advances to the bonus round called the “Two-Topic Showdown” for a chance to win an additional cash prize. The losing contestant receives a consolation prize—usually a product from Telebrands—and $500 in cash, regardless of their score. Before the final commercial break, Larry usually announces the cash prize to be played for in the “Two-Topic Showdown” to be $10,000, only to be interrupted by The Weasel and told that the cash prize will be increased or decreased by a little for a given reason, such as to $10,004 or $9,993. At least once, Larry has asked The Weasel what the cash prize is rather than announce the cash prize himself. On the episodes that feature special celebrity guest puppets, the cash prize is increased by a lot, with the episode featuring Rosie O’Donnell having $20,000 as the cash prize and the episode featuring Mickey Rourke having $25,000 as the cash prize. In the “Two-Topic Showdown” the winning contestant faces the two puppet panelists who have been left unchosen in the previous round. Each of these puppet panelists has a topic assigned to them and gives a series of statements in that topic, with the two puppet panelists taking turns giving statements. What the contestant has to do is decide if each statement is the truth or a lie. If the contestant makes a correct judgment on eight statements within 43 seconds, they win the announced cash prize; but if they run out of time before eight statements are correctly judged, they win $500 for each statement correctly judged. That’s Late Night Liars, and after one season consisting of eight episodes, it was taken off the air—probably after a few reruns—never to be seen again, and that’s probably for the best. So, after I explained the game, do you think it’s any wonder that this show lasted as short as it did and quickly faded into obscurity after that? I mean, a panel game show with puppets as panelists for an adult audience can work if done right, and this one doesn’t. Each round in the main game has each contestant make only one guess, the “randomometer” isn’t accessed until after a contestant’s guess is made if that guess is correct, and the amounts for the scoring, the top cash prize, and the time limit for the bonus round are random. Now, I know that this game show is a comedy, but comedy game shows don’t make amounts that are important to prizes and gameplay random, not in that way. Apart from that, the comedy in this show isn’t too bad. There’s also a cold opening that shows the stars of the show doing something just before they start doing the show, which I really don’t mind, but there’s also fake commercials that take place just before the show goes into real commercial breaks. It’s really sad that a show that is a comedy shows how desperate it is to be funny. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, which is why it only lasted as long as it did before it was taken off the air for good. I’ll give it credit that the set looks good, the theme sounds good, and the interactions among Larry and the puppets are decent. The gameplay and the numbers could’ve been better, though. What they could’ve done was have each round in the main game have two questions, with each question in that round having two puppet panelists assigned to it, and have each contestant stop a randomizer to determine their dollar value before each question in that round without seeing that randomizer. And the dollar values should’ve been in $50 increments. Maybe have the dollar values range from $250 to $500 in round one, $500 to $750 in round two, and $1,000 to $1,500 in round three. That could’ve been a better scoring. The bonus round is the only part of the gameplay that I think is fine the way it is, except that the time limit should’ve been 45 seconds, and the top cash prize should’ve been just simply $10,000, whether as an additional cash prize or an augmentation to that amount. Even though Late Night Liars had a very short run and was never shown on television again after a few months, a couple of the puppets from that show later appeared on other shows for adults from The Jim Henson Company. Cashmere Ramada and Shelley Oceans appeared in an episode of Neil’s Puppet Dreams called “Dream Bump”, with the latter performed by Allan Trautman. Cashmere Ramada also made appearances on Puppet Up! Either way, she was reprised by Colleen Smith. Okay, that’s it for this year’s game show turkey. Who knows what game show will be considered next year’s game show turkey? Well, I know that next month’s edition will be on Christmas Day! Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time, though, that Christmas would fall on a Friday, and I would release an edition of this series on that day. I did it before on year two with Stumpers! This year, however, I’m gonna do it with the third and—as of this release—final game show adaptation of the board game Trivial Pursuit. Yes, this Christmas, I’m gonna be covering Trivial Pursuit: America Plays. I’m sure looking forward to doing this. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Dec 25, 2020 15:30:24 GMT -5
Hey, everybody! This is Flo, wishing you a Merry Christmas and welcoming you to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. It’s time once again to look into a game show adaptation of a board game called Trivial Pursuit. The first game show adaptation was simply called Trivial Pursuit, which aired on The Family Channel—known today as FreeForm—and was hosted by Wink Martindale. The second game show adaptation was called ESPN Trivial Pursuit, which aired on ESPN and was hosted by Roger Lodge. I covered both of these shows back in year four. Today, I’m gonna be covering the third game show adaptation, and believe me, this is gonna be very interesting, especially considering that one of the companies involved is the same company that produced Peer Pressure—later known as Pressure 2— Pressure 1, and Outrageous!, all of which sucked and I have already covered. Yeah. So, let’s look into Trivial Pursuit: America Plays. Trivial Pursuit: America Plays premiered in syndication on September 22, 2008, replacing Temptation: The New Sale Of The Century on most stations, and it aired until May 22, 2009, with reruns airing until September 18 on that same year. It was hosted by Peter Brady from The Brady Bunch, AKA Christopher Knight. There was a pilot episode of this show in 2007, and it was hosted by Mark L. Walberg, who is no stranger to this series. It was also produced by Wheeler/Sussman Productions in association with Hasbro and distributed by Debmar-Mercury. The game is started off with three contestants. Throughout the game, not only are the contestants competing each other in scoring different-colored wedges for their tokens, but they are also competing against people across America in adding money to their banks. The people across America send videos of themselves asking questions to the show, and each person who gets their question video played becomes part of America’s team. Each time a contestant answers a question correctly, not only do they get a wedge for their token, but they also add money to the studio bank. However, each time a contestant misses a question, the money is added to America’s bank. At the end of the show, whichever side has the highest bank wins all the money in that bank, while the other side wins nothing. The three contestants play in round one. In this round, all the questions asked come from six categories, and each question has a dollar value ranging from $250 to $500 in $50 increments, depending on the difficulty of that question; the more difficult the question, the more money it’s worth. Unlike the other two game show adaptations of Trivial Pursuit where the categories are chosen verbally by the contestants, the categories in this one are chosen at random by a computer referred to as the randomizer. After a video of a question being asked by a person across America has finished playing, the contestants get to buzz in and answer that question. If a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer to that question, not only do they get a wedge from the relevant category added to their token and get the money added to the studio bank, but they also get control of the round, at which point they get the first shot at answering each question without needing to buzz in. But if a contestant, at any time, misses a question, not only is the money added to America’s bank, but the remaining contestants get to buzz in and answer that question for the wedge—that is, if they haven’t earned a wedge from that category yet—and steal control of the round—that is, if another contestant is in control of the round at that point. However, after a question is missed by the first contestant to have attempted to answer it, no money is added to the studio bank if one of the remaining contestants buzzes in with the correct answer to that question, and the value of that question is added to America’s bank for each contestant who attempts to answer it and misses it. The first question of the round is a toss-up question called an “All Play”. If a question is not answered at all by any of the remaining contestants or any of the contestants at all, the value of that question is simply added to America’s bank, and the next question is an “All Play”. The colors of the wedges in this game show adaptation of Trivial Pursuit are blue, pink, yellow, purple, green, and orange. Each wedge color has a set of categories that changes from episode to episode. The categories for each wedge color are as follows: Blue - Places, Geography, The World, Travel Pink - TV, Movies, Entertainment, Hollywood Yellow - People, The Past, History Purple - Celebs, Music Green - Whatever Orange - Best Sellers, Sports/Games, Fashion, Food “Whatever” is a miscellaneous category that is always for the green wedge except on special episodes. More on that later. On the second or third question of the round, one of the members of America’s team is introduced live as the team’s captain before that question is asked. The captain of America’s team makes multiple appearances in the game. The three contestants play this round until one of them has earned three wedges for their token, at which point that contestant advances to round two. After that, the remaining two contestants play the remainder of round one, with the next question being an “All Play”, until one of them has earned three wedges, as well, advancing them to round two. The remaining contestant is eliminated. Round two is called “Hot Pursuit”. In this round, the remaining two contestants each have to answer questions to earn three more wedges for their token in order to complete it. All questions in this round are “All Plays” and worth $500 each, except on some earlier-taped episodes, where each question in this round is worth $1,000. Also, there are no categories in this round, so each correct answer simply earns a wedge for a contestant, regardless of the wedge’s color. The first contestant to complete their token wins the game and advances to the final round. The final round is the “Head-To-Head” round. In this round, the winning contestant faces America’s team alone and must answer up to six more questions, each one in a different category, in order to add increasing amounts of money to the studio bank. The contestant starts at the blue wedge and goes to the pink wedge, the yellow wedge, the purple wedge, the green wedge, and the orange wedge, in that order, and the questions for the wedges are worth $500, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000, respectively. However, the categories are shuffled, and the shuffling of the categories is brought to a stop by the captain of America’s team shouting “Stop!”; this determines the order in which the categories are played. As in the main game, the money is added to the studio bank each time the contestant answers a question and added to America’s bank each time they answer a question incorrectly. After the six questions, whichever side has the highest bank at that point wins all the money in that bank, while the other side wins nothing. If the studio bank is higher, the contestant wins all the money in that bank; but if America’s bank is higher, all members of America’s team splits all the money in that bank equally. If, at any point in this round, one side has an insurmountable lead over the other side, the round ends immediately, and the leading side at that point wins all the money in their respective bank. If this lead is achieved by America’s team, they win all the money in America’s bank, and the remaining questions in this round are discarded. But if this lead is achieved by the contestant, the remaining questions in this round become double-or-nothing questions, and the contestant has the option before each of these questions to go for it and answer it or stop and take the money, with each correct answer doubling the money and giving the contestant the option again, and one incorrect answer immediately ending the round and having the contestant walk away with nothing. That’s Trivial Pursuit: America Plays. After having checked this show out, I can safely say that it’s a big improvement over ESPN Trivial Pursuit and a big improvement over all the game shows that Burt Wheeler and Sharon Sussman previously produced. Unlike all those other game shows that those two produced, this one has a set that actually looks good, a theme music that actually sounds good, sound effects and music cues that actually sound good, and gameplay that’s actually good, though it’s not without any problems. I mean, contestants competing against each other in answering questions asked by people across America who have sent those questions by video and make up a team against the contestants is a good idea, and I like the idea of money being added to the bank for contestants for correct answers and added to the bank for people across America for incorrect answers, with the side with the most money in the bank for them winning all that money and the other side winning nothing. However, the way it’s done here seems unfair and unbalanced. It’s got the three contestants buzzing in to answer questions, gaining and stealing control for correct answers, and all three contestants getting to answer each question. Those are all the problems that are had in round one. Round two is less problematic, since there are only two of the contestants playing in it, and all the questions asked in it are toss-ups. Either way, having money added to America’s bank for each contestant who misses a question and not having any money added to the studio bank for a correct answer after the first contestant who has gotten a shot at that question misses it is just plain unfair. If this is the direction that they’re gonna go, I think it’s best that all the questions in round one should be toss-ups, just like in round two, and have only the contestant who buzzes in first get to answer on each question in both rounds one and two. Actually, what’s even better is that there shouldn’t be any buzzing in at all, and they should instead just have the contestants take turns answering the questions in those rounds, with only the contestant in turn getting to answer a question. That would’ve worked much better if they’re gonna have each correct answer adding money to the studio bank and each miss on a question adding money to America’s bank. I don’t mind categories being randomly selected in round one, but I would’ve actually liked it if that was done by the contestants and not by a computer, as I’d like for contestants to randomly determine their own fate. The final round is pretty much as unbalanced as round one. It’s got the round ending immediately if America’s team has an insurmountable lead over the winning contestant, and it’s got all the remaining questions in the round being double-or-nothing if the winning contestant has an insurmountable lead over America’s team. I know that it’s always the contestants who should be rooted for, no matter what game show it is, but it’s rather strange that there’s a chance that the winning contestant can win a whole lot more money than America’s team, considering that there’s only one winning contestant and many members of America’s team, seventeen members at the very least. Also, with the remaining questions in that round at that point being double-or-nothing, there’s a chance that the winning contestant can miss one of those questions, meaning that no money is won by anyone if that happens. Though, more often than not, a contestant who has an insurmountable lead over America’s team chooses not to go for double-or-nothing at all, so what’s the point. And making a choice to go double-or-nothing has nothing to do with Trivial Pursuit, so, again, what’s the point? What they should’ve done was have the order of the cash amounts being randomized instead of the categories, and the order of the cash amounts are not revealed at all during the round after they have been randomized, nor are the banks until after all six of the questions in this round have been answered, and the side with the highest bank after that wins all the money in that bank. That’s all they had to do. There have been special episodes on this show. On one week in November, referred to as “Brady Week”, four of Christopher’s co-stars of The Brady Bunch appeared on the show, each one taking place as the captain of America’s team on a different day from Monday through Thursday that week. Those guests stars on the show that week were Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland, Barry Williams, and Susan Olsen, who played Jan, Bobby, Greg, and Cindy, respectively. On Friday that week, Barry took place as the captain of America’s team again, while Eve, Mike, and Susan played the game as contestants for charity. For the entirety of that week, the category for the green wedge in round one is “The Bradys”, each episode has one category in the final round being The Brady Bunch-related, and all the questions in the Brady Bunch-related categories are asked by that episode’s captain of America’s team. On the week after that, referred to as “Judges Week”, four judges of court shows appeared on the show, each one taking place as the captain of America’s team on a different day from Monday through Thursday that week. Those guest stars on the show that week were Alex Ferrer, Joe Brown, Lynn Toler, and Cristina Perez, who were the judges at the time of Judge Alex—which, like this show, was produced by Wheeler/Sussman Productions— Judge Joe Brown, Divorce Court, and Cristina’s Court, respectively. On Friday that week, Petri Hawkins-Byrd, the bailiff of Judge Judy, introduced Christopher the same way any bailiff would introduce a judge—with Christopher wearing a judge robe—and Lynn, Alex, and Cristina played against each other as contestants for charity, while Joe took place as the captain of America’s team again. Also, on Tuesday that week, Petri played the game as a contestant. Finally, on March 10, 2009, Christopher’s wife at the time, Adrianne Curry, appeared on the show as the captain of America’s team, and the category for the green wedge in round one included questions about Christopher and Adrianne. Trivial Pursuit: America Plays replaced the 2007-2008 revival of Sale Of The Century called Temptation: The New Sale Of The Century on most stations. Both shows each lasted one season consisting of 170 episodes and got cancelled due to low ratings. Despite the problems I found with Trivial Pursuit: America Plays, I prefer it over Temptation: The New Sale Of The Century, as that show is more problematic than this one. Okay, I now have covered the third game show adaptation of Trivial Pursuit. I have covered all three game show adaptations of Trivial Pursuit. There’s an unsold game show pilot of Trivial Pursuit, and it’s a completely different adaptation from the ones I covered, and I would cover that unsold pilot episode on Game Show Graveyard if there’s a full episode out there somewhere on the Internet, and all the information on it is accurate, but until then, I’m done with game show adaptations of Trivial Pursuit. Now, this is the last edition of Game Show Corner in 2020. Next month, when we start 2021, I will be covering a spin-off of a classic game show that will have a revival premiering that month. The game show in question is Name That Tune, and the spin-off of that show involves music videos. I’ll reveal it on the first edition of Game Show Corner in 2021. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a Merry Christmas.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Jan 29, 2021 13:00:13 GMT -5
