I don’t know if you’ve been watching Crosswords recently, but they’ve made a few changes. One change is especially nice for the budget. Round 3 now has the totals $200, $400, and $600 for right answers. We’ve seen some players get $10,000 or more in the main game recently, so it’s helping some apparently. The X-Box plug during the extras are gone, and the announcer now introduces the Spoilers. It seems like host Ty Treadway is doing less relying on teleprompters or cards, but he now sounds a bit robotic and non-emotional. If we get a second season, hopefully we can see some improvement there. Oh, a new theme would be nice too. It’s really hard to have a dark, neon set and cheesy synth theme music.
Archive for December, 2007
23
Dec
Ratings Update
Ratings are in again for new weekly network shows. Duel is staying steady, but not in a safe place. It’s the same level that Show Me the Money was at before it got canned which is really sad in a way. I’m not necessarily a fan, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it come back potentially, especially if they can fix some issues. The Singing Bee can basically be declared dead with the really horrible ratings it got on Friday. The rest of the shows are right on par.
23
Dec
We’re Back to Normal
Yes, the 1 VS 100 sale and survey is over. I really thank you for either taking part in either the survey or the sale. I promise, if we have advertisements again it will be better arranged on the website and will only involve game shows or game show related products. I’d also like to congratulate Jason Huhn for randomly winning the $50 from the survey contest!
This week is going to be really slow, obviously. Everyone’s away on vacation and there will be no news until 2008 most likely. So what will you be getting? We’ll dig through our archives and try to find either the most entertaining posts or entertaining video clips of the year as sort of an “end-of-2007″ game show celebration. If you have any comments as to what your favorite moments were, please write them in the comment box, I’d love to hear. Also, tomorrow we will have an interview with The Moment of Truth and Russian Roulette host, one of the best in the business, Mark L. Walberg.
So what do you have to look forward to in BuzzerBlog in 2008? We have a few nice additions coming soon hopefully. We want to try to have a contest every month to thank you guys for reading. For instance, next month we should have a contest for the Family Feud DVD. We are also starting a new celebrity blog, where some of the biggest game show personalities and regular game show fans can write about what they want and whatever they want in a new page. We’re also looking at potentially adding a few games, a larger video content, and more interviews. I’m listening to what you all said in the survey and trying to adapt to everyone’s liking.
I just really want to thank you all for reading BuzzerBlog. It’s unreal to me that I’ve been doing this for a bit over two years now. What’s more amazing to me is that I’ve been doing it for a bit over two years and how far we’ve gotten. It’s only possible because of you readers putting up with my crazy ranting, and I do appreciate it more than you know. As I always say, you are truly changing today’s game show landscape with those comments; people in high places are reading. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am of all of you, and I hope we can have an even more successful 2008 with you all on board. I hope you all have an extremely Merry Christmas and a great 2008.
We have loads of pictures from NBC’s revived series of American Gladiators debuting January 6th. The old events are basically the same only made more extreme, like The Wall and Joust being over water. Look for an amazing new tweak to Assault which will see the Gladiator sent sky high if he or she loses. All of this is really making me anticipate the new series. Plus Helga scares the living crap out of me, and I’ve played hockey for around 20 years.
GSN is launching a new original on Tuesday, January 8th, called How Much Is Enough?. The game is honestly excessively simplistic and easy. A clock starts from $0 and goes to a predetermined dollar value or starts at a predetermined dollar value and goes to $0. Just don’t be the greediest person (or the cheapest either on the final $5,000 clock) and you win what’s on it. That’s it. No special bells and whistles. Not a gigantic neon set. Just a simple, nicely budgeted game of strategy and some body language, and that’s just fine. By just understanding that it’s not some spectacle of game play amazement, the show comes off as a fun half hour.
One keeping this show afloat is host Corbin Bernsen. He is absolutely fantastic. If he’s reading a teleprompter I can’t tell, and that’s what comes from a host who has TV experience and knows how to do things. With all due respect to people like Dylan Lane of Chain Reaction, if someone like him hosted the show would be terrible. Corbin keeps the game moving, can slow down the game and talk to the contestants while not making it boring, and creates a nice level of tension. Speaking of tension, watch out for the final clock where you’ll see tens of thousands of dollars available. Beyond Grand Slam, it’s the one of the more suspenseful thing I’ve seen on GSN in quite some time.
