Sorry about not getting the drop montages up last night like I promised; I got really busy. But business is over and updates resume regularly. Here are the drop montages that I said you’d get. Because I waited so long, why not put two up?
Thanks to Gunnar Wetterberg for these.
We have some new ratings for you. The only major success story was Deal or No Deal thanks to the Million Dollar Mission which is thankfully over and unwon. The rest were either flat, down, or just plain crappy. Moment of Truth held its own against Deal and an ABC movie, so that says something. I know most of you aren’t fans, but I am, and Monday’s episode was unreal. It even crossed my line. But I will say it’s why I like the show. It really makes me emotional, for the better or worse. No other show does that, like Amnes…….sorry, I dozed off.
Why not show videos on days with no news? This is from my favorite game show which GSN will hopefully some day get on the air if Sony lets it go: Russian Roulette. It features one of the most amazing and exciting game show wins I’ve ever seen. This is Maria Lay winning $100,000 by playing Russian Roulette with five drop zones. If you know the show at all, if you play with five zones, you’re basically screwed. She’s one of the two I’d really like to see on Grand Slam 2008 (Come on, GSN). Why can’t we get any quality shows like this on anymore?
Let’s pick your brain while we’re at it: Were you a fan of Russian Roulette? If so, what did you like most about it? For me, I really enjoyed that the show had tough trivia, an awesome set, one of the best music packages in ages, and the end game is one of the most exciting I’ve ever seen on television. You can’t tell me your heart doesn’t stop for a moment as the Revolver spins its lights. We’ll get a video of some drops later for you this evening.
Sorry for the slow and late updates during the week. If you’re in college like me, it’s midterm probably, so I’m exceptionally busy. But we have time for a nice little video for you. Reader Chris R. sent us this YouTube video of the Trivial Pursuit pitch tape. You get what’s essentially the game as of now: pretty decent gameplay, stereotypical modern but nice looking set, nice money which is bound to be drastically lowered when the show gets to air, and we have Mark Walberg hosting so we get a big thumbs up. Take a look and tell you what you think.
I have to tell you, for the most part, this season’s Deal or No Deal gimmicks have been fantastic. They really change the game into something new and exciting, like Winner Takes All. Of course not all are hits, like the Million Dollar Mission. However, I think this one’s going to be a hit: Deal’s going on a world tour for May sweeps!
The show will be traveling to different countries around the world and taping from their set. Countries being announced are the Philippines, South Africa, and Estonia. They will be playing by their rules, which are our rules. No word on using their prize tree, though.
So yeah, they’re going to countries that have sets that sort of look like ours and with the same format. But still, the idea of traveling is really cool and one of the better if not the best gimmicks they have done. The only thing I would have done is go to the British set to do a daytime format episode. We’re going with a 22-case $250,000 syndicated edition of Deal this fall; it would have made sense to test the waters with their format. But anyway, it’s a very welcomed change that doesn’t take away from what the show is and doesn’t basically fix the board so it’s an obscenely better chance at winning $1,000,000. Are we all in good spirits about this one?
Remember, GSN debuts their new interactive live call in show, GSN Live, today at noon which is excessively soon. What do you all think of the show? I’m sure a certain network would love to hear.
Sorry about the site acting funky. Wordpress, where we do our posting from, is updating soon and our look is going to be out of date and not working. So, we’re going to have to look for a relatively new look (hopefully something similar to this still) that is compatible. If you ever find something fun, be sure to email me, but for now, if the site acts a bit messed up, I apologize. I’m doing all I can.
A lot of game shows were on the major networks Friday. I was out at a party so I didn’t get to check all of them out, but a few notes.
1: Wow, Drew Carey has to be the luckiest person in the universe. First Power of 10 and now Price is Right.
2: Amne$ia wasn’t as god awful as I expected, but it still seems off to me. It’s another one of those shows that does not fit in primetime despite the efforts of producers. I really unfairly compared this to Moment of Truth; it’s like comparing apples and oranges. I’m still more of a fan of Moment of Truth. I felt more emotion on that game than I did on Amne$ia, and Mark Walberg comes off as a much stronger host than Dennis Miller. But still, not a bad little show at all and one of the few times where my snap judgements were really wrong.
3: 1 VS 100 had its season finale, and who knows if it’s coming back. I truly feel Endemol dropped the ball big time. From changing the game so basically everyone who wins less than $100,000 is a dumbass to dumbing down the material, it was just a mess. Nothing against big winners like Jason Luna, but I’d like to see if he would have gotten as far with season one material. It would have been a severe challenge compared to before. The ratings haven’t exactly been fantastic, though they haven’t really gone down that much either. It’s definitely on the bubble again.
We finally have a brief look into the rules of GSN’s new original game show, Bingo America. This was taken from GSN’s press page and from an audience member who wished to remain anonymous.
It looks to be entirely different than ABC’s National Bingo Night which is a good thing. We have a legitimate game now. Mix that with the huge bingo hopper and I’m all smiles. Essentially, a ball comes out and at-home players mark it off their cards. In-studio players answer a question. If they are right, the ball’s dollar value is placed into the round’s bank and the player is given the letter on the ball. First to spell B-I-N-G-O wins the round. First player to win two rounds wins the game, the bank, and plays the Bingo Bonus Board for $100,000. No idea how the dollar values for the balls work yet, though. Logic would tell me the number on the ball becomes the dollar total, but I’ve seen pictures with a bank over $1,000. That would take quite a bit of time, wouldn’t it?
The winner faces the Bingo Bonus Board. The board is shown in this post. Basically, a player just picks a number off the board, with the corresponding letter obviously. There are prizes from $500 to trips to $100,000 on it. The winner keeps picking until they get a matching pair. Whatever is matched first is what you take home. Yeah, it’s very hard to win, but at least it’s remotely possible. It’s not as impossible as, say, Deal or No Deal’s big money Hershey Kiss game. When at-home players print off cards, they have bonus numbers at the bottom. If their bonus number matches what a player selects, the at-home player gets a separate cash prize.
It looks to be interesting at least. It’s no Grand Slam (where’s the renewal on that anyway?), but it’s something interesting. They transformed a lousy ABC game show into a pretty decent game with a big money end game. I’d just wish the end game was a little more bingo oriented. To switch to a matching game out of no where is a bit silly to me. What do you think of the rules? Remember, just reading them is going to be different than watching, so be sure to check it out on March 31st at 7:00PM ET on GSN. A new season of Lingo would really complement the hour block well.
I had the great pleasure of receiving an email from a season one 1 VS 100 writer. He thanked all of the commenters for the nice comments about the writing; it was the idea of the former head writer. However, Endemol decided to dumb down the show and get rid of them, using straight forward trivia. Also, what’s nice to mention is that the previous writers were all part of the Writer’s Guild of America. It’s very obvious that shows that care about the writing use WGA members, like Jeopardy, Millionaire and 1 VS 100. As a person who has written material for a few game shows and a writer of other things, it’s extremely nice to see the strike over.
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