Hello, music fans! Flo here, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. A new revival of Name That Tune premiered on Fox earlier this month. Oh, yes, Name That Tune, the classic game show where contestants play a series of games that involve guessing titles of songs being played live on stage, the game show that Tom Kennedy was best known for hosting. It’s interesting that I get to bring up Tom Kennedy today, since he passed away at age 93 three months ago—actually, four months ago in exactly nine days from now. He will be remembered for hosting several game shows, some of which I already covered here, such as To Say The Least, Big Game, Wordplay, Body Language, 50 Grand Slam, and the ABC run of Split Second. There are other game shows he hosted that I’m considering covering here, such as You Don’t Say!, Break The Bank from Jack Barry and Dan Enright, and Whew! He will be remembered by everyone in the game show fandom for having hosted many shows in the game show world. But getting back to Name That Tune, there was a spin-off of it that aired on VH1 in 2001. Unfortunately, it won’t be as remembered by many people as Name That Tune. The show I’m talking about today is Name That Video. Name That Video aired daily on VH1 from March 12, 2001 to May 18 on that same year, with reruns airing until approximately June 18 on that same year. It was hosted by MTV VJ Karyn Bryant, announced by an unknown male announcer, produced by Ted Kenney, and packaged by Broadway Video and Sandy Frank Entertainment, with Sandy Frank as one of the two executive producers, the other being David Lang. The game is started off with three contestants. The three contestants play round one, and in this round, they face four monitors, three of which each displays a category and an image of a music artist or band, and the other one of which simply displays the show’s title. Each category has five contents. The categories in this round throughout the show’s run are as follows: Spoken Word - The contestants are shown lyrics of a song, and the lyrics are spoken and not sung. The contestants have to name the song in which those lyrics are from. Finish The Phrase - A bit of a song is played and immediately stops before a phrase in the lyrics sung in that song is finished. The contestants have to sing the rest of the phrase in those lyrics. Liner Notes - A clip of a music video is played, and a question pertaining to the song in that music video is asked during the playing of that clip. The contestants simply have to answer the question. Say It Again - A clip of a music video in which lyrics that are impossible to understand are sung is played twice, and the contestants are shown three multiple-choice answers, one of which are the real lyrics in question. The contestants have to choose the real lyrics. Rock Rhymes - A song’s lyrics rewritten to rhyme with the real lyrics are shown and read aloud. The contestants have to give the real lyrics of that song. The contestant in control chooses a category, and all three contestants are given content in that category that pertains to the artist or band shown on to category’s monitor. In most of the categories, the four monitors split away to reveal a large monitor behind them, which reveals content in the appropriate chosen category. All the contents are toss-ups for all three contestants to buzz in on and answer. Each time a contestant buzzes in with the correct answer, they score 100 points, and they get to make the next choice of category; but each time a contestant buzzes in with an incorrect answer, they lose 100 points, and the remaining contestants get to buzz in and answer. After each content, the image of the artist or band in the category just played is replaced with an image of a different artist or band in that category, and a category becomes out of play after all the contents in it have been played. One of the contents in this round pertains to a “mystery artist”, which is called such because the identity of the artist up next in a category is not revealed until after that category is chosen and that content in it has been played. The “mystery artist” content is worth 200 points, with those points still scored for a correct answer and lost for an incorrect answer. This round is played until all the contents in it have been played or a vibraslap sounds, indicating that time for the round has run out. At the end of the round, the contestant with the lowest score is eliminated, while the two contestants remaining advance to round two. The two remaining contestants play round two called “Bid-A-Vid”, based on “Bid-A-Note” from Name That Tune. In this round, the contestants are shown seven categories, each of which serves as a hint of the artist or band. After a category is chosen, Karyn gives a clue to the video in that category. The first choice of category is made by the contestant in the lead at the end of the previous round, and each choice of category thereafter is made by the contestant who has scored on the previously-chosen category. After the clue in the chosen category is given, the contestants take turns making bids on how many seconds of a music video that they like to see and make a guess in. Up to seven seconds of a music video can be shown. The contestants keep making bids until one makes a bid of one second or challenges the other contestant to “name that video”. After the bidding, the contestant who has made the final bid on that music video is shown that music video in the number of seconds from the final bid, and then, that contestant has to name the song in that music video and the artist or band who has sung that song. If both the song title and the name of the artist or band are guessed correctly, the contestant scores a point; but if that contestant makes an incorrect guess, the other contestant scores a point. The scores from the previous round are not carried over to this round, and it’s the first contestant to score three points in this round who wins the game, with their third point having to be earned by a correct guess and not scored by default by an incorrect guess from their opponent. If a contestant makes an incorrect guess while their opponent is at two points, their opponent is shown the maximum seven seconds of the music video and gets to make a guess afterwards. The contestant who wins this round wins the game and advances to the Championship Round. In the Championship Round, the winning contestant is shown ten music videos in 60 seconds. With each music video that comes into play, the contestant has to name the song in that music video and the artist or band who has sung that song. The contestant can pass on a music video if they get stuck, while either doing so or making an incorrect guess moves the contestant on to the next music video, with the music video missed or passed on being returned to if there’s still time remaining. A correct guess on each music video wins the contestant $500, but if the contestant makes a correct guess on all ten music videos before time runs out, they win a Toyota 4Runner and VH1’s 100 Greatest Albums Of Rock And Roll CD collection. That’s Name That Video. This show is not that good of a spin-off of Name That Tune. Round one could actually work very well as a round of an original music-themed game show, but this show is a spin-off of Name That Tune called Name That Video, and some of the categories in this round don’t have music videos and other categories don’t involve naming songs in music videos. Also, with the way this round is structured, there should be more variety in point values instead of just all the contents being worth 100 points except one, which is worth 200 points. Maybe have the first content in each category be worth 100 points and each content in that category worth 100 more than the previous round, and drop the “mystery artist” content to make it work. And there are four monitors for the categories, but only three of those monitors are used. They should have four categories in that round so that all four of those monitors could’ve been used, and also have four contents in each category instead of five in order to save time. The “Bid-A-Vid” round is okay, though they could’ve done better in the writing for the categories and the clues, since they’re all just song titles, most of which have some of the words in them replaced with synonyms. Also, if there’s gonna be a point goal to reach in that round in order to win the game, each contestant shouldn’t have to earn their final point if their opponent makes a mistake, since there’s a list of seven music videos, meaning that the contestants can miss the remaining music videos, resulting in the round ending with neither contestant having reached three points in this round. The Championship Round is the only round in the entire show that I think works just fine. It’s played like Golden Medley in Name That Tune, except that, apart from being shown music videos instead of listening to music being played on stage by a live band, the winning contestant makes guesses and passes without stopping the clock and the song being played each time, they have to get ten in 60 seconds instead of seven in 30 seconds, and they simply skip to the next music video for an incorrect guess and return to the one in which an incorrect guess has been made instead of immediately losing the round. It’s not as difficult as Golden Medley in Name That Tune, but it’s still difficult nonetheless. I’ve found that the Championship Round has been won only five times during this show’s run. Yeah, only five bonus round wins on this show. But hey, with a car and a large collection of CDs being played for, I guess the bonus round on this show should be expected to be this hard. But wait. This show had a budget big enough for a car, a collection of one hundred CDs, and even thousands of dollars in cash, but it didn’t have a budget big enough for a better, nicer set? Yeah, I have to mention that the set looks so cheap that it makes the set for the Donny Osmond-hosted run of Pyramid look like the set for The Price Is Right, even though that version of Pyramid premiered a year after this show got cancelled! The set is bland, dull, barren, and lifeless. With a set like that, the show doesn’t look like it should be a spin-off of Name That Tune. The show looks more like an unsold pilot of a music-themed game show with little relation to Name That Tune. I think I have said all that I needed to say about Name That Video. Next month, I’ll be covering a game show that I first mentioned in the series premiere of this series when I covered Wheel 2000. Yeah, I never thought I’ll be able to cover this show, but I now have my chance after a full episode of it was uploaded recently on YouTube, which I thought would never happen due to its content. I think you know what the show is that I’m talking about, but if you don’t, well, I’ll just tell you it next time on Game Show Corner. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Feb 26, 2021 13:00:12 GMT -5
Hello, you naughty people! I’m Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. I never thought that this game show that I’m about to cover here today would have a full episode uploaded anywhere on the Internet. I really didn’t. But I just so happened to have found it, and I watched it, and I listed this show as one of the game shows for me to cover here. So, yeah. I’m not gonna keep from covering this show any longer. The time to do it is now. The show is Everything Goes!Everything Goes! aired from September 12, 1981 to September 28, 1988, originally airing on Escapade until 1984, at which point it was moved to The Playboy Channel—known today as Playboy TV—where it was known as The All-New Everything Goes!, and remained until the end of its run. It was hosted by comedian Kip Addota, announced by Jim Carson, and the very first game show to be produced by Scott Sternberg in his production company Scott Sternberg Productions. The show was also taped at ABC Television Center in Los Angeles, California. The song “Piccadilly” by Squeeze was used as the show’s theme song. In the show’s opening, the instrumental open and close of the song is played, with a drumroll inbetween for Kip’s introduction. In the show’s end credits, the full song is played. The game is played by two contestants, one a man and the other a woman, both wearing outfits that fit a theme, such as a man dressed as a chauffeur and a woman dressed as a millionairess. The two contestants start off each with an equal number of articles of clothing to be removed. The contestants face a panel of three celebrities, who take turns answering questions asked by Kip. Just like in Hollywood Squares, the contestants take turns deciding whether to agree or disagree with the panelists’ answers to the questions. Each time a contestant makes a correct judgment on a panelist’s answer, they get to remove an article of clothing from their opponent; but each time a contestant makes an incorrect judgment on a panelist’s answer, they get an article of clothing of their own removed by their opponent. The contestant who is getting an article of clothing removed chooses which article of clothing that they like to have removed. In some cases, the contestants go to a bed, where one of the contestants lays down on while having an article of clothing removed by their opponent. Also, if an article of clothing chosen to be removed is a pair of two separate items, both items in that pair have to be removed on the same turn. At one point, the contestant with more articles of clothing still on plays a special round. In that special round, that contestant is introduced to three fully-clothed people of the opposite sex, and they get to take a good look at those people, front and back. Afterwards, those people go behind a wall with three columns of double doors on them. Each column has three sets of double doors on them; the set of double doors at the top reveal a person’s face, the ones in the middle reveal a person’s breasts, and the ones at the bottom reveal a person’s butt. Then, Kip opens the three pairs of doors that reveal the exposed body parts of the three people, depending on their genders. If the male contestant is playing this round, he is introduced to three women and revealed their exposed breasts; but if the female contestant is playing this round, she is introduced to three men and revealed their exposed butts. The contestant is then given three cards with the three people’s names on them, and they have to identify the people from being revealed their exposed body parts by hanging each name card above each column of double doors on the wall. Kip then closes the doors that reveal the three people’s exposed body parts and opens the doors that reveal their faces. If all three of those people are correctly identified, the contestant gets to remove an article of clothing from their opponent. If not, they get an article of clothing of their own removed by their opponent. The game is played until time runs out, at which point the final question is asked. For this question, each panelist gives an answer, one of which is the correct one to that question. Then, the contestant with less articles of clothing still on has the option to play this question or pass it to their opponent. The contestant who is playing this question has to choose which answer is the correct one. Choosing the correct answer wins the contestant the game, while choosing an incorrect answer wins their opponent the game. The winning contestant receives a prize depending on the episode. The prize won for winning the game is a trip in some episodes and $1,000 in cash in other episodes. Also, the winning contestant gets to strip their opponent down to their thong. And that’s Everything Goes! When it comes to game shows that’s all about contestants removing clothes—the stripping games in Dog Eat Dog, which I already covered back in year three, don’t count—I can safely say that this show is a lot better than Strip Poker, which I also already covered back in year three. For one thing, contestants don’t have on layers of a particular article of clothing. For another thing, there are no whistles that contestants can blow at any point in the game. For one more thing, the prize and the right to strip at the end of the game goes to the winner only, though they get to strip their opponent instead of themselves. I’m not gonna say that Everything Goes! is a great game show, because it isn’t, but this show did get right what Strip Poker got wrong. Both of these game shows are done on the cheap, but it’s okay for Everything Goes!, because that show aired on cable back in the 1980s, but Strip Poker aired in syndication back in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. The special round is an interesting addition to the game, as it adds some variety to the game to keep it from being redundant with the taking turns making judgments on panelists’ answers to questions, and it brings out even more laughs and wild cheers from the audience than the basic gameplay alone ever could. Though, the special round is the toughest part of the game. Kip even said so himself. So, because that round is that difficult, you’d think it would cost either contestant two articles of clothing instead of just one. Actually, this brings me to one of the problems I have with this show. The removal of the contestants’ articles of clothing is inconsistent. After each question, one of the contestants gets to remove one article of clothing from their opponent. But in some cases, two articles of clothing get removed at the same turn when they are in a pair, such as boots or ankle strap heels. There’s also a case when a contestant has to remove his gloves to make it easier for him to remove his opponent’s dress, and he never puts his gloves back on. And if a contestant has on jewelry, it doesn’t count as something to be removed. Yeah, I know jewelry and clothes are not the same thing, but they’re both something that can be worn, and so is footwear. And it was stated before the game begins that the contestant with more articles of clothing still on at the end of the game wins, but a contestant actually wins just by winning the final question, which, by the way, makes everything before it in the game entirely pointless. With a question like this, a contestant can have many more articles clothing removed by losing every question before this one and still win the game with this question. That just makes it so unfair and anticlimactic! And I gotta say that the title seems to be misleading. The show is called Everything Goes!, which means that all the clothes worn by a contestant goes. Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case. All jewelry, if any, is kept on, no matter what. Also, the losing contestant is stripped down to their thong, and that cannot be removed at all. I guess having genitals shown would be going too far by Escapade and The Playboy Channel standards. And before you ask, no, unlike other game shows that involve stripping and any nudity like Dog Eat Dog, nothing is censored in this show. This is a game show that aired on channels made solely for adults, after all. In 1983, a compilation of clips of the show from its first two years was released on VHS by Active Home Video. This compilation VHS is entitled The Best Of Everything Goes!, and it has monologue from Kip. Not only was this compilation on VHS, but it once aired on The Playboy Channel during the show’s run. The release of this compilation has been long out of print, and it, along with episodes of the show, has been highly sought after by enthusiasts. Well, that’s all I have to say about a show that I never thought would be possible to cover here. Next month, I’ll be covering another game show that I never thought would be possible to cover here until a full episode was uploaded on YouTube a week and a half ago. This game show is one that aired on Animal Planet and was hosted by the same person who later went on to host the department store run of Shop ‘Til You Drop and, currently, Battle Of The Ages. Would I lie to you like a dog about it? Ha! I think not. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Mar 26, 2021 12:00:18 GMT -5
Hey, there, pet owners...as well as those who don’t own pets. I’m Flo, seeking those who are lying about being “pet professionals” and welcoming you to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Flo, wait! I’ve heard that you’re gonna discuss a game show about pets today. Is that true?Oh, hello, Patch. Yes, that’s true. I wasn’t expecting you to be here today. Well, when I heard that you were gonna talk about this show, I thought I’d join you and talk about it with you, especially since it has what kind of animal we are in its title.Of course. Why am I not surprised that you want to cover this show with me for that reason? That’s just one of the reasons why I want to cover this show with you. The other reason is that you haven’t had a guest here to cover a game show with you in a while.Yeah, you’re right on that. The last time I have a guest here, it was back in year four when Lucky, Cadpig, and Rolly covered Ready...Set...Cook! with me. So, does this mean that we’re gonna cover the show for this month together?Sure, why not? So, go ahead and tell everyone what game show we’re gonna be covering today. Glad to. The game show that we will be talking about today is You Lie Like A Dog.You Lie Like A Dog aired on Animal Planet from January 31, 2000 to December 1 on that same year. It was hosted by future Shop ‘Til You Drop and Battle Of The Ages host JD Roberto, announced by impressionist and stand-up comedian Carlos Alazraqui...or television writer and producer Steve Marmel, created by John Kalsh and Judy Meyers, and produced by J Walking Productions, with portions of it produced by arrangement with Mark Goodson Productions. This show features a panel of three celebrities playing in three pet-related rounds. In each round, each panelist who is successful scores points.In round one, the panel is introduced to three people claiming to own the same pet, with one of them being the real owner of that pet. The pet is on stage with the three people, and JD gives the panel a few facts about that pet. Then, the panel asks the people questions about their everyday lives with that pet and about the facts of the animal that that pet is, with each panelist having 45 seconds to interrogate the people.After the interrogation, the panelists each write down the name of the person who they think is the real owner of that pet on a chalkboard that’s on a paddle that resembles a lid on a large can of pet food. During this, JD gives the panel a few more facts about the pet. The panel reveals their votes for which person they think is the owner of the pet. Then, the real owner of that pet reveals themselves by going over to it, and each panelist who has voted correctly scores 10 points, while the pet receives a month’s supply of quality pet food.In round two, the panel is introduced to two “pet professionals”, one of which is an actual professional at a pet-related career. Each panelist then has 30 seconds to ask the “pet professionals” questions about the pet-related career in question. After the interrogation, an item related to the career in question is presented, and each “pet professional” holds it and explains what it is and what it’s used for. Then, JD himself asks a question related to that career for each of the “pet professionals” to answer, and each panelist asks one of them one follow-up question.The panel then writes down their votes and reveals them in the same manner as in the previous round, and the real “pet professional” reveals themselves by doing something to one the animals related to that career. Each panelist who correctly votes for the real “pet professional” scores 25 points. Round three is called “Animal Charades”, and it is the final round in the entire show. In this round, each panelist is paired up at random with one of the three liars from the first two rounds to play a phrase, name, or title with an animal in it, which has been chosen at random by the panelist themselves. All the answers fit in a specific animal category.Each panelist has 30 seconds to act the answer in order to get their liar partner to guess it, and each panelist who has successfully gotten their liar partner to correctly guess the answer before time runs out scores 50 points and wins their liar partner $200. After three rounds, the panelist with the most points wins the game and receives $500 for an animal charity of their choice.When the show returns from its final commercial break, it ends with the panel volunteering to work with the real “pet professional” from round two at their profession on stage and JD asking the real “pet professional” questions related to their profession about what pet owners should do and shouldn’t do when it comes to the pets related to that profession. So, Flo, is that all there is to this show?Yes, Patch. That’s You Lie Like A Dog. Now, I just have to give my thoughts on this show. It’s a decent panel game show for a cable channel like Animal Planet, especially with it mostly having similar gameplay to that of To Tell The Truth, and I have something to say that relates to To Tell The Truth later. The first round feels more like a game of To Tell The Truth than the second round does, as the panel is introduced to three people in round one and introduced to two people in round two. It’s also nice that we get a good amount of facts about pets and professions related to them from the honest people during the show. The third round, the scoring, and the cash prizes, though, are all not that great. For one thing, the third round had nothing to do with lying; it’s just a game of charades, which actually could’ve worked well as a game show on its own with its animal theme. For another thing, the scoring makes the first two rounds pointless, since round one is worth 10 points, round two is worth 25 points, and round three is worth 50 points. With the scoring like this, round two makes round one pointless, and round three makes rounds one and two pointless. A possible score of 85 points can be achieved, but they could’ve lowered that to a possible 50 points by having the three rounds be worth 10, 15, and 25 points, in that order, in order to make the scoring more fair. Each panelist’s score display holds up to two digits anyway. For one more thing, the cash prizes are low, even for 2000 and for Animal Planet. The winning panelist receives $500 to donate to an animal charity, while each liar gets a chance to win $200 by making a correct guess in round three, but the people telling the truth don’t get a chance to win any money at all. I think that each person telling the truth should’ve received $250 for each panelist who has correctly voted for them and a total of $1,000 if all three panelists have voted correctly for them. I also think that each liar should receive less cash for a correct guess, such as $100, since, well, they’re liars. Finally, I think the winning panelist should receive $3,000 for an animal charity, with that money being split equally if there’s a two-way or three-way tie. Now, at the time this show aired, all the game shows produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman were owned by Pearson Television. To Tell The Truth is, of course, one of those shows, but Pearson Television did not produce You Lie Like A Dog. However, at the end of the show, a disclaimer is shown in the credits, stating that portions of the show were produced by arrangement with Mark Goodson Productions, since a huge element of To Tell The Truth was used in this show. And that’s all I have to say about You Lie Like A Dog. Patch, thank you for joining me in the month’s edition. I’m happy to have done this with you. Of course, there’s the use of the word “pets” that needs to be discussed—Oh, no, Patch. Let’s not have that discussion here. Go to your parents and discuss that with them after I close. Oh, all right.Thank you. Next month, I’ll start going solo again, and on that month’s edition, as well as the edition for the month after that, I’m gonna go back to Game Show Network and the year 2010. Yeah, it’s only been a few editions since I covered a game show that aired on Game Show Network in 2010, and I’m already going back to that channel and that year. But what makes these two game shows different from Late Night Liars is that they’re hidden camera game shows. Yeah, two game shows with one of the weakest game show mechanics will be covered here, and even though this one premiered after the other one, the one I’ll be covering first is the one hosted by veteran game show host Wink Martindale. See you next month for that. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Apr 30, 2021 12:00:14 GMT -5
Hello, game show fans! Flo here, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. If you have been checking out this series on a regular basis, you would know that I covered several hidden camera game shows here, and you would know what I think about game shows like those. Hidden cameras recording scenarios that are supposed to be funny—but actually are not and instead rather cringeworthy—is one of the weakest game show mechanics, if not the weakest game show mechanic. In most game shows that have this mechanic, contestants have to predict the outcome of each scenario, and that makes for very dull gameplay. On the most recent game shows with this mechanic that I covered here, however, both of which were covered near the end of year five, contestants are sent to get unsuspecting people to do some tasks, with each task successfully done rewarding a contestant...or a team, depending on what the show is. For this month’s edition and next month’s edition, I will be covering two more hidden camera game shows, both of which aired on Game Show Network in 2010. Yeah, I’m not kidding. The one that I’m gonna be covering here this month is the second one of them to premiere. Yes, I’m saving the one that premiered first for next month’s edition. And can you believe that the one I’m gonna be covering today was hosted by the legendary Wink Martindale? I know I’m making it sound like it’s a bad thing before I could even get started on covering the show, but this game show is so bad that I find it hard to believe that a very well-known game show host like Wink Martindale hosted it. So, let’s just get this out of the way. The show is Instant Recall. Instant Recall aired weekly from March 4, 2010 to April 22 on that same year on Game Show Network—simply known at the time as GSN—for one season consisting of eight episodes. It was hosted by veteran game show host Wink Martindale, co-hosted by Angela Daun, created by Adam Tyler, Ron Deutsch, and Gary Dawson—the latter being the son of Match Game panelist and Family Feud host Richard Dawson—all of whom executive produced the show with former Punk’d executive producer David R. Frankze, and packaged by Title Card Productions and Game Show Network. Each episode has two games played, and each game is played in a different location in America. The entire cast and crew travels all over the country in a truck, and on each location they stop at, they set up a scenario with hidden cameras where unsuspecting contestants are involved. During the scenario, a contestant or two either watches what’s going on in it or takes part in it. Scenarios in this show include talking to “customers” at a restaurant and applying for a job. When the scenario comes to an end, one of the cast members asks the contestant or pair of contestants “Do you like game shows?”, with that question always being answered “yes”. From there, Wink, Angela, and several other cast members enter, and Wink reveals to the contestant or pair of contestants that they are on a game show, and the set is built on location for the game to be played on. At the start of the game, each contestant is started off with $500, which is theirs to keep, no matter what happens. Then a series of rounds are played for the contestants to win more money. These rounds include answering questions in a speed round, choosing the person pertaining to a fact by letter, choosing the correct poster by letter, and choosing the correct items and putting them in a drawer. Depending on the rounds being played, a contestant can win up to anywhere between $2,500 and $2,750 in cash by playing all the rounds perfectly. After each game, each contestant having just played it explains their experience and thoughts on the show, and all the cast members of the show have all the set pieces and game items loaded back into the truck, getting ready to head on over to another location in America. That’s Instant Recall. Yeah, it may seem impressive to some people, but to other people, myself included, it’s just not a good game show in the least. It’s a hidden camera game show with too much hidden camera and not enough game show, and by that, I mean the hidden camera portions go on for too long, and the game show portions are too short. Each game has up to five or six questions within two or three very short rounds. They might as well not even build the set if the game is gonna be played on a specific location for somewhere around two minutes, three at the most. The cash prizes are low, too. I know each game is very short, but a contestant winning up to somewhere under $3,000 in cash if they play a perfect game still doesn’t seem right. The rounds themselves, though, are not bad. If anything, they can work if they have had enough time and effort put into them. Other things I have a problem with this game show include the bobble head graphic of Wink popping up with some text describing what is going on in a scenario or what is about to happen in it, the hidden camera scenarios not being funny or entertaining in the least, its desperate attempts at being retro, and the way Angela is treated. By that, I mean, this show has an opening in which she was twice simply referred to as “girl” by Wink because he couldn’t think of her name, and it has a closing in which she was left behind and running after the show’s truck after Wink got in and the truck was driven off. In the show’s series finale, instead of going into the truck, Wink saw Angela just finishing up changing a tire or something and asked her if she was done, and Angela lashed out at Wink and walked away, leaving him plain stunned. Going back to the show desperately attempting to be retro, the set and the theme music do have that kind of feel to it. Even Wink came off as desperate when it comes to that, as he refers to the money being played for on this show as “sick money” and has done a promo for the show in which he has done a rap about what the show is all about. I believe that at that point, everyone knows that having rap in game shows, even in promos for them, is a stupid move, and it doesn’t win anyone over. It’s just common sense. I mean, this show was supposed to be Wink’s comeback in hosting game shows after not having hosted one in twelve years by that point, and he and the other people behind this show thought that this was the way to make that comeback? Because if it was, then Wink probably would’ve been better off not having hosted a game show since Debt, which I already covered back in year one. Speaking of Debt, the music cue used on that show when an eliminated contestant received a piggy bank and a savings bond is used on this show when Wink and Angela appeared where a contestant was, with Wink letting that contestant know that they were on a game show. Instant Recall is the kind of hidden camera game show that could’ve had easily been studio-based. Heck, it didn’t even need to be a hidden camera game show, to begin with. It could have videos of people doing random things. It didn’t need to have videos of people in hidden camera scenarios. There were game shows that came after this one that had what I just said it could have and didn’t have what I just said it didn’t need to have. Nickelodeon did something like that with Webheads in 2014, and Judy Sheindlin—yes, Judge Judy herself—created and produced a game show like that called iWitness in 2017. It could’ve been like either one of those game shows, but I guess it’s only a hidden camera game show because Hidden Agenda, the other hidden camera game show that aired on Game Show Network in 2010, wasn’t doing well in the ratings, so they thought that it would be a good move to rush out another hidden camera game show and have it made in a way that they thought would bring in even more viewers and have them more interested in hidden camera game shows. That, of course, was a very bad move, and it didn’t increase the viewer’s interests in hidden camera game shows. If it didn’t work for Hidden Agenda, it wouldn’t work for Instant Recall, and thank goodness it didn’t work for Instant Recall, because I couldn’t take any more of that show. Well, I have gotten Instant Recall out of the way. Of course, next month is when I’ll be covering Hidden Agenda. What are my thoughts on that show? You’ll have to join me in next month’s edition to find out. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on May 28, 2021 12:00:14 GMT -5
