BuzzerBlog

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 down at number five.  I’m glad to see Millionaire around, though.  Number four was definite, and that was The Mole at 9.17%.  It’s a shame that we probably won’t see another season because of low ratings, but there’s an incredibly vocal group of fans that became very visible again once the show was announced as returning.

Number three goes to The Price is Right with 15.49% of the votes.  I think we talk enough about that show.  Number two shocked me; it’s Million Dollar Password.  People like it that much, huh?  It got 17.6%.  I still have to be honest.  I enjoy the show; I think it’s good; but I don’t think it comes close to topping stuff like Millionaire.  But if anything it’s nice to see what is essentially Password back with a good host, and it’s nice to see a show that actually challenges people to win a million dollars.  That’s missing from a lot of shows today.

And the number one game show of 2008, as voted by you, is Jeopardy! with 19.83%.  Jeopardy! still remains popular with many because it’s always reliable and without so many of the annoying gimmicks of today’s other shows.  Plus, again, it’s a show with some actual challenge.  It’s also the most interactive show on television.  You can’t just turn it on and sit back.  If it’s on your television, you’re playing along with it.  You really have no choice.  Good voting from all of you!

The show with the least amount of votes was Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, AKA Millionaire for Dumbasses, which makes me proud of you all again.  It barely had 1% of the votes.  But sadly, if you’re not a fan of it, get ready for more of it in the Fall 2009 syndicated season.

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 chat with Wheel executive producer Harry Friedman.  Australian had Million Dollar Wheel of Fortune under the same format we had.  You won the million the same exact way over there as here.  I, as well as many others who follow this stuff, figured we took their idea.  He told me that they were developing this end game for around a year.  When Australia wanted to revive Wheel,they wanted something new, so Harry basically sent this end game over there as a test.  I’m pretty sure if what happened in October happened so quickly in Australia, knowing how cheap they are it would have been gone quickly.

Sony’s press people sent out media alerts to watch in mid October for a very special event.  No outright spoilers, but it was pretty clear what was going to happen.  And it would happen to Michelle Loewenstein.  She spun the million dollar wedge on her very first spin, so she could not hit a single bankrupt in any spin the rest of the game.  And she still had to win.  And spin it on the bonus game wheel.  And solve the tough puzzle.  She managed to and became Wheel of Fortune’s first million dollar winner in what was a very exciting and nice moment.  It’s come close to happening again, but so far no other millionaires yet.  But the real shock of this moment was just how fast she won it.  I was talking to someone before the season started and I said I’d be completely stunned if someone won the million this season.  To win it in about five weeks blew me away.  She basically played the perfect game of Wheel of Fortune and has the million dollars to show for it.  Congratulations on making history, Michelle.  And as a small consolation, our experts have voted you and the million dollar Wheel of Fortune win the most memorable game show moment of 2008.  We’ll see you in 2009!

Moment of Truth: Do you think the million dollars is too easy to win, or was this just a freak accident and it’s just right?  Plus, as always, throw in any additional comments you have about the win.

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 is a bit below.

And season two is where it all crumbled.  It was announced that a new season, a money chain, would be added.  You’d move up the money chain for every ten people of the 100 person Mob you knocked out.  This game play was tested during demo run-throughs but was deemed not good enough to make it to the show.  Apparently they changed their mind.  In addition to this, the questions were severely dumbed down because of a mixture of things.  A overwhelming vast majority of your contestants wins at least $250,000.  This is the moment for today.  How NBC and Endemol royally screwed up the show in order to get a million dollar winner.  Even after whatever they did to the show in season two, ratings were still not that bad.  Ratings are better than a good deal of NBC’s other shows which are being renewed.  Yet it got canceled. Thanks Endemol/NBC!

The show lives on in many ways.  For one, the writing style is being used in many different places.  If you never saw, questions were two-faced.  They started by asking you something simple, but the question twisted so you’d have to know multiple things in order to answer the question.  I’ve noticed Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has started tto use this style more and more recently.  I praised this style of writing repeatedly.  It was something new and fun.  A lot of people really enjoyed it.  When it was ditched for season two, it got a bit confusing.  But I got the following email from a writer of the show that I think you’ll enjoy:

As one of the writers from the first season of 1 vs. 100, I want to thank you for the kind words on your website. The questions we wrote for the show were both fun yet challenging to create, and it’s great to see that our hard work was appreciated by such an avid fan of the genre. The 1 vs. 100 multi-twist type question was the brainchild of the show’s original Head Writer, but for unknown reasons, Endemol decided to go in a different direction in season 2. One thing I can tell you is when it comes to “dumbing down” questions, it’s nearly impossible to dumb material down enough to satisfy Endemol executives.

