31Dec2009
Best Show of 2008 Goes To…
I cannot believe today is the last day of 2008. It flew by, didn't it? Anyway, we had an overwhelming amount of people vote for top show of 2008. So much that the voting thing actually wouldn't show results for a bit. But I thank you for voting. You all had a simple task this time; simply to vote for the best game show of 2008. I wanted to do the top five, but that isn't going to happen as I look at the results. For a change, this poll was incredibly close everywhere. No particular show got more than 20% of the votes. We actually had a tie for fifth place. Both Wheel of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? received 8.43%. Wheel of Fortune was voted as having the number one moment of 2008, so I'm a bit shocked to see it d
Read MoreView Comments (6)31Dec2009
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number One
Most shows this day are teetering towards a million dollar top prize in daytime. Plus with Deal or No Deal debuting, which was a wild card in terms of what the ratings would do, it seemed like time to bring in the million dollar top prize. You have to land on one of three segments of a wedge, which is a $1,000,000 space surrounded by Bankrupts. You have to solve the puzzle to claim it, and win the game without hitting a single Bankrupt to take it to the end game. Then you have to spin it on the bonus wheel, a 1:24 shot, and solve that tough end game puzzle. They seemed to do nothing short of making you jump through fire and entering a cage match with Pat Sajak in order to win. First, a little rumor disputing after we had a nice cha
Read MoreView Comments (8)30Dec2009
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Two
Number two is both depressing and good, and with lots of commentary and mudslinging. Our voters picked a fantastic moment to be number two. Beyond Million Dollar Password, the only show that the game show crowd seemed to get behind was 1 VS 100. Critics got behind it also once the second half of season one started. There was a reason so many did. It was the first solid, exciting, good quiz show in a very long time. It's the one import that the US played around with and made something which could rival the original in some areas. Amazing set and music, fantastic hosting from Bob Saget, challenging questions, and tough game play made it popular with people game show fans and not. A clip above shows how fun season one was. Season two
Read MoreView Comments (17)29Dec2009
Behind the Scenes Look at “Family Feud”
I live close to New York City, so the only shows I can do any on-set coverage for are Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or any show Michael Davies, my east coast game show savior, does. Which is why we'll be behind the scenes of The Newlywed Game in February. When I went to Los Angeles around two weeks ago, I wanted to try to go behind the scenes of a show I normally couldn't. Luckily I got a chance to see one of my favorite game shows still around, Family Feud. These were the last episodes of the season I got to see, so it was pretty exciting on set. Everyone seemed to really put everything they could in for the final episodes airing in May. Below the break is how the experience of seeing Family Feud live is as well as some pictures taken from the set. Shockingly my cell phone takes really good pictures. (more...)
Read MoreView Comments (12)29Dec2009
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Three
I actually think we're finally over all the potential ugly moments and we're at the truly special and memorable moments. We start our top three by visiting syndication. To say that people were sick of NBC's Deal or No Deal looks to be an understatement. The show dropped viewers by the end of season three and beginning of season four like the plague and no gimmick they did helped whatsoever. Massive publicity didn't matter. It was basically dead, and this really worried many about the syndicated version announced. Were people just sick of the format, or was there still life in it? Our third top moment of 2008 is how the syndicated edition of Deal or No Deal seemed to save the format. The daytime version purged everything bad and odd about the primetime version. You got to know contestants more without getting annoying up close, the game was sped up, the relationship couch was gone, the Banker got more nasty and personal, the board was actually challenging, and the top prize of $500,000 was a fortune for daytime t
Read MoreView Comments (11)28Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Four
Here comes the moment I dreaded writing about. I just have a feeling I'll be getting yelled about for this. However, I think it definitely deserves a place on our lineup. I don't think FOX's The Moment of Truth is going to be forgotten soon. It was one of those shows, much like American Gladiators, that was popular during the writer's strike when there was absolutely nothing else on, but once actual good programming returned it became irrelevant. It was the show people loved to hate. There was one person in particular which made the show stand out. This was contestant Laura Cleri. If you watched the show, you know that some very emotionally difficult questions were asked, but those came later in the game. Laura's questions got tough very early and never let up. The four questions going for $100,000 were brutal, as she basically admitted she regrets marrying her husband and wishes she was married to her ex-boyfriend. She won $100,000 and it still didn't let up. Next came the now infamous question of did sh
Read MoreView Comments (12)27Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Five
We're up to the 2nd half of our countdown, and we start with a moment from the beginning of the Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? season. It's the show's first appearance on any of our countdowns. Throughout the first two seasons, no one could win a million because, well, for the most part they cast idiots for the show. However, late into the season and especially in the current one they've started getting people to play who if they don't at least win $500,000 you seriously question why they are where they are today. It was especially true for Georgia school superintendent Kathy Cox, as she became the first million dollar winner on the show. This moment really doesn't have to do with the show. Nothing that thrilling happened. It was a tiny bit spoiled, she was a person who had no excuse not to win it probably, and again, she won a million dollars for knowing what a ten year old should know. Meanwhile we haven't had a million dollar winner on Millionaire for about six or seven years. The real moment come
Read MoreView Comments (5)26Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Six