Hey, there, you crazy couples! This is Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Last month, I covered a hidden camera game show that aired on Game Show Network in 2010 called Instant Recall. It was so bad; not even Wink Martindale could save it. This month, I’m gonna be covering another hidden camera game show that aired on Game Show Network in 2010, and it came before Instant Recall. Keep yourselves sober, guys. The show that’s gonna be covered today is Hidden Agenda. Hidden Agenda aired weekly from January 14, 2010 to February 25 on that same year on Game Show Network—simply known at the time as GSN—for one season consisting of seven episodes. It was hosted by comedienne Debi Gutierrez, created by Kuperman Productions and Keshet Broadcasting, and packaged by Man House Productions, Sony Pictures Television, and Embassy Row, the latter of which is a production company of Michael Davies, who not only produced this show, but also The Newlywed Game, The Pyramid, and Chain Reaction—including the current run, which premiered this February—all on Game Show Network, as well as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, the current celebrity run on ABC. The game is played by one married couple, with only one half of the couple knowing that they are on the show. The couple’s home has hidden cameras set up everywhere in it. In the game, the half of the couple who does know that they are on the show is given by Debi a series of four tasks to make their unwitting spouse do for thousands of dollars in cash. Often, it’s the wife who is given the tasks to make her husband do without him knowing what’s going on. The first task usually is the running task throughout the entire show and involves the witting half of the couple making their spouse do a certain small thing up to ten times, with each time done worth $200 or $250, depending on the episode. Tasks like this include being kissed and dipped by their witting spouse, spelling words on flash cards using gestures, and hugging their witting spouse. The second task usually involves the unwitting half of the couple doing something a specific number of times—normally three—to win $1,000. On at least one episode, a task like this is the first one. Tasks like this include hitting their unwitting spouse with a pillow, using items on their face for a makeover, and testing different flavors of baby food for their baby. In an episode where a task like this is the first one, the couple wins $1,000 for each time the unwitting half of the couple does that specific thing. The third task involves the unwitting half of the couple doing something specific to win $2,000, or $2,500 on one episode. Tasks like this include turning the man cave into a koala daycare, exercising with exercise balls to a video, and wrapping themselves and their witting spouse in a pig-shaped Snuggie. On one episode, a task like this is not included, leaving the number of tasks to be done in that episode three rather than four. The fourth and final task is split into three parts, with each part worth more money than the previous one. Normally, the three parts of this task are worth $1,000, $2,000, and $4,000, in that order, for a total of $7,000. In one episode, the second and third parts of this task are worth $2,500 and $3,500, respectively, and in a couple of episodes, the maximum amount of money that can be won from this task is more or less than $7,000 when all three parts are successfully completed. Tasks like this include cleaning a birdcage, singing a song to a bird, and dressing up like a bird; changing a diaper, wearing a nursing bra, and acting like a baby; and Eskimo kissing their spouse, eating a chocolate-covered strawberry, and singing karaoke. In some episodes, one or two of the show’s actors enter the couple’s home to take part in this task, posing as the witting half of the couple’s friends or family members. During the show, a couple of the couple’s friends or family members are watching the couple in the game from a laptop. At some point in the show, those two people give their comments on what is going on in the game. The highest possible amount of money that a couple can win is $12,500, which can be achieved by the unwitting half of the couple successfully doing everything in all the tasks, regardless of what the tasks are and how much money everything in all the tasks is. After all the tasks, Debi comes in and surprises the unwitting half of the couple with the news that they are on a game show and how much money they have won. And that’s Hidden Agenda. While no one else thinks so, I think that this show has a better format than Instant Recall. A hidden camera game show where a couple can win thousands of dollars in cash by one half of that couple successfully getting their unwitting spouse to do chores, exercises, and other things that they don’t want to do actually can work. The problem is how it has turned out here. The tasks are basic and uninteresting for the most part, the structure of the tasks is inconsistent, and the maximum amount of cash that can be won is rather random. The maximum amount of cash that can be won is $12,500, which has been won in four of the show’s seven episodes, but as good as that amount of money is for a couple to win, even by GSN and 2010s standards, it’s still random for a possible amount cash to be won on a game show. They should also always have the following structure for every episode: Task One - A task that runs for the entire show and can be done for up to ten times, with each time done worth $250, for a total of $2,500. Task Two - A task that requires to be done once for $1,000. Task Three - A task that requires to be done three times for $2,000. Task Four - A themed three-part task, with the first part worth $1,000, the second part worth $2,000, and the third part worth $4,000, for a total of $7,000. If the couple wins all the money played for, their cash total is doubled to $25,000. All this is all they have to do. And of course, they should make the tasks more interesting. There’s also a lot of times when the unwitting half of a couple is given an alcoholic drink as an incentive by their spouse to do the tasks. That shouldn’t even be allowed in a show like this. It’s just not so good. After seven episodes, Hidden Agenda was cancelled due to low ratings. The show’s ratings were below average for GSN, with those ratings being described by James Dinan from CNN as “ratings woes”. Looks like this show was doomed from the start, even if it was to go with what I just suggested. It’s also bad that this show is compared by an editor for Hollywood Junket to a hidden camera game show that I already covered back in year five called Game Show In My Head, which failed very quickly. Well, I’m done talking about Hidden Agenda. Actually, right now, I’m done talking about shows on GSN, I’m done talking about game shows that aired in 2010, and I’m done talking about hidden camera game shows. Next month is June, which means that the next edition will be the year seven finale of Game Show Corner, and since I began year seven with a Nickelodeon game show from the 1990s, I’m gonna end it with another Nickelodeon game show from the 1990s. Get your game on for it. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Jun 25, 2021 12:17:15 GMT -5
Hey, gamers! I’m Flo, your fellow video adventurer, and welcome to the year seven finale of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. It’s time to hit the arcade while at least one is still running today. Arcades were big in the 1980s, the 1990s, and even the 2000s. Nowadays, they’re not so common, but back then, they were one of the most popular places where kids could hang out and have fun. Now, we’re gonna go back to 1992 and have some fun at the Nickelodeon Arcade, where I will be covering, if you couldn’t tell, Nick Arcade! Stylized as Nickelodeon Arcade, Nick Arcade aired on weekend afternoons on Nickelodeon for two seasons from January 4, 1992 to November 6 on that same year, with reruns airing until September 28, 1997. It was hosted by future You’re On! host and Nickelodeon Tooned In producer Phil Moore, announced by Andrea Lively, created and produced by James Bethea and Karim Miteff in their production company Bethea-Miteff Productions, Inc. and Nickelodeon, and taped at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Florida. Also, the theme music was composed by Dan Vitco and Mark Schultz, with additional music composed by Dean Friedman, and the show was the first in the US to combine live-action with animation using a blue screen, with the first show worldwide being Knightmare in the UK. The show also included custom games designed by Bethea and Miteff and programmed by Curt Toumainian for Saddleback/Live Studios, Friedman for InVideo Systems, and Psygnosis. The game is played by two teams of two kids, with one team in yellow and the other team in red. The two teams play two rounds. At the start of each round, one member of each team play against each other in a face-off for points and control of a character called Mikey, the Video Adventurer. In the face-off, the two contestants in it play against each other on a video game for 30 seconds. The game for the face-off is played in both rounds, with the contestants not playing it in round one playing it in round two. All the games for the face-off are custom games implemented on Amiga computers. Some of the games for the face-off are played similarly to Pong, such as Brainstorm, Battle Of The Bands, and Star Defenders. Some of them are shooter games, such as Meteoroids and Laser Surgeon. And some of them are side-scroller games, such as Crate Rangers, Jet Jocks, and Post-Haste, all of which have appeared in season two only, with the latter game inspired by Paperboy. After time runs out, the contestant with the highest score in the face-off game scores points for their team and gains control of Mikey. If there’s a tie score at the end of the face-off game, a video game-related question is asked, with the team buzzing in with the correct answer scoring the points and gaining control of Mikey. Mikey is placed on one of eighteen squares on a 3x6 or 6x3 grid map of an area of one of eleven specified locations in “Mikey’s World”. One other square on the map is the “Goal”, which teams must reach Mikey to by moving him one square at a time. Teams can move Mikey up, down, left, or right, but they can’t move him diagonally. The rest of the squares contain various hidden surprises. Four such surprises are collectively referred to as “The Four P’s”, one is an enemy, and one is a “Video Challenge”. After the team in control of Mikey chooses a direction in which he can go, he moves to the square in that direction, and whatever is hidden in that square is revealed. The locations in “Mikey’s World” are a station that launches Mikey to outer space called Cape Cosmos, a desert simply called the Forgotten Desert, an underwater environment called the Specific Ocean, a place where Mikey lives simply called Mikey’s Neighborhood, a portal to the past and future of Mikey’s Neighborhood simply called the Time Portal, a shopping mall in Mikey’s Neighborhood called We Got’Emall, a jungle called the Volcano Jungle, a medieval area called Camelittle, a town in the Wild West called Slurpy Gulch, a haunted town called Creepyville, and a cove called Pirate’s Cove. Mikey is in the same location for both rounds, but he is in a different area of that location in each of the two rounds. Examples of areas in the locations include the Sunken Ship in round one and the Aqua City in round two if Mikey is in the Specific Ocean, the Stinky Sphinx in round one and the Lost Pyramid in round two if he is in the Forgotten Desert, Deep Space in round one and Planet X in round two if he is in Cape Cosmos, the Murky Swamp in round one and the Haunted House if he is in Creepyville, and the Plaza in round one and the Atrium in round two if he is in We Got’Emall. Each location has an enemy hidden somewhere. If the team in control of Mikey directs him to a square in which the enemy is hidden, that enemy appears and does something to Mikey, and control of Mikey passes over to the other team. The enemies in the game are as follows: Hammerhead Shark - In the Specific Ocean and Pirate’s Cove, hammers Mikey into a dime Giant Smooch Aliens - In Cape Cosmos, kiss Mikey Djinni - In the Forgotten Desert, turns Mikey into a chicken Ghost - In Creepyville, scares Mikey away The Bully - In Mikey’s Neighborhood, Time Portal, and We Got’Emall, gives Mikey a pie in the face from first-person perspective Witch Doctor - In the Volcano Jungle, inflates and deflates Mikey like a balloon using a voodoo doll Fire-Breathing Dragon - In Camelittle, breathes fire at Mikey Silly The Kid - In Slurpy Gulch, squirts milk from bottles at Mikey from first-person perspective Blackboard The Pirate - In Pirate’s Cove, forces Mikey to walk the plank using a ruler sword from first-person perspective The Four P’s stand for “Points”, “Puzzles”, “Pop Quizzes”, and “Prizes”. If the team in control of Mikey directs him to a points square, they score bonus points without having to do anything, and they keep control of Mikey. If they direct Mikey to a prize square, they win a prize, which is theirs to keep regardless of the outcome of the game, and they keep control of Mikey. The pop quizzes are trivia questions related to the theme of the location that Mikey is currently in. If a the team in control of Mikey directs him to a pop quiz square, both teams are asked questions for them to buzz in and answer until one team answers a question correctly, with the team having done so scoring points and getting control of Mikey. Also, each time a team buzzes in with an incorrect answer allows the other team to answer that question. Some of the questions are multiple-choice, while some questions are not. Also, on a handful of episodes, the team that has directed Mikey to a pop quiz square is shown a set of four categories to choose from, with questions in that category asked until one is answered correctly. The puzzles are video puzzles that come in a variety for the teams to solve for points and control of Mikey. The video puzzles include the following: Credit Crawl - A series of credits crawl up the screen, describing something, such as a monument or an invention, and the teams must buzz in and identify what is being described in the credits. Video Repairman - A music video that is distorted and out of focus is played, and the teams must buzz in and identify the music artist or band is in that video. Fast Forward - Each team writes down on a magnetic writing board one of three possible predictions of how many times a person in a paused video does a specific thing in 30 seconds, such as making jumps in jump roping or blowing bubbles with bubble gum. After the predictions are written down, the video is played in fast forward, revealing the correct numerical answer, and the team that has written down the correct prediction scores points and gets control of Mikey. If neither team has written down the correct prediction, no points are scored, and the team that has directed Mikey to this square keeps control of him. What Was That? - A video of a destroyed item is played in rewind. At a few points, the video is paused, and Phil gives a verbal clue to the item. The teams must buzz in and identify what the item is prior to being destroyed. Flash Frame - A series of images flash on the screen, one at a time, many times, five of which fit in a specific category, and the teams must buzz in and identify three of the five images in that category. Robot Vision - The teams are shown a location or an activity from a robot’s perspective, which is thermographic, and they must buzz in and identify what is seen by the robot. Split Screen - The teams are shown a video of someone doing something split into several small screens. As time goes on, one of the screens gets zoomed in, with a verbal clue given by Phil at some point. The teams must buzz in and identify the activity shown in the video. Hyper Channels - Pieces of footage are flipped through from one “channel” to another, all describing a celebrity, and the teams must buzz in and identify the celebrity described. Instant Replay - A video is shown, and the teams must buzz in and answer a question about it afterwards. The “Video Challenge” involves playing arcade games, which are actually video games on home consoles built into arcade cabinets. If the team in control of Mikey directs him to the “Video Challenge” square, that team goes to the “Video Challenge” area, where there are five mock-ups of arcade game machines for that team to choose from. The team in the “Video Challenge” area chooses which member will be playing one of the games there, with the team member not playing being handed to them a magnetic writing board, which they use to write down a wager based on how they feel about their teammate meeting or beating a goal—referred to as the “Wizard’s Challenge” in season one and “Expert’s Challenge” in season two—in one of the games. After the team member playing in the “Video Challenge” chooses a game, the team goes to that game, and Phil removes a card from the right side of that game’s cabinet and reads the goal on it for the playing team member to meet or beat in that game. The non-playing team member has three seconds to write down their wager, and they must keep their wager hidden until after the chosen game is played. If the team in the “Video Challenge” has a score of zero, the non-playing team member can wager up to the regular point value of that round. The games played in the “Video Challenge” include Sonic The Hedgehog, Battletoads, King Of The Monsters, Air Buster, Turrican, Hyperzone, Kabuki: Quantum Fighter, Ghost Pilots, Magician Lord, Arcus Odyssey, Marvel Land, ActRaiser, Toki, Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts, Steel Empire, Super Adventure Island, Dinoland, Super R-Type, Cyber-Lip, and Chuck Rock. All the games chosen to be placed