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The, in my opinion, best season of Extreme Dodgeball ended last night as the New York Bling defeated the Philadelphia Benjamins 57-37 to win the 3rd Extreme Dodgeball title. Celebrity captain of the New York Blink Mia St. John stated “I’m so excited. We knocked their asses out!” which is true if you saw the broadcast on Tuesday evening. Extreme Dodgeball commish Rip Torn presented the Bling with their trophy. The New York Bling collected over $50,000 throughout the season and are the first champions of the scoring/time system of Extreme Dodgeball. Their record was 8-2 in the regular season.

As we reported, GSN is going back to game shows. They apparently weren’t lying. GSN is doing what they need to to save their schedule. Monday’s repeat of The Amazing Race is gone, finding a home on the schedule and cutting back on rerun abuse Wednesday through Sunday at 9PM ET. I think game show fans are going to orgasm over the next few things. Press Your Luck will replace The Newlywed Game at 12:30PM ET/PT on the Men of GSN lineup. Whammy will move back a half hour to 11:30AM ET/PT on weekends. This one excites me….

GSN picked up George Gray Weakest Link! No more Anne finally! The syndicated Weakest Link which will take at least a year to reach rerun abuse will air in a back to back block at 4-5PM ET/PT.

Thanks to Steve Beverly of TVGameshows.net for the article. These schedule changes happen at 1/2/06, with The Amazing Race leaving on 1/9/06. Also, Anything to Win, GSN’s much belated documentary series, begins January 10th at 9PM ET/PT with a 2 hour premiere.

Update: We have more schedule news. Match Game will air in the 11-midnight block on weekdays under the title “That ’70s Hour”.

Game shows are coming back in full swing in America. Like what the UK did with the celebrity Game Show Marathon, CBS has announced they are going to do the same. Celebrities will be taken down one by one until a single winner is declaired. Each game will come from Fremantle’s library of game shows, like The Price is Right, Family Feud, Match Game, and I’ve Got A Secret. Six celebrities will compete in a new game each week. CBS has said they are looking at this to be a once a year event.

Endemol’s Deal or No Deal is quite possibly the world’s most braindead game show, but there is not a show that is more exciting. Sexy models holding suitcases containing life changing sums of money. Incredibly tense decisions with people risking hundreds of thousands of dollars on just intuition, guts, and luck. From over 30 countries, Deal or No Deal puts people to extreme circumstances of fortune to win. Let’s take a look at 3 of the versions: The Dutch Version, the British version, and an internet exclusive: Buzzer goes indepth with the US version. If you want to see the BRAND NEW INFORMATION, which includes SET INFORMATION, FORMER THE PRICE IS RIGHT MODELS, and more, please read to the US Deal or No Deal logo.

The Dutch Deal or No Deal, entitled “Miljoenen”, is hosted by the, in my opinion, incredibly sexy Linda DeMol. 500 different people sit into sections divided into 10 blocks of 50. There is a small trivia competition to determine which group of the audience, the red 250 or the blue 250, will move on. They keep winding down people until we end up with a round of 6 players. Each question lists a series of clues about a person, place, or thing. First person to buzz in and guess correctly is safe and gets to elect to eliminate anyone. However, Linda offers to let anyone quit the game right then, in fear that they are eliminated, by taking one of the colored briefcases. If no one takes it and leaves the game, the person who answered correctly gets to show who he/she wants eliminated. The final remaining player plays for 5,000,000 Euro. There, the game runs the same as in any country. 26 cases containing cash values 1 cent to 5,000,000 euro. They start by eliminating 6 cases, and each round makes them eliminate one less. After the round ends, they receive a “Bank Offer”: something to tempt them to quit the game. Bank offers have been seen to get as high as 1.495 million euro. The game ends when all the cases are open or the bank offer is taken. Also, a lottery is held, with a live camera feed going to someone’s house to award them whatever the in-studio player wins.

The British version, just titled Deal or No Deal, takes more of a warehousey look to the show. Noel Edmonds hosts the UK version. This version has 22 boxes each held by a player. The person selected to try to win the money is chosen at random. The cash ranges from 1p to £250,000. The gameplay goes the same, except no models. It’s all opened by the players. Also, as you may have picked up, there are no suitcases. This version goes even more different and lets people open boxes. After 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 20 boxes are opened, the banker makes an offer. In this version, the banker talks in a private phone conversation to the host and discloses what he will give away. Bank offers have been seen to go over £100,000. The £250,000, once it’s given away, will be the biggest prize ever offered in daytime British game show history. This show also airs with one of the most intelligent game shows in game show history: Countdown. So you go from the master brain game, Countdown, and one of the dumbest game shows, but easily the most exciting, Deal or No Deal. Quite a mix for our British friends.

Sorry for the small picture, but this is the only known picture for US Deal or No Deal. There were 2 versions. One was on ABC, which basically followed the rules of the Dutch version. The top prize for ABC was $2,500,000, which was one of the biggest top prizes in game show history. A clip of it can be seen here. Go to Multimedia and click the Deal or No Deal box. However, Super Millionaire was announced and Deal or No Deal was on the back of everyone’s minds until NBC announced they picked it up. The NBC version has a chain from 1 cent to $1,000,000. The set was described to us as having a center stage for host Howie Mandel and the player, a stair case, the money monitor to the right of the staircase, and the bank on the opposite side of the staircase. 26 cases are opened by different models. There are THREE former The Price is Right models. They are: Lisa Gleave (Suitcase 3), Kristal Marshall (Suitcase 5), and Claudia Jordan (Suitcase 9). Cases are eliminated just like the Dutch version with bank offers thrown in. The case values are dealt randomly also. No one, not even the producers know what is in each case. The bank offer is phoned in to Mr. Mandel as well.

Deal or No Deal has had an incredible run, and you can see each version somewhere. The US version will be on December 19-22nd at 8PM ET-9PM ET on NBC. That leaves one episode unaired, and if I had to guess, it will be at some time. You can view the Dutch version Sundays at around 3:45PM ET at Talpa TV live or watch it in this link. We really can’t see the British version, but you can read a live chatcast of it at a terrific British game show website: Bother’s Bar. I encourage you to watch this show and support it. There are not many game shows more tense than this. Here are a few more pictures of the UK and British version.

Thanks to: Bother’s Bar, Mike Klauss, Talpa TV, Invision, Christopher Bogart, David Howell, NBC, ABC, Channel 4, Joe Raygor, and Travis Penery

Hooray for our 200th news article. GSN’s ratings rose from the semi-depressing .3 of September to the not nearly as depressing .4 for the month of october. They are also up to 211,000 head count now. As many have said, Millionaire reruns are getting to the ratings, after several years of nonstop abuse, and The Amazing Race may have worn off, partially because of the new edition on CBS. Again, this is just my own personal opinion here, but the network really should try to get syndie Millionaire ASAP. Millionaire is a huge ratings getter for GSN, and getting Meredith Vieira Millionaire, which not all of the country gets, can generate some motivation. You would get a large group of students and workers who can’t see the show watching it and it would renew interest. Something has to be done. Lingo and Russian Roulette, anyone?