I hope all of you who celebrate Christmas had a nice one yesterday, or at least a good day in general. Coming in at number six on the countdown is yet another Deal or No Deal moment, and one that I did not expect to be ranked so highly. There's a bit of a debate about this one, so I can't wait for you to voice your opinions. Back when Who Wants to be a Millionaire? started in the late 90s, the thought of losing over $450,000 by answering the million dollar question wrong was unthinkable. A lot has made me thank the fantastic casting directors at that show for not choosing crazy people who will gamble at anything. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grade has its share of people like this, losing $475,000 by missing the final question. And that seemed like the most anyone could lose. But then along came Richie Bell on NBC's Deal or No Deal. He was lucky enough to play the Million Dollar Mission even though the mission was a success the first time, so he had it good from the start. His final three cases were $1, $1 Milli
Read MoreView Comments (21)25Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number Seven
Number seven on our list of the top ten moments of 2008 is, again, from The Price is Right. A lot nicer and happier moment, too. The special million dollar primetime episodes went through a bit of a change since Bob Barker left the show. Instead of blind luck like winning the million spinning the big wheel, the show asked you to have a bit of skill to win the $1,000,000. For the first few episodes, if you came within $1,000 of your Showcase value, you won both Showcases as well as $1,000,000. A bit easy, but still nice to see a big win like that. After it happened twice in an extremely short period of time, this was fixed to a much more deserving $500 range. The other way to win the million was in a pricing game, and this is where our moment really kicks in. One of the million dollar pricing games was Clock Game. For the million dollars, the contestant had to guess the exact price of two sub-$1,000 items in as much as ten seconds. It was very hard to do, but very possible. Contestant Cynthia Azevado proved th
Read MoreView Comments (12)25Dec2008
Your Best New Show of 2008 Is…
We did two reader polls this year; one for best new show of 2008 and another for just all-around best show of 2008. The best show vote is still extremely close so we'll wait to post that. But what's shocking is that the Best New Show of 2008 poll has a distant leader by a good number of votes. It's not a majority, but it's the by far the largest minority. With 32% of the votes, Million Dollar Password was voted as top new game show of 2008. So congratulations to it. I'd just like to say I'm extremely proud of how you all voted regardless. You all have really good taste. The top five were (in order) Password, Daytime Deal or No Deal, Wipeout, The Mole, and Catch 21. Places two through four were very close. I was also really happy to see what you all voted as the worst new shows of 2008, with the lowest amount of votes. They were Amne$ia and in the bottom slot, the absolute stinker How Much Is Enough?. It's really nice to see that readers here have a really fantastic grasp of what is a good format and what's no
Read MoreView Comments (10)24Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number 8
As we said before, the countdown isn't going to be necessarily good moments. It's going to be the most memorable. Like it or not, the cat game show was really memorable. I doubt I'll be able to erase that from my head. Number 8 is floating between good and bad. We've gone over the perfect bid on the Showcase portion of The Price is Right to a point of annoyance, so if you really want to read about our thoughts you can click here or here. But below is the video of The Great Price Fan Freakout of 2008 which includes "enthusiastic fans" memorizing the prices to everything, contestants who can't think for themselves, and a fantastic host who just couldn't muster a tiny bit of fake, bull crap enthusiasm for five seconds.
Read MoreView Comments (13)24Dec2008
Syndication Ratings Update
Well, good news this week on syndie ratings: they either stayed the same or went up. Wheel, Jeopardy, and TP all held steady, while Millionaire went up .1 to 2.6, Family Feud went back to a 1.5 from a 1.3 last week, and Deal or No Deal reached a 1.9, up from 1.8, and actually reached 2.0 on December 10.
Read MoreLeave a Comment23Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number 9
Our number nine moment of 2008 comes from GSN. It's pretty well recorded that I'm a big fan of the network. I've enjoyed most of their recent original shows and programming decisions. Also, the entire staff is unbelievably welcoming and nice. But the network did something on June 10th which confuses many, and still does. On that day, it was revealed that GSN and Meow Mix were planning to air a million dollar cat game show. A game show where cats and owners compete to win $1,000,000. It still confuses the world's top scientists and religious experts as to why they picked it up. Once you started watching, though (if you were one of the crazy people who did), you clearly saw why GSN picked up Freaking Million Dollar Cat Game Show. It was an informercial; a time buy. GSN got some decent money for suffering for a half hour and airing this. But to what damage? After the New York Times calls your show, "one of the most embarrassing half-hours in the history of television," it does a bit of damage to your brand t
Read MoreView Comments (8)22Dec2008
Top 10 Moments of 2008: Number 10
Can you believe there is less than two weeks left in 2008? It really flew by quickly. We had a lot of moments to go through this year, both the good and the bad. Big wins and network stupidity. We asked insiders and experts to vote on what they thought were the top moments of the year. After around fifty votes, we have the results, and it ended up pretty interesting. Number ten is above. On September 1st, after four seasons of Deal or No Deal, the once popular NBC show finally gave away a million dollars. It was hard not to, though. NBC and Endemol consistently set up the board for a millionaire, having as many as thirteen $1,000,000 cases on the board at a time. It took a bit of time, but the first winner finally came. Between the final figures of $200,000 and $1,000,000; it was almost positive that Jessica Robinson was going to be the first winner. Of course it was more obvious if you watched any of the NBC previews which ran for at least a week before the event happened, giving away the ending. One mor
Read MoreView Comments (22)21Dec2008
A “Whose Line is it Anyway?” Christmas
I'm sick and tired of hearing anything about Price is Right, which will be on our countdown and I'll have to relive it, but regardless. Let's move to another Drew Carey show where obsessive fans can't memorize prizes. It's Whose Line is it Anyway?. Sadly the next DVD won't be coming out for a few months, but Youtube has a ton of Whose Line clips to enjoy. Here's the Christmas episode, one of the funnier episodes. You can catch Whose Line is it Anyway? most weekdays (except this week) at midnight on ABC Family.
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