in the “Video Challenge” area have scores constantly shown on-screen, with those scores boxed in a red outline for the home viewers. The object of the “Video Challenge” is for the team member playing the chosen game to meet or beat a goal—such as reaching or exceeding a specific amount of points, collecting a specific number of items, or completing a level—within 30 seconds. After the goal is met or beaten, or time runs out, the playing team member stops playing that game, and their teammate reveals their wager. The team then goes back to the team area, and that team’s score is changed depending on the outcome of the “Video Challenge”. If the goal is met or beaten, the wager is added to the team’s score, and that team keeps control of Mikey; but if time runs out, the wager is deducted from that team’s score, and control of Mikey passes over to the other team. Also, each game in the “Video Challenge” area can be chosen and played only once on that day’s episode. Each square previously occupied by Mikey is occupied by a Time Bomb, and if the team in control of Mikey directs him back to one of those squares, they are given a word to spell, and both members of that team take turns giving letters when they spell the word. The team has ten seconds to spell the word. Correctly spelling the word before time runs out keeps the team in control of Mikey, while failing to do so passes control of Mikey over to the other team. Either way, no points are scored. The “Goal” space can be reached by the team in control of Mikey on their own, or automatically when time for that round is running out. If the team in control of Mikey directs him to the “Goal” space on their own, they are asked a question in a category chosen by the other team from a set of four. After the question is asked, the team being asked it has ten seconds to discuss their answer before they are called for their answer. If that team answers the question correctly, they score the point value of the “Goal”; but if they answer that question incorrectly, the other team scores half the point value of the “Goal” by default. If Mikey is automatically moved to the “Goal” due to time running out, questions for both teams to buzz in and answer are asked until one question is answered correctly, in the same manner as the pop quiz, with the team having answered that question correctly scoring the point value of the “Goal”. After the “Goal”, the round is over, and each of the remaining squares has its hidden content shown. In round one, everything except the “Goal” is worth 25 points, and the “Goal” itself is worth 50 points. The point values are doubled to 50 points and 100 points, respectively, in round two. After two rounds, the team with the most points wins the game. If the game ends in a tie, the teams are asked questions worth 100 points apiece for them to buzz in and answer until one of those questions is answered correctly, with the team having done so scoring the points and winning the game. The winning team advances to the bonus round called the Video Zone, where they will get to face the challenge of one of three Game Wizards. The winning team is suited up in jumpsuits and protective gear for the Video Zone, which they access to through the doors in the back of the set. In the Video Zone, the team gets to be in a video game consisting of three levels, with one member playing alone in level one, the other member playing alone in level two, and both members playing together in level three. In each level, there are three items that the team has to collect in order to complete that level. In order for the team to start playing a level, they must hit “Start”. After a level is started, the items appear, as well as a series of obstacles that the team can get hit by. The team also has a life bar consisting of five units. As the team plays a level, they must work their way through the obstacles to get to the items by running up and down the steps, climbing up and down a ladder, jumping, ducking, getting across a rope, moving quickly, and so on. Items to collect include coins, rings, reactors that they must shut down, elves that they must throw snowballs at, bunches of bananas, sunken treasure chests, bust statues, textbooks, people, gems, and orbs. The obstacles that the team faces are enemies and hazards that include robots, vultures, lizards, the Djinni from Mikey’s World, dragons, snakes, food thrown by kids, coconuts thrown by monkeys, bats, spears, fireballs, eyeballs that fire lasers, slimy earth creatures, cockroaches, rats, mummies, cacti, low-hanging wooden beams, sharks, eels, lobsters, and skiing foxes. The team loses one unit in their life bar for each hit they get. If the team gets five hits in a level, the screen fades to gray, and the team has to start the level all over again. At some point in each level, a special item that will help the team in some way will appear, such as a beam of sunlight, a computer switch, a locker with a pair of smelly sneakers inside, a power square, a curtain rope, a magic lamp, a power rod, a golden monkey idol, a TNT, and an hourglass. If the special item gets touched, what happens is that all the hazards and the enemies freeze or disappear, the team gains immunity from any damage, the team’s life bar goes back up to its maximum of five units, or all the hidden items are automatically revealed. When it comes to the hazards, the enemies, and the damage from them, the use of the special item is temporary. The level one levels are the Ancient Tomb, Jungle Fever, Alien Moonbase, Monsters On The Loose, and Haunted Museum. The level two levels are the Mine Maze, Cliffhanger, the Nile River Raft, the Runaway Rail Car, Food Frenzy, the Enchanted Flight, Sub Search, and Snow Slingers. The level three levels are different from those of levels one and two, because these levels involve going up against Game Wizards. If the team reaches level three before time runs out, they get to face one of the three Game Wizards. The Game Wizards are a lightning ball-shooting wizard called Merlock, a fireball-throwing sorceress called Scorchia, and a ball of energy-tossing troll in spiked armor called Mongo. Regardless of who the Game Wizard is that the team is going up against, there are ghostly creatures flying around, beams of that Game Wizard’s source of attack emerging from the ground, a spinning hourglass that can immobilize all enemies and hazards harmless for five seconds, and three orbs that the team must collect in order for them to defeat that Game Wizard. The team has one minute to complete all three levels. They win $50 to split for every item collected and a prize of increasing value for every level completed, with the prize won for defeating the Game Wizard being the grand prize, which is usually a trip. And that’s Nick Arcade. Before I can give my thoughts on this show, I have to explain the special celebrity episodes and the pilot episode. There are three episodes in which stars of other Nickelodeon shows at the time played for money to donate to charity. One episode features stars from Clarissa Explains It All, with Joe O’Connor and Elizabeth Hess on the yellow team and Jason Zimbler and Melissa Joan Hart on the red team. Another episode features stars from Salute Your Shorts, with Michael Bower and Danny Cooksey on the yellow team and Megan Berwick and Heidi Lucas on the red team. One more episode features stars from Welcome Freshmen, with Mike Speller and Nick Barnes on the yellow team and Jill Setter and Rick Galloway on the red team. In these episodes the teams compete to win over $1,000 for charity. Each team receives $250 in the main game, while the winning team receives $50 for each item collected and an additional $500 for defeating the Game Wizard in the Video Zone; nothing is awarded for each of the first two levels completed there. In the episode involving the stars of Salute Your Shorts, only the winning team plays the Video Zone, while both teams in each of the other two celebrity episodes play the Video Zone. In the case of the latter, each team receives the full amount of how much money is won in the main game. In the episode involving the stars of Clarissa Explains It All, each team receives $500 in the main game, and the Game Wizard isn’t defeated, but each team receives the additional cash prize played for in level three anyway. Now, I must explain the pilot. The pilot was hosted by Neils Schuurmans and announced by Fran Gauchi. It was also taped at the same set that Get The Picture—which I already covered in this year’s premiere—was taped at, and the theme music was the same one used in a previous Nickelodeon show called Outta Here. The game in the pilot is basically the same as in the series, but with the following differences: 1. The team colors are blue and red. 2. The games are played on television sets and game consoles on stands. 3. The pacing of the face-off games is slower. 4. A different face-off game is played in each round. 5. The object of each face-off game is to be the first to reach the end. 6. Mikey looks and moves different from how he does in the series. 7. The layout of each location is not in the form of a grid. 8. The first enemy square is revealed at the start of each round. 9. If Mikey is directed to a space in which an enemy is hidden, he is moved back to the previous space he has occupied. 10. If Mikey is directed to a pop quiz space, the team that has done so chooses one of five categories, all of which fit the theme of the location. 11. The “Video Challenge” is referred to as simply “Arcade”. 12. There are seven games to choose from in the “Arcade” area. 13. Only one member of the team who has directed Mikey to the “Arcade” space gets to go to the “Arcade” area, while their teammate writes down a wager at the team area using a marker and a piece of paper. 14. Each round takes place in a different location. 15. The Video Zone is called the Nick Arcade. 16. The Nick Arcade consists of four levels for the winning team to complete in one minute. 17. There is no Game Wizard for the winning team to face. 18. After each level in the Nick Arcade is completed, the clock stops, the stats of the level just completed are shown, and the clock continues counting down as soon as the next level begins. 19. The time limit in the Nick Arcade is two minutes. Yes, that’s a lot, but those are all little details that make a big difference. Okay. Now, I can give my thoughts on the show. It’s a very fun and enjoyable game show that combines video games, puzzles, and trivia questions. The format is solid, and so is the scoring. They could’ve come up with a different way to uncover hidden contents in the squares besides guiding Mikey through a map to the “Goal”, though, as teams often directed Mikey away from the “Goal” when he was directed closer to it, and I don’t know why some teams did that. I’m guessing that they did it to rack up as many points as possible before Mikey could be moved to the “Goal” automatically when time was running out in a round. Whether or not that’s the case, Mikey is moved to the “Goal” automatically when time in a round is running out more often than not. And I know it’s rare when this happens, but teams shouldn’t be allowed to direct Mikey to a Time Bomb square. Come to think of it, there shouldn’t be any Time Bombs occupying squares that Mikey was directed to before. I believe that the squares that Mikey has already occupied should be dead spaces. You know, have them grayed or blacked out, making them completely inaccessible the second time around? After all, the object of each round is to direct Mikey to the “Goal”, not from it. There is a great variety of puzzles and contents of questions, and they’re all done well. The bonus points are a great way to add to a team’s score quickly, and the prizes are a great way of awarding a team something good for them to leave the show with. The “Video Challenge”, though, is the one thing in the main game that defines this show. It allows a team to play a video game and have a chance to build up their score. With five games in the “Video Challenge” area and each one being allowed to be played only once per episode, it got me to wonder how often the “Video Challenge” is reached. Well, after having watched a lot of episodes I found on the Internet, it turns out that the “Video Challenge” is reached no more than three times per episode. So, that’s all good. Each game there that has levels has a level set at one, which is good for the sake of a contestant being able to reach a goal in that game within 30 seconds. If a game’s level is set at two or higher, then reaching a goal within 30 seconds probably would’ve been undoable, no matter how good a contestant is at playing that game. The enemies are interesting to see in the game. The animation of them are very good. The set looks very good, from the lights to the podiums to the arcade cabinets. Yeah, they were built so well that they really convinced me that the video games were actually in arcade machines, even though they were actually television sets and video game consoles built into arcade cabinets. The consoles used for the video games in this show were the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, the TurboGrafx-16, and Neo-Geo AES. It’s also very fitting that the team’s buzzers are joysticks. The theme music, the music cues, and the sound effects not only sound great, but they’re also very fitting to the theme of the show. Phil Moore and Andrea Lively showed that they had a great time doing what they did on the show. I mentioned back when I covered You’re On! in year five that Phil is one of those hosts in kids’ game shows who keeps making the mistake of trying to act hip for the kids. Well, not only did he do that on that show, but he also did that on this show, and more so on this show. Now, don’t get me wrong. He’s got the energy, he’s competent, and he’s not nearly as bad as other hosts of kids’ game shows like Skip Lackey in season two of Think Fast, which I already covered back in year three. However, he can be grating with the made-up lyrics that he sings whenever he goes to the “Video Challenge” area and back with the team who has earned the right to play a game there. He even does this when a team member at the “Video Challenge” area is writing down a wager, which can ruin the moment, because in game shows where contestants have to secretly put down wagers, there should be nothing annoying and possibly distracting going on at that point. The prizes are great. They include a croquet set, a foosball table, a Casio keyboard, a boom box, a 35mm camera—whether from Ricoh or Vivitar—a set of encyclopedias, a camping package, an in-line skating package, a skateboarding package, an electronic basketball backboard, a bicycle—especially one that folds up for storage—an acoustic guitar, a table tennis set, a computer—whether it’s an Apple Macintosh or a Commodore Amiga—and trips to Jamaica or space camp. There’s one prize in particular that I can’t forgive this show having teams play for, though, and that’s a trip to Universal Studios Florida, since that was exactly where the show was taped. This was also the case with other Nickelodeon game shows that I already covered here, such as Get The Picture and season three of Make The Grade. The amounts of cash that can be won by the team in the Video Zone are kinda low, but depending on what happens in a level there, they can collect as many items as they can to win as much money as they can before they defeat the Game Wizard or time runs out. Speaking of amounts of cash that can be won in the Video Zone, the amounts of cash that can be won there in the celebrity episodes are not high enough to play for charity, and those episodes are inconsistent in how much money each team receives for their charity and whether only the winning team or both teams get to go into the Video Zone. What they should’ve done was have the losing team receive $500 and have the winning team receive $100 for every item collected, $200 for every level completed, and an additional $2,000 for defeating the Game Wizard, with a minimum guarantee of $1,000 if they end up with a total of less than that. This show, along with other Nickelodeon game shows, have approximately $3,000 in cash and prizes played for in their bonus rounds per episode anyway. Finally, it’s time that I share my thoughts on the highlight of the show, and that’s the Video Zone! It’s a fantastic bonus round, because teams get to be in a video game. It’s a very hard bonus round. In fact, it’s one of the hardest bonus rounds in not just Nickelodeon game show history, and not just in kids’ game show history, but in the history of game shows in general. But it’s a very interesting and innovative bonus round. Many people have been wondering—at least, most of them as kids—how teams get in the video game and get through the levels. Well, there’s footage somewhere that shows how that is made possible. When a team goes through the doors in the back of the set, they go backstage where there are blue screen structures for them to get across and go up and down the steps and rungs, and there are a couple of staff members of the show there to help guide the team through the entire process. There’s also a monitor that the team can use to see exactly where they are and where all the items, hazards, and enemies are, so that they will know exactly where to go and reach their hands out, and when to jump, duck, or perform any other necessary actions. James Rolfe, best known for his series called The Angry Video Game Nerd, explained what goes on behind the scenes in the Video Zone in a video where he reviewed this show and another show called Video Power. This was also explained in a video about the show by Yahel of Wrestling With Gaming, and he explained it much better than I ever could. I talked about the celebrity episodes of this show, but I’d like to talk about someone who was a contestant before he was a celebrity. The person in question is Joey Fatone. While he was on the show as a contestant, he went by his full first name, which is Joseph. He was on the yellow team with Danielle. He and Danielle did not win the game. As you know, he later became a member of a boy band called *NSYNC. Nick Arcade isn’t the only game show that he was involved in. He hosted the NBC run of The Singing Bee in 2007, and he has been the host of Common Knowledge on Game Show Network since 2019. From 2010 to 2015, an audio recording of Joey’s opening spiel was used on Family Feud, with that recording edited for each season of that show. In 2015, Nick Arcade creators James Bethea and Karim Miteff came up with the idea of creating a spiritual successor to the show called Enthlevel, with Phil Moore to be back as the host and the technology advanced to incorporate motion capture and virtual reality. This idea was proposed on Kickstarter, with a goal of $350,000 needed to be reached in order for it to happen. The goal was never reached. That’s all the information I have to give on Nick Arcade, aside from the fact that it had a foreign adaptation in Spain called Zona De Juego, translated as Game Zone, which aired on TVE from 1993 to 1995, and was hosted originally by Benjamin Barrington and later by Miguel Ortiz, with the former singing his own lyrics when he and a team goes to the “Video Challenge” area and back, just like Phil did. It had the same theme music, music cues, and game graphics as in the US version, but it had a different set, logo, and opening spiel. Also, in this version, when a team reaches Mikey to the “Goal”, referred to as Meta, on their own, they automatically score the point value of the “Goal”; there was no question involved at that point. Now, over the years, even after the run of Nick Arcade ended, technology has changed, and with how video games are being played in recent years, a revival or spiritual successor using today’s technology actually would’ve been really good to see. It’s a shame that the Kickstarter goal for Enthlevel was never reached. I would’ve liked to see that. People who watched this show when they were kids probably would like to see a revival of the show that’s almost or exactly like how it was, and to be fair, it’s fair enough to want a revival of the show in that way, probably for their nostalgia for the show or the fact that we still have arcades today, though not a common as they were before, as I mentioned earlier. The series is obviously a lot better than the pilot, as the pilot had a lot of problems that would make the series even shorter-lived than it actually was and forgettable if nothing in it was ever changed. All right. I am now officially done talking about Nick Arcade. Now, it’s time for me to wrap up year seven of Game Show Corner. For the entire year, I haven’t had the energy to prepare editions like I used to, and because of this, it shouldn’t be any wonder that I went from doing this series on a weekly basis to doing it on a monthly basis. I’ll continue to do this series at this pace when I begin year eight this fall, but I will find even more obscure game shows to cover there, obscure enough to be known or remembered by a very small number of people, but at the same time, still have enough information about them for me to work with in order to make full editions for them. Also, during the summer, I will be working on year two of Game Show Graveyard, which will begin this October. I need enough time to prepare as many editions for both series as possible, but I will find some time inbetween to relax and do other things I like to do. Here’s hoping that things will get better for me with these series in the future. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great summer.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Sept 24, 2021 12:00:11 GMT -5