Very quick note. As of now, there’s only around 30 hours left in the iToys 1 VS 100 game sale before it goes away. Again, just the electronic tabletop game is $19.99, but getting both the tabletop and handheld game is $24.99. Both packs are without shipping or handling. This may be the only time we’ll do a sale of the 1 VS 100 games, so get them while you can. Thanks for putting up with the banners. We appreciate it, and we hope you enjoyed the sale.
A review of GSN’s How Much Is Enough? is coming relatively soon.
19
Dec
Ratings Update
A weekly notification of new ratings seems to work better than daily. Saves some space. New ratings are on today. Networks looked good and syndication looked bad. The most successful of the Deal or No Deal gimmicks from “What’s The Deal?” Week, ratings wise, was Winner Takes All. Duel is not doing that badly ratings wise as of now, but it’s continually going down by the half hour as of last episode and not doing that well in the key demo. Again, I just want to say the trivia fan in me relatively enjoys the show. The production person in me just thinks there’s a lot wrong with it. Interestingly the only syndicated show that went up is the one that doesn’t deserve it, Temptation. Go figure.
Yes, we’re actually doing a GSN schedule update. Strange, isn’t it? GSN’s adding a bunch of new classics to the schedule which will make many people happy. Shows like Wheel of Fortune and Tic Tac Dough are returning while late nights see even more Double Dare which is shockingly a pretty fun show. I’m not really a big fan of Tic Tac Dough but I always found it to be exponentially better than things like The Joker’s Wild. Be on the lookout for a newer fan favorite POSSIBLY (I stress possibly as much as I can. It’s no where near official yet) returning to the primetime schedule soon, right around the launch of a new original. It will make a lot of people happy, I promise.
Here’s what the GSN schedule is looking like courtesy of reader Seth Thrasher:
Saturdays, effective January 5
2:00 AM: Body Language (replaces Let’s Make a Deal)
2:30 AM: Beat the Clock (Monty Hall) (replaces Let’s Make a Deal)
Sundays, effective January 6
12:30 AM: Super Password (replaces Double Dare)
1:00 AM: Double Dare (replaces Body Language)
1:30 AM: Double Dare (replaces Beat the Clock)
2:00 AM: Body Language (replaces Anything to Win)
2:30 AM: Beat the Clock (Monty Hall) (replaces Anything to Win)
Weekdays, effective January 7
11:00 AM: Wheel of Fortune (replaces Match Game)
11:30 AM: Tic Tac Dough (replaces Super Password)
1:00 PM: Match Game (replaces Jeopardy)
2:00 PM: Jeopardy (replaces Password Plus)
2:30 PM: Password Plus (replaces Match Game)
Quick update on Trivial Pursuit. One of my favorite hosts, Mark Walberg, is currently being named host of the show by TVWeek. Denbar-Mercury is looking at a Fall 2008 debut of the interactive trivia show. As we talked about a while ago, also be looking out for Power of 10, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, and many more for syndication next year. Hopefully it’s better than this year’s disappointing new syndicated game roster.
Trivia fans have another reason to be happy as ABC’s new quiz show, Duel, kicks off its six episode run all this week at 8PM ET with the finale on Sunday at 8PM ET. Described as trivia with elements of strategy (barely any at all) and poker (none at all), players have to answer trivia questions by placing chips on what they think is the right answer. Chips on wrong answers go into the pot which builds over the course of the tournament and will award someone with over a million dollars by the end. Run out of chips or give one wrong answer and you’re gone.
So far the few reviews of this show (ABC really wouldn’t hand out advanced screener copies of the show unlike Bingo Night or any other show they’ve done which isn’t a good sign ever) have been less than positive, but the thing to remember is that’s a relatively enjoyable little trivia show for big prizes. ABC blew it out of proportion a bit, but it’s still fun. And if you want in on the fun, ABC has something for you.
They’ve launched a new Duel online game where you can play by yourself or “against” someone else. I put quotes around it because all you’re doing is trying to last as many questions as someone else does. I figured it would have been like the show but sadly it’s not. You can really get a feel for how the show plays with it. Be sure to tell us what you think about the show tonight, and we’ll have a bigger response on Thursday…..
Because, you guessed it, I’m off to New York again to keep plugging my show. Things are going well, though. I know I’ve promised you details on how to do this sort of thing, and I’m sorry that I’ve shirked it. I’ve shirked it basically because I’ve been completely shambolic recently and keep pushing it back. However, this time we’re bringing a video camera and I’m hoping to get some video for you of my escapades. We’ll also have a Mark L. Walberg interview this week, so stay tuned.
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