Again, thanks Endemol/NBC!

There was a million dollar winner the second season, but once you factor in everything it’s not that shocking.  They dumbed down the game play.  They severely dumbed down the questions.  They chose a contestant who is a national quiz bowl champion.  Is it really a shock that he won?  If he won less than $250,000 it would have been disappointing.  I’ve said it before: I don’t think the first millionaire, Jason Luna, would have won in season one, where everything was tougher.  To win a million he had to know when greeting cards were given away.  Let’s see what would have happened when he was asked actual hard questions.

It was sad to see 1 VS 100 go all because of the dire need of a network and company to give away a million dollars.  It’s an issue a lot of shows have today.  A lot of networks think that all people want to see are million dollar wins.  Deal or No Deal had the same issue.  And no one really cared when either did.  Not to mention the ungodly amount of spoilers about the million dollar win.  NBC keeps saying no current plans to bring back to show are being looked at, and to be honest it’s almost positively canceled, but you never fully know.  I doubt NBC’s new Friday night show, Howie Do It, or any of their other shows, wil be doing much.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 television and really got people to play on more.  Literally anything negative about the primetime version was erased and drastically improved upon in the daytime.  The clip above, with Chelsea Drake, was the best US Deal has ever been, and so much more dramatic than the primetime version has ever been, even with half the top prize.

It’s impossible to argue that it’s worked, or that the format is dead.  Look at the ratings.  While primetime Deal continues to go down and down, daytime Deal goes up and up.  More people are seeing how the format is supposed to be played.  It’s won over many critics because of the speed.  It’s not in-your-face speed like the primetime version’s speed edition, but it’s done so you can connect with players while not getting irritated by them.  Ratings started out rocky ratings wise, but it honestly looks like it may overtake Who Wants to be a Millionaire? by the end of this season or beginning of next season as the 3rd highest rated game show in syndication.  It’s amazing how similar the run of Millionaire is to Deal or No Deal.  Like Millionaire, Deal ran its course, overstayed its welcome, came back new and improved in daytime, and looks like it’ll be sticking around for a long time to come.

Not to mention, the publicity and communications nerd that I am, this really shows that if you promote a show in simple ways, people will watch.  Crosswords, Temptation, and Trivial Pursuit had extremely little publicity and look how disappointing the ratings are.  Deal or No Deal had actual advertisements and publcity and it’s the number one new daytime show this season.  It’s not coincidence.  Other shows could really learn something.

Moment of Truth: Did Daytime Deal or No Deal bring new life and rejuvinate the format?  What has made the daytime edition so popular?

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 she cheat on her husband. She did admit to it. However, Laura lost all her money on the question, “Do you think you’re a good person?” She said yes, and the lie detector said no.

I know there’s a large negative reaction to the show which I understand, but it generated the most attention out of any game show moment this year. It made CNN the next morning. It really showed how far people will go for money. Forget Deal or No Deal where you see people gamble the money they say they need badly for a faint chance at a million dollars. Laura knowingly destroyed her marriage and image on national television and left with nothing. It wasn’t a good moment, far from it. But I can’t tell you how many psychology and communication professors I’ve been emailed by from around the country asking for this clip to use in their lectures. There are much better, happier moments, like the millionaires on Deal or No Deal. But I didn’t see those making it on national news programs and papers next morning.

Remember, it wasn’t just me that did this countdown before you flame me. Nearly 50 experts voted, and this came in as number four. Barely at place four, but it did.

Moment of Truth: For the brief time that it was popular, what do you think made people care about The Moment of Truth so much?  Was it a guilty pleasure for you, or just plain garbage?

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 comes from the entire media frenzy surrounding her.  There was a bit of a backlash from people saying she was just going off to Hollywood while her school systems needed help.  But she ended up donating her entire million dollars to the school system.  After that, a few months later, she filed for bankrupcy.  So really, kind of a bland moment, but nice that she did what she said she would, in the face of bankrupcy in this tough economy, and donated her entire prize to her school system.