Hello, everybody! It’s me, Flo, and welcome to the year eight premiere of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Starting this year, the game shows that I will be covering will be so obscure that there’s not too much information for me to talk about, but still enough information for me to make editions on. So, to start off this year for Game Show Corner, I will be covering an obscure Q&A game show played by children. This show is called Do You Know?Do You Know? aired on CBS Saturday afternoons from October 12, 1963 to April 25, 1964. It was hosted by Robert Maxwell, packaged by CBS News, taped in New York City, New York. The game is played by two teams, each one consisting of three child contestants ages nine to twelve. Before the show, the children are assigned a book to read. In the show itself, they are asked questions based on the book that they have just read. The questions are accompanied by films, drawings, and assorted objects to be identified. At the end of the game, no prizes are awarded to the teams. And…that’s it. Yeah, that’s all there is to the game. A children’s game show where child contestants answer questions about books that they have read seems to be a nice idea, and I wish there were at least a few clips of the show on the Internet so I can actually get a glimpse of it. There doesn’t seem to be a single one of those as I searched for material to work with when putting together this edition, though, and there are no articles except one that explains anything about this show. There’s not even anything said about its episode status, so it remains unknown if any episodes still exist, have been erased due to network practices at the time, or have been archived if they do still exist. Yeah, this show is really that obscure. If an episode of this show were to be found, or at least a clip of it, then I might get the feeling that the format of the game is very simple, which would make sense, considering that game shows during the 1960s and before had simple formats. Remember, game shows didn’t have complex formats back then. Regardless, though, I feel that whatever the exact format Do You Know? had wasn’t that bad, and I’m sure that the stuff accompanying the questions made the show more interesting. What I don’t like about this show is that it had no prizes awarded to the teams after the game is over. While something like this can be tolerated in Wild & Crazy Kids, which I already covered in the year three finale, I don’t think it can be tolerated in this show. This show is about answering questions about books that have just been read, and I’m sure that it was taped in a studio. So, I thought that the teams would be awarded collections of books or book-related items as prizes depending on the outcome of the game. Why couldn’t they do that? With the way the show is, it seems to be more like schedule filler than a show that people would actually care about. The books being quizzed about in this show include The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson—which was the subject of the first episode— A Bridle For Pegasus by Kathrine Shippen, Young Thomas Edison by Sterling North, and Wonderful World Of Energy by Lancelot Hogben. All the books used as subjects for the show were suggested to the production team by the American Library Association, the Child Study Association, and the National Education Association. And that’s all I have to say about Do You Know? I’m sorry that this month’s edition appears to be a rush job, but that’s because it is, as I have been slacking off during the summer I was supposed to have a few editions prepared in advance. More importantly, I have been slacking off on the second year of Game Show Graveyard, which will be starting on the third of next month, so I better really push myself on the editions for that. I still have a whole month to work on the next edition of Game Show Corner, though. What game show will I be covering in next month’s edition? Well, I’ll just now say that it was produced by a well-known pair of game show producers and hosted originally by the man who would later go on to create Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune. Join me in next month’s edition, and see if your hunch is right. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Oct 29, 2021 15:29:23 GMT -5
Hey, people! What’s up? I’m Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Merv Griffin was best known as the creator of Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune. He also created a couple of game shows that I already covered here, like Click and Monopoly, and some game shows that I’ll probably cover here in the future, like Headline Chasers, One In A Million, Joe Garagiola’s Memory Game, and even Merv Griffin’s Crosswords, which was still in development when he died on August 12, 2007, my 20th birthday. But he was also best known for being the original host of the subject of this month’s edition, Play Your Hunch. Play Your Hunch aired in black and white in four separate runs and the 1958 pilot episode. It originally aired on CBS daytime from June 30, 1958 to January 2, 1959, after which it moved to ABC daytime on the following Monday, January 5, where it continued to air until May 8 on that same year. It later aired on NBC daytime from December 7, 1959 to September 27, 1963. It also aired on NBC primetime from April 15, 1960 to September 23 on that same year and again from June 20, 1962 to September 26 on that same year. It was hosted by Merv Griffin in all runs except in later episodes of the NBC daytime run, at which point Robert Q. Lewis took over as the host in 1962 and remained the host until the end of that run. Robert Hayes, Johnny Olson—in his first announcing job in a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production—and future Match Game host Gene Rayburn sub-hosted at some points in the history of this show. Wayne Howell and Roger Tuttle were substitute announcers on this show. The show was also assisted by Lynn Dalton, Suzanne Storrs, Liz Gardner, and Thelma “Tad” Tadlock, produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman in their production company Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, and taped at Mansfield Theater when it aired on CBS, Elysee Theater when it aired on ABC, and NBC Studios 6B when it aired on NBC, all in New York City, New York. The game is played by two teams—mostly couples—one of which is a set of returning champions. The teams are asked multiple-choice questions, referred to as “problems” by the host, with the multiple-choice answers labeled “X”, “Y”, and “Z”. The contents of the problems include choosing which woman is the wife of Jonathan Winters, which musician in the show’s band—called the XYZ Band—is not a real musician, which outfit has been in fashion in the same year that a song has been first introduced, and which child popping in and out of a big box repeatedly has a twin sibling. The two teams take turns choosing whether to play the problems or pass them to their opponents, with the challenging team making that choice on the first problem of the game. After such a choice is made on a problem, the team playing that problem has ten seconds to talk it over with each other and come to an agreement on an answer. The chosen answer then gets revealed whether or not it’s correct. If the team playing the problem chooses the correct answer, they score a point; but if they choose an incorrect answer, the other team gets to talk the problem over and choose one of the remaining two answers for the point. At least one problem in each episode is one that has a numerical answer, and each team has to write down their answer on a slate and reveal it. Whichever team comes closer to the correct numerical answer scores a point. Each team’s score is kept by the top half of the head of a lightbulb character, with that half of that character’s head split into three lights. Each point a team scores wins them money, with each point worth $50 in the daytime runs and $100 in the primetime run. The first team to score three points wins the game. On the CBS and ABC runs, the winning team advances to the bonus round for a chance to win a prize. On the NBC runs, there is no bonus round. Regardless, the winning team gets to play the game again against a new team of challengers. There have been two different bonus rounds. In the CBS run, the bonus round, called “The Last Straw”, features seven straws—five of which were long, and the other two of which were short—and the winning team must pick the long straws until they have picked all five of them, which wins them a car, or until they have picked one short straw, which ends the round immediately but wins them $100 for each long straw picked. In the ABC run, the bonus round features three doors, one of which has Liz or Johnny behind it, and the winning team must choose which door either show’s personnel is hiding behind, with them successfully doing so winning a prize—such as a car, a trip, or an appliance—but failing to do so winning them nothing extra. There is no limit on how many games a team can win; a team gets to stay on the show until they are defeated by a team of challengers. Also, the show has a straddling format, meaning that a game can be stopped at any point when time for an episode has run out, and it will continue where it has left off at the start of the next episode. And that’s Play Your Hunch. It’s a nice game show with a format that’s easy to follow and all about following your intuition and having a good sense of observation. The use of people as answers to the “problems”, especially the show’s band, is interesting. Both bonus rounds are simple yet challenging, with the first one being harder to win than the second one, which is probably why cars and other prizes of high value are played for in bonus rounds like these. Also, these bonus rounds being hard to win is probably the reason why there was no bonus round in the NBC runs. Maybe if they used the problem with the numerical answer as the bonus round for the NBC runs and have the winning team have their answer closer to the correct answer than the losing team’s answer in order to win a prize, that would’ve been good. But then again, maybe not having a bonus round for these particular runs is for the best, since the main game, regardless of which run, can drag on and take too long for a team to reach three points due to problems being missed by both teams. So, why couldn’t they just award the winning team a prize on top of the money that they won when they won the game? In 1962, Merv Griffin left the show altogether to host his own talk show entitled The Merv Griffin Show. Also, some of the episodes of the show still exist, particularly the NBC primetime run premiere, which aired on Game Show Network most recently on August 20, 2007, eight days after Merv Griffin died. There was a home game of the show from Transogram in 1960 and foreign adaptations in the UK and Australia. The UK adaptation was produced by the BBC, and it aired in the early 1960s, with Alan Freeman having hosted it at one point. The Australian adaptation had two different versions, with one having aired on QTQ Channel 9 in Brisbane from 1968 to 1973 and hosted by Don Secombe, and the other having aired from 1962 to 1964 on TCN-9 in Sydney and hosted by George Foster. That’s it for Play Your Hunch. Next month is November, which means in next month’s edition, the game show that will be covered then will be a game show turkey! Oh, and do I have a game show turkey to share with you! What I’ll say about it, now, is that it’s an exploitative, scandalous, greedy, selfish game show whose title is the same as that of a much better game show that would air decades after this one did. Yeah, you can bet that this one is gonna be bad. See you on the Friday after Thanksgiving. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Nov 26, 2021 13:00:13 GMT -5
Hello, everyone. This is Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. I had my Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. It was good, like always. I hope it was the same for you guys. Because we are now moving forward to something just plain tasteless. And when I say “tasteless” I do mean every meaning of the word. Play the clip. Yes, it’s time that I present to you this year’s game show turkey here on Game Show Corner. Now, not only is the game show that I’m gonna be covering today bad, but it’s controversial. In fact, it’s so controversial that it makes me wonder how it lasted eleven years. Yes, eleven years! And also, like I said as I was concluding last month’s edition, this show that I’m about to cover is exploitative, scandalous, greedy, and selfish. So, let’s get all this out of the way before I start losing my sanity. It’s time to try and Strike It Rich. Not the good Strike It Rich from the 1980s; the bad Strike It Rich from the 1940s and the 1950s. Strike It Rich not only aired on television, but it also aired on the radio. As a radio show, it aired on CBS Radio on a weekly basis from June 29, 1947 to April 30, 1950, and it moved to NBC Radio the following day, where it aired on a daily basis from May 1, 1950 to December 27, 1957. As a television show, it aired in black and white on CBS daytime from May 7, 1951 to January 3, 1958 and on CBS primetime from July 4, 1951 to January 12, 1955. All the runs of this show was hosted by Warren Hull, except in episodes of the CBS Radio run from its premiere episode to somewhere in 1948, where it was hosted by Todd Russell. There’s also an on-screen announcer in the television runs named Ralph Paul. The show was also produced by Walt Framer in his production company Walt Framer Productions, and it was taped in New York City, New York, and sponsored by Fab laundry detergent, Colgate toothpaste, and Luden’s cough drops. Each episode features two contestants playing the game, one at a time, each one playing for people in need, sometimes themselves included. After a contestant is introduced, they explain their situation, which is their reason for appearing on the show as a contestant. These explanations are referred to nowadays as “sob stories”, and they include co-workers suffering from injuries that prevent them from working and lost lives and property damage caused by a fire. Each game is started off with the contestant is starting off with $30, and four categories are given, one at a time. After each category is given, the contestant chooses how much of the money to wager based on how they feel about that category. Then, a question in that category is asked, and they get their wager either added to their total for a correct answer or deducted from their total for an incorrect answer. After the four questions, the game is over, and the contestant leaves with all the money in their total at that point. The highest possible amount of money a contestant can win is $480, provided that they wager their entire bank on every question and answer all four questions correctly. If a contestant ends up winning no money, the host opens a telephone hotline called the “Heart Line”, which viewers can call, wishing to donate money to the contestant and their loved ones. This also happens in some other random moment. And that’s Strike It Rich. The gameplay is very simple, which is to be expected, as this show was around in the 1940s and the 1950s, and it was common for game shows back then to have very simple gameplay. I can understand that. What I don’t understand is why they had contestants make wagers when the people they’re playing for, especially the contestants themselves sometimes, were in need of money. And while we’re on the subject of money and people who were in need of it, $480 is too low for a maximum cash total for people in need, even by 1940s and 1950s’ standards. And this show aired before the quiz show scandals occurred, which I’ll get to later. Also, there’s not much time spent on the gameplay in the show. Too much of the show’s runtime is spent on interviews, in-show advertisements, and instructions given to the home viewers on how they could appear on the show. All these problems I have with this show that I just revealed combined, though, don’t even reach the level of the one problem I have with it that I have yet to explain in detail. Okay, here goes nothing. The show did receive praise from some people for helping people in need and showcasing the sincere charity and goodwill of viewers who donated money through the Heart Line. However, during the eleven years in which this show existed, some people found this show a sickening spectacle that exploited people in need to get the best reactions they could from the viewers and selfishly gain profits from the sponsors. The show actually did all this, and they did it by promising to help more people than they actually could and being selective of the contestants based on the sob stories. Each week, the show received thousands of letters from people in need who hoped to be contestants on the show and win what they believed to be life-changing amounts of money, and out of those thousands of people in need, only a small number of them could be chosen. This is partly due to the limits of television production, so they weren’t able to help every person in need at the same time, which would’ve been more understandable if that alone was the whole reason for choosing a small number of people to have as contestants on the show out of the hopeful thousands of people who sent all those letters. However, according to critics, another part of the reason for choosing only a small number of people to have as contestants out of those thousands of people is that they were looking for those who they believed had the most interesting sob stories. That’s very messed up! And you know what makes this even more messed up? So many of the people who hoped to be contestants on the show, despite warnings by the producers, spent all their money to travel to New York, hoping to be accepted, only to be rejected, and they ended up relying on charities like the Salvation Army to help them go back home. That’s right. Local charities in New York were drained just to help the people who came over there to hopefully be contestants on the show return home after being rejected by its producers. This led to the charities and local government agencies voicing complaints. The New York City commissioner of welfare called the show “a disgusting spectacle and a national disgrace”, and they brought it to court on charges of unlicensed fundraising and actually won a conviction. The supervisor of the Travelers Aid Society said that “putting human misery on display can hardly be called right”. The general director of the Family Service Association of America flatly said that “victims of poverty, illness, and everyday misfortune should not be made a public spectacle or seemingly to be put in the position of begging for charity”. The New York legislature looked into the controversy behind the show, but later washed itself of the whole thing, claiming that it “lacked jurisdiction”. And finally, TV Guide called the show “a despicable travesty on the very nature of charity”. And how did the show’s networks, CBS and NBC, respond to all this? Well, they showed no concern over any of this, saying “We don’t want to do anything that would antagonize the sponsor.” Statements like this allowed companies like Geritol and Revlon to continue controlling all aspects of the shows that they have sponsored, especially game shows that got cancelled due to the quiz show scandals in 1958, such as Twenty-One and Dotto. Speaking of Dotto, that show replaced Strike It Rich the following Monday, January 6, 1958, permanently ending the latter show entirely. This occurred several months before the quiz show scandals that took place in that year, so Strike It Rich should be considered lucky that it wasn’t looked into as one of the game shows that caused the scandals to be known to the general public and totally ruined the game show genre. It’s good that this show stopped existing altogether that soon, but it should’ve stopped existing altogether a lot sooner! Really, how a game show like this lasted eleven years is beyond me! This show was so controversial that its nature was part of the reason why it was destroyed, with the other part of the reason being network practices at the time. Only a small number of episodes of this show still exist to this day, with four of them held at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and a few of them held by the Paley Center for Media. The J. Fred & Leslie W. MacDonald Collection of the Library of Congress has one kinescoped episode from November 28, 1956. There were two attempts to revive the show. The first attempt was made in 1973, while the second attempt was made in 1978. Thankfully, neither attempt to revive the show was successful. What did come out of the show was that the title was later used as the title of another game show, which, like I said before, aired in the 1980s, and it was actually good. It’s a shame, though, that that show lasted only one year, which was one eleventh as long as this one. I’ll cover that show in the future, but getting back to this one, it seemed to have been so popular that, despite its controversial nature, a board game of it was released by Lowell Toy Mfg. in 1956. I’ll bet that anyone who has that board game in their possession deliberately didn’t go by the rules of it, and instead came up with their own rules. I would’ve done exactly that if I had that board game in my possession. I don’t want a board game to be based on a game show that has a controversial nature. Who does, though? After the permanent end of Strike It Rich, there have been more shows that feature contestants with sob stories. This is not limited to game shows; it’s actually seen in reality shows. You may argue that reality shows count as game shows, but I see game shows and reality shows as different genres, and that’s because they are different from each other. All these two genres have in common with each other is that they have people competing to win a prize. Anyway, examples of shows that feature contestants with sob stories are American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, The X Factor, Minute To Win It, and the biggest example, as well as the show that started it all, Queen For A Day. Queen For A Day was a very popular show of its time, and if it weren’t for that show, shows like Strike It Rich, others that I just mentioned, and more wouldn’t exist. Now, that could be found a good thing to some, and it could be found a bad thing to others, but it can’t be ignored that all these shows have contestants with sob stories, and those sob stories are exploited in order to gain interest from the viewers high ratings quickly and cheaply. That’s just plain wrong! It’s so wrong, but it works somehow. This move has been going on for many, many years, it’s still going on as of the release of this edition, and I am sure without a doubt that it’s going to keep going on for many, many years to come. It’s never gonna stop, no matter how many people have negative feelings about it, and no matter what level of negative feelings they have about it. It’s here to stay, whether anyone likes it or not. Now, I’m done talking about Strike It Rich, the game show that I considered a game show turkey this year. Christmas is coming next month, so in next month’s edition, I will be covering a family game show that’s based on a board game, which in turn is based on a series of puzzle books. And unlike all the other game shows that I covered this year so far on Game Show Corner, this one is recent. Or at least it’s as recent as it can get without breaking my rule that a game show being covered here has to have ceased being in production at least ten years ago. I can’t wait to get to that one and get my mind entirely off the game show that I just covered today. Join me again next month for that. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Dec 31, 2021 13:00:16 GMT -5
Hello to all families everywhere! Festive Flo here, hoping that you’ve had a very Merry Christmas, and welcoming you to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. It’s time that I cover another game show based on a board game, so here it is. Not only that, but it’s also a game show made for families and played by families. So, are you ready to find it fast, find it first? Because I sure am! The subject of this month’s game show is Pictureka!Pictureka! was one of the launch titles for The Hub, which is actually a relaunch of Discovery Kids and currently known as Discovery Family. It is based on the Hasbro board game of the same name by Belgian game inventor Arne Lauwers, which in turn is based on the book series by British children’s author and illustrator Martin Handford called Where’s Wally?, known in North America as Where’s Waldo? It was hosted by Cory Almeida and co-hosted by George Gabriel, who was referred to on the show as “G”, performed the show’s theme music and music cues on-stage, and was also the musical director and composer. It was also packaged by Linda Ellerman Productions and Hasbro Studios. The game is played by two families, one orange and the other green, each one consisting of two kids and one parent. The two families play in a series of four rounds involving finding pictures in the form of cutouts in order to score points, or as they are referred to as “fish points”, referred to as such because they are needed to feed the show’s penguin mascot. Round one is called “Go Find Fish”. This is the only round played by only the kids, as the parents are backstage, waiting to be called on stage for the next round. In this round, members of the studio audience each hold up a cutout, thirty of which are of fish, with fifteen of the fish in orange and the other fifteen of them in green. When Cory gives the teams the signal to “Go find fish!”, the teams run into the studio audience and collect as many fish from them as possible, with each team only collecting fish of their own team color. The teams have 15 seconds to collect as many fish of their own team colors as possible. After time runs out, the teams bring the collected fish on stage, and Cory announces how many fish each team has collected. Each fish collected is worth 10 fish points, for a maximum of 150 points for each family. Round two is called “The Maze Craze”. In this round, the two families play one a time. At the start of each family’s turn, the parent of that family comes on stage dressed as one of the characters from the board game as they are introduced as that character. The parent has to go into a maze—which is in sections, such as Caveman’s Hideaway, Pirate’s Cove, and Eskimo’s Igloo—and find a cutout of a character announced by Cory, while the kids stand at a podium—which is in the form of a tower or a railing, depending on the episode—and help their parent by telling them and pointing out where to go and where that character is. As soon as the parent has found the character in question, they must grab it, take it over to the double bin cart, and drop it in the bin of their family’s own color. After the parent has done that, they are announced another character to find in the maze. Each family has 60 seconds to find up to six character cutouts in the maze and drop them in the bin of their own color, with each each correct character cutout found and dropped into the appropriate bin worth 20 fish points, for a maximum of 120 fish points for each family. Round three is played in two different ways. In some episodes, it’s called “Rock The Blocks”, and in others, it’s called “Eyeballs And Oddballs”. Either way, the two families play at the same time, with the members of each family taking turns finding cutouts of items and placing them in a designated spot. Both families are given the same list of items to find and place in the exact same order, but all cutouts of the same item are not identical to each other. Each correct item found and properly placed scores a family 40 fish points. After a family has found and properly placed all the items on the list, the member of that family who has found and properly placed the last correct item on the list must grab an item that serves as a “finish line”, hold it up high, and shout “ Pictureka!” Doing all that ends the round and scores that family a bonus of 25 fish points. In “Rock The Blocks”, each family has a pyramid of blocks and a set of five steps that lead to an item at the top called the “finish line flag”. When Cory announces the first item for the families to find, the families knock down their pyramids of blocks, and one member of each family searches through their knocked-down blocks for the one with the announced item one one of its sides. As soon as that family member has found the block with the correct item on one of its sides, they must grab that block, take it to their family’s set of steps, and place it on a space in front of one of the steps, with the side with the correct item on it facing forward. Each family starts at the bottom step and works their way up to the top, with that family needing to find and place five blocks with the correct items on them on the steps before they grab the finish line flag from the top, hold it up high, and shout “ Pictureka!”, thus scoring up to 225 fish points in that round. In “Eyeballs And Oddballs”, there is a ball pit, and behind the ball pit is a field of columns with cutouts of items on them. When Cory announces the first item for the families to find, one member of each family goes to the columns and find the cutout of that item on them. As soon as that family member has found the cutout of the correct item, they must grab it from the column and take it with them to the ball pit. That family member goes into the ball pit by going up the steps in the back of it and jumping in. Then, they must make their way across the ball pit to the front and drop the cutout into the bin on the front of their family’s side of the ball pit. After that family member has done all that, they must climb out of the ball pit, and the next member of that family gets their turn to find the cutout of the next item on the list. In the ball pit is a blue ball with an image of a fish on it, referred to as a “finish line fish”. There are two balls like this, one for each family. Each family needs to find and place cutouts of three correct items into their bin before they find and grab the finish line fish from the ball pit, hold it up high, and shout “ Pictureka!”, thus scoring up to 145 fish points in that round. Round four is also played in two different ways. In some episodes, it’s called “3 For 1”, and in others, it’s called “Balloon Monsoon”. Either way, the two families play, one at a time, with each family having 60 seconds to find items and characters that fit into categories announced by Cory and doing something specific with each correct item or character they grab in order to score fish points from it. Each family has one minute to score as many fish points as possible, with the trailing family playing first, and the leading family isolated off-stage, as both families are given the same categories in the same order. Also, all three members of a family must take turns finding correct images and doing something specific with them in order to score fish points. If a family member brings over an image that doesn’t fit in the category currently in play, they must take it back and find another image. For each family, the first correct image is worth 50 fish points—with the exception of some of the episodes that has “Balloon Monsoon” as its fourth round, where the first image for each family is worth 80 fish points—and each correct image thereafter is worth 10 fish points more than the previous one. If the family that is trailing going into this round has scored at least enough fish points to take the lead, the other family takes their turn until they run out of time or score just enough points to take the lead back, thus winning the game. But if the family that is trailing going into this round is still trailing, the other family automatically wins the game without having to take their turn, but they are put through a series of crazy warm-ups in preparation for the round before they are told this. In “3 For 1”, all three members of each family are strapped together, with their backs facing each other. The three members of each family must work together in moving around in an arena with cutouts of items or characters in it in order to get the family member in turn to the cutout of an image that fits in the category currently in play. If the cutout of the image grabbed fits in that category, the three members of that family must work together to get the family member in turn to family-colored bins and drop that cutout into the bin of their own color in order to score the fish points and move on to the next category. In “Balloon Monsoon”, the members of each family take turns running into a field of balloons and bringing them to a red popping area where they must pop them. Each balloon has an image of an item or character on it, and when the family member in turn brings a balloon to the popping area, they must hold it up, with the image on it facing forward for Cory to see so he can let that family member know whether or not that image fits in the category currently in play. If the image on that balloon fits in that category, they must pop that balloon using any parts of their body—mostly suggested by Cory their butt—in order to score the fish points and move on to the next category. After four rounds, the family with the most fish points wins the game and advances to the bonus round called the “Penguin Prize Hunt” for a chance to win a grand prize trip. In the “Penguin Prize Hunt”, the winning family is shown on the screen a 3x3 grid of nine penguins, each one wearing something different, and there are many cutouts of penguins in the maze, including the nine shown on the grid. While the family is shown the grid, they must memorize what outfits the penguins shown are wearing and which space on the grid each penguin is in, because after 10 seconds, the grid will be removed from the screen, and the family will find cutouts of those nine penguins, and place them in the correct spaces on a physical grid on the set. The members of the family take turns finding cutouts of penguins and placing them in the spaces on the on-set grid, and they have 90 seconds to find and place as many of the correct penguins in their correct spaces on the on-set grid as possible. While one member of the family is having their turn to find and place a penguin, the other two members of the family can help them out, but only verbally. If, at any point, anyone in the family forgets which penguins to look for or which spaces on the on-set grid to place the penguins in, they can stop the clock temporarily by pressing a red button called the “time-out button”, and the family is given another 10-second look at the on-screen grid. During this, all three members must be present together, and