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 Million, and $1 Million.  Banker’s offer at this point was over $600,000.  I can see where people would decline (I don’t know if I would but whatever), and Richie did.  Off went one of the million dollar cases, so his guaranteed $600,000 payout was reduced to $400,000.  A loss of $200,000.  I think mostly any sane person would Deal here.  But not Richie.  He gambled and became the biggest money loser in game show history, going from a guaranteed $600,000 offer, to a guaranteed $400,000 offer, to leaving the actual game, not any side games, with $1.

It’s struck up a bit of a debate.  First off, we have to consider if he truly lost $600,000, or even anything at all.  Honestly, at least I think he did.  He had a guaranteed $600,000 and decided he didn’t want it.  He then had a guaranteed $400,000 and decided he didn’t want it.  Just about a $600,000 loss total.  I think it’s a big loss, but you can be the judge of that.  Next comes into the debate of was he stupid or just a gamble gone wrong.  And again, I have to go on the side of stupidity.  Yes, some stupid gamblers end up winning big money, and that’s the point of the game.  But it’s fine to say, “What a moron, but at least they are walking with something good.”  But he was a stupid gambler that chased his million and ended up losing.  So at least in my book, at least Richie Bell has a record.  I doubt anyone will lose that much money on television ever.

Moment of Truth: Was Richie Bell a really bad player who made a really stupid decision, or was it just a standard Deal or No Deal gamble gone wrong?

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 this to be true as she made an unexpected perfect bid off the bat on the very first prize.  She still had ten seconds to guess the final item, which she did.  Clock Game’s gotten a bit easy since the only way to make prizes seem decent is to have them be right around the $999 level nowadays (and now they are thankfully going above the $1,000 level for prizes to not make the game look so cheap), but it was one of the best playings of any pricing game I’ve ever seen, especially with the perfect bid for the first prize, and one of the most deserving million dollar wins of the year.  Probably my favorite million dollar win of the year as well.

Moment of Truth: Too easy for a million dollar game, or just right?  Also, what do you think would make a better million dollar game in the next series of episodes.

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 not.

I think it shows a trend in what people want to see in game shows, both hardcore fans and casual fans.  The top shows were all fast paced, entertaining, energetic, fun, but still dramatic.  The bottom shows were all drawn out to a point of boredom and forced tension on you.  Also it shows people are wanting to have a challenge and play along; not just sit back and watch people you don’t know win money for nothing.  So good voting.

But now I have to ask, if you voted for Million Dollar Password or think it is one of the top new shows of the year, I’m really curious as to why?  I enjoy the show a lot for exactly the reasons I stated above: it’s fast paced, challenging, and balances the drama and fun very nicely.  It took me a few episodes to get into it but I can admit I’m a fan now.  Is this a trend you’re also seeing in shows now?  I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

Thanks for voting.  We’ll have the results of the Best of 2008 poll at the end of the year, and moment seven in our top 10 is coming up later this afternoon.

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.

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.

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 that needs fixing.  But so far it looks like GSN has successfully shifted away from it and it’s almost like they never aired it; completely ignoring it by this point.  Host Chuck Woolery was obviously in this for the money and unless someone brings him away from his radio show debuting in early 2009, it’s a shame that the last game show he did will be a Freaking Million Dollar Cat Game Show.

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 more millionaire came after it with another Million Dollar Mission, but no one really cared.  And that’s the major issue with how NBC treated Deal or No Deal.  Deal’s entire allure is that the top prize is rarely, if ever, won.  NBC did everything they could to give away the money and once it happened, who cares.  It’s why it shocked me when NBC announced the top prize was going to be $1,000,000 I was confused.  Deal’s top prize is usually something massive for television, and $1,000,000 just isn’t a lot in television terms anymore.  Of course with the economy in the toilet it is now, but I digress.  NBC destroyed the reason for watching the show for their incredible need of a millionaire, and it in turn destroyed the show, which is going off the air in January.  I think the fact that this decade’s second most popular network game show was voted as just moment ten says something.  We’ll have another Deal moment later.

Moment of Truth Question: Do you think the Million Dollar Missions and million dollar winners ruined Deal or No Deal (primetime), or was it something else?

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.