no one is to be holding any cutouts of the penguins. The family is allowed only one time-out. After the time-out is used, the time starts counting down again, and the members of the family continue finding and placing cutouts of penguins, starting with the family member who gets the next turn. After time runs out, the family is shown on the on-screen grid which penguins placed on the on-set grid are correctly placed and which ones are incorrect placed or don’t belong on the grid at all, with each penguin correctly placed indicated by a green checkmark. All correct penguins remain in play, while all incorrect penguins are taken out of play. Inside each space on the on-set grid is a card faced down, one of which reads “WIN!”, and the other eight each of which reads “OOPS!” Cory reveals what’s on the cards in the spaces where all the correctly-placed penguins are in on the on-set grid, one at a time, and if the card in one of those spaces reads “WIN!”, or if all nine penguins are correctly placed, the family wins a grand prize trip. If not, they win a consolation prize. So, that’s Pictureka!, and I will say that this is a find-it-fast, find-it-first, find-it-fun game that families would love to play. It’s amazing how they could take a simple board game and magnify it to make it work as a game show adaptation, the same which happened with Mad Libs, which I already covered back in the year one finale. In fact, now that I think about it, this show and Mad Libs have many similarities to each other. They are equally-short-lived children’s game shows based on children’s entertainment, they are played by two color-coded teams who wear t-shirts of their team colors, they have four rounds for the teams to play in the main game that mostly involve them running around within time limits, and they have bonus rounds involving winning teams trying to get as many correct as possible within 90 seconds, with one of them winning a team the grand prize if they get that one correct or get all of them correct. Going back solely to Pictureka!, each round is good fun in its own way. “Go Find Fish” makes for a great moment for the kids to act alone in the game, which makes sense, considering that this show is a game show adaptation of a board game for children; “The Maze Craze” makes for a fun round where parents bring characters from the board game to life by being dressed as those characters and following directions shouted to them by their kids while dressed as those characters; “Rock The Blocks” and “Eyeballs And Oddballs” are intense, competitive races that can leave people on the edges of their seats; “3 For 1” and “Balloon Monsoon” are the most challenging rounds in the main game, as they have categories for families to work with rather than names of items or characters for families to find given to them outright, as they have high stakes played for in those rounds, not to mention that family communication and cooperation are more important than ever, “3 For 1” more than “Balloon Monsoon”; and the “Penguin Prize Hunt” is a fun, challenging bonus round with a great use of a drumroll to punctuate each reveal of whether or not a correctly-placed penguin on the on-set grid has the grand prize. Now, I noticed that all the fish point values are in 10-fish point increments except one, and that is the bonus fish points for winning round three, which ends with a five instead of a zero and can only be scored by one family. So, because of this, there can never be a tie going into round three or at the end of the game. That’s something I really don’t mind. Saves them the trouble of coming up with dealing with ties if something like that was to happen in either case. What I do mind is that in round three, there had to be five images to be found in “Rock The Blocks” and three in “Eyeballs And Oddballs” when it could’ve easily been four in both of them, and there’s only one “finish line flag” in “Rock The Blocks” and two “finish line fish” in “Eyeballs And Oddballs” when it could’ve easily been two of each in both of them. Really, why would they have two opposing contestants fight over the “finish line flag” in “Rock The Blocks”? Anyway, the theme music and music cues are great to listen to, the designs of the images of the items and the characters are fun, and the prizes are good for the families to play for. The families, the audience, Cory, and G all seemed to have fun on the show. I don’t know why, though, Cory refers to every parent contestant as “Mom” or “Dad” rather than calling them by their names, even though they have their names on their team-colored shirts for him and everyone else to see. I also don’t know why we don’t get to hear from the families themselves when it comes to finding out some things about them; instead, we get clips of the families as Cory briefly goes over small facts about them. Anyway, Pictureka! is a great, fun, challenging game show, and I’m glad to end 2021 with a game show that is as good as this one. After 2022 begins, I will be covering in next month’s edition a short-lived game show that was hosted by Drew Carey and created by Michael Davies, and offered a cash prize of $10,000,000. Yes, you saw that right. Ten. Million. Dollars! No other game show has ever offered a cash that high! Join me in next month’s edition after we enter 2022 so I can reveal to you about it. So, that does it for this month's edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a Happy New Year.
|
|
|
Post by Flowgli on Jan 28, 2022 21:00:12 GMT -5
Hey, people! This is Flo, and welcome to this month’s edition of Game Show Corner, where we take a look at the obscure side of the world of game shows. Drew Carey is an actor and comedian best-known for hosting an improv show called Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the longest-running game show in US television called The Price Is Right. He’s been the host of The Price Is Right since October 15, 2007 on CBS and still hosting this show on this channel to today. However, just two months before he started hosting The Price Is Right, he started hosting another game show on CBS, and that’s what I’ll be covering this month. That game show is Power Of 10. Power Of 10 aired on CBS from August 7, 2007 to January 23, 2008, originally airing twice a week from the late summer to the early fall and later on Wednesday nights from January 2, 2008 until the end of the show’s run. It was hosted by Drew Carey and produced by Michael Davies and Vincent Rubino in the former’s production company Embassy Row, as well as Sony Pictures Television. It was also taped at Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York City, New York. Each episode has two games seen being played in total due to the show having a straddling format, and each game is started off with two contestants playing a qualifying round called the “elimination round” to determine who will play for the big money. All the questions asked in this game are polls that have been answered by thousands of people across America on various topics, with the answer to every question in the form of a percentage, so contestants have to try to accurately predict what percentage of the polled people have answered these questions in specific ways. For example, such a question will be: “What percentage of Americans said they have a better relationship with their parents as an adult than they did as a child?”, to which the correct percentage will be 89%. On each question in the elimination round, each contestant chooses which percentage they think is the correct one by moving a dial up and down, and they have ten seconds to make their choices and lock them in by pulling down their levers. While the contestants are making their choices of percentages, they cannot see each other’s choices of percentages. If a contestant doesn’t have their choice of percentage locked in after ten seconds, the computer locks in on that contestant’s final choice of answer for them at that point. After the contestants’ choices of percentages are locked in, the correct percentage is revealed, and the contestant whose guess is closer to the correct percentage scores a point. More poll questions are asked to the two contestants until one of them scores three points, with the contestant who has done so first advancing to the money round. In the money round, the contestant who has made it there is asked up to four poll questions for money, with the fourth and final question being played in two separate levels. On each of the first three questions and the first level of the fourth question, the contestant is given a range of a certain percentage on a scale of 0% to 100% to work with. The range decreases by 10% with each question after the first one, with the ranges for the questions being 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10%, in that order. What the contestant must do with the range on each of the first three questions and the first level of the fourth question is move it up or down using a dial to get the percentage that they think is correct within that range. After the contestant stops moving the range, they are shown a chart that shows what percentages which the members of the studio audience have answered that question with. The contestant also has someone they know with them to help them out on a question, such as a family member, a friend, or a significant other. Drew also gives his opinions on what he thinks the correct percentage is to that question to help out the contestant, as he has never been made aware of what the correct percentage is to any of the questions ahead of time. After getting help from the audience, the person they personally know, and Drew, the contestant can adjust the range before locking in their final guess. The correct percentage to the question is revealed after the lock-in, and if the correct percentage is within range, the contestant wins money, and they are asked the next question. On each question after the first one, the contestant has the option to stop and take all the money that they have won up to that point, because if they fail to get the correct percentage within range on any question, the game is over, and they lose money depending on how far they have gotten in the game. Getting the correct percentage within range on the first question wins the contestant $1,000, and successfully doing so multiplies the money by ten—or by “the power of ten”, as Drew puts it—on each question thereafter, meaning that the second question is worth $10,000, the third question is worth $100,000, the first level of the fourth question is worth $1,000,000, and the second level of the fourth question is worth $10,000,000. If the contestant fails to get the correct percentage within range on the first or second question, they lose all the money they have won up to that point. But if they fail to get the correct percentage within range on the third question or either level of the fourth question, their winnings are reduced to 10% of how much they have won up to that point—or they will go down by “the power of ten”, as Drew puts it. The contestant is not shown the correct percentage to the fourth question if they have gotten it within range on the first level of it. Instead, they are shown the percentages in the 10% range for the second level of the fourth question, and what they must do there is choose which percentage in that range is the correct one to that question. After the contestant has dialed in a guess of what the exact percentage within the 10% range to the question is, no help on this level of the question is given, but the contestant still has the option to lock in their guess or stop and take the $1,000,000. If the contestant locks in their guess of exact percentage and they’re correct, their winnings are increased to $10,000,000; but if they lock in their guess of exact percentage and they’re incorrect, their winnings are decreased to $100,000. That’s Power Of 10. It’s a good game with one of the biggest cash prizes in game show history. The elimination round is good and easy to follow, which is choosing a percentage within ten seconds on each question, scoring a point for being the closest to the correct percentage, and being the first to score three points to win the elimination round and move on to play for the big money. The way the game is played for the money is good, too. There are only four questions for a contestant to answer to win a cash prize as big as $10,000,000, with the fourth question played in two levels, and it doesn’t seem to be enough work for a cash prize that big, but with the questions being poll questions, they are hard enough to make the game challenging enough for a contestant to win the big money, since poll questions are not easy to correctly answer exactly or even be within range. I like how they made the final question different from the other questions by having it played in two levels and making the second level of the final question so that the contestant had to choose the exact correct percentage in order to win the $10,000,000 cash prize, and I like that if the contestant fails on the third question or either level of the final question, they still walk away with some money after their winnings have dropped, and a good amount, too, whether it’s $1,000, $10,000, or $100,000. During the show’s run, the $10,000,000 cash prize was never won, though one contestant came close to doing so. That contestant was a 19-year-old college student from Upper Montclair, New Jersey named Jamie Sadler. He was the show’s very first contestant to play for the money and the only contestant on the show to win $1,000,000 and therefore be given the chance to play for $10,000,000. Yes, the biggest win on this show occurred on the first game of the show’s very first episode. This performance was never repeated by another contestant on this show. A contestant having won $1,000,000 on the very first game did come as a surprise to many, especially Drew, who stated that he and the producers weren’t confident that they were going to give away $1,000,000 on the very first episode of the show, and that they didn’t even rehearse something like that happening so soon in the show’s run, but he would “kinda wing it”. The final question that Jamie was asked was: “What percentage of American women consider themselves feminists?”, and Jamie locked in with the 10% at 23% to 33%, which earned him the $1,000,000 cash prize and the right to play for the $10,000,000 cash prize. He had to choose a percentage from the range of 23% to 33% which they think is the exact correct one and lock it in to win the $10,000,000, but he chose to stop and take the $1,000,000 that he won at that point. It was a good thing that he did stop and take his money, though, because if he were to go for the $10,000,000, he would’ve been incorrect, as he would’ve chosen 24% when the exact correct percentage to that question was 29%. So, because Jamie stopped with $1,000,000, that made him the youngest contestant on a game show to win $1,000,000, and that made this show hold the record for highest game show winnings won on the premiere episode, which would be broken in 2016 by a married couple on the premiere episode of The Wall with $1,300,010. Speaking of The Wall, it’s the only current game show where it’s possible for contestants to win $10,000,000, even more than that. You may argue that we also currently have Jeopardy!, and it’s possible for contestants to win $10,000,000 or more from that show, too, but in The Wall, it’s possible for contestants to win that much in one game. In Jeopardy!, though, that’s not possible; in that show, a contestant would have to win hundreds of games in order to win that much money there, and no contestant on that show had ever come close to winning that much within all the games that they won there. So, when it comes to contestants winning $10,000,000 or more, The Wall is the only current game show where a contestant can possibly win that much in one game, and that’s what we have to settle for. There were many international adaptations of the show, and, in the US version that I just covered, there were three contestants from a reality show called Big Brother who were contestants on this show. Two of them were contestants on the eighth season of Big Brother, which aired the same time this show aired; those two contestants were Daniele Donato and Amber Siyavus, and they competed against each other in the elimination round, with Amber winning the right to play for the money and ending up winning $1,000, and the two going back to the house after the filming of their episode. The other contestant was Matt Hoffman, but he didn’t become a contestant on Big Brother until after he appeared on this show and lost the elimination round; he appeared on that show in its twelfth season. Power Of 10 went on hiatus a couple of times, and it was permanently cancelled due to low ratings caused from strong competition against American Idol on Fox, and it was replaced by The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular, also hosted by Drew Carey. On March 2011, Game Show Network, simply known as GSN at the time, picked up the rights to Power Of 10, and it aired originally on weekdays in order to promote an improv show hosted Drew for that channel called Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza, which did not do so well and got cancelled after one season consisting of 40 episodes. Power Of 10 was later moved to weekends, and it got replaced with reruns of Deal Or No Deal on March 2012. Now, with Drew Carey having hosted Power Of 10 for five months and having hosted The Price Is Right for fifteen years and counting, I will say that the way Power Of 10 is done makes me think of two pricing games from The Price Is Right, and they are “Range Game” and “Grand Game”. I say “Range Game” because it has a range in the form of a red area, and a contestant has to get the correct number within range in order to win. And I say “Grand Game” because of the cash prize being a one and a series of zeroes behind it, and another zero is added to the end of the cash prize for each correct answer, while one incorrect answer ends the game. I think it’s interesting that CBS aired a game show that appeared to be a combination of two pricing games from “The Price Is Right”. Maybe something like that could be done again in the future, though I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening anytime soon. Next time, I will be covering a game show that was hosted by the same person who hosted the first syndicated run of Card Sharks and the sole revival of Blockbusters. If you know those game shows, particularly the runs I specified of those game shows, I think you know who I’m talking about. For those who don’t know, though, I’ll reveal who it is when I cover the game show in question in next month’s edition. So, that does it for this month’s edition of Game Show Corner. Thank you, everybody, and have a great day.
|
|