BuzzerBlog

Be sure to check out Wheel of Fortune today wherever and whenever it airs in your area.  The show celebrates its 5,000th episode.  It’s a very fun, exciting show, so check it out.

After reading some comments here, some IMs and emails I got, and postings on other boards I feel like I sort of have to sell some of you on to GSN’s revival of The Newlywed Game.  The source of the worry has, ironically, come from the Entertainment Tonight video I posted hoping to excite people about the new version.  It actually seemed to throw off a few people because, admittedly, Bob Eubanks really talked and acted like he wanted to host this new version badly.  Who can blame him, but I digress.  I feel I need to make it up to you by bringing up all the positives and negatives of The Newlywed Game, from the many shows I saw, just in case there were doubters that Embassy Row and GSN revived the show masterfully.

First off, I always rant and rave that Embassy Row is one of the very very few production companies I fully trust to do any show, and it stands true with this.  The crew, specifically pointing out Michael Davies and Tracey Bowen, has always treated this site, specifically me, better than they should probably treat a niche blog.  Without them a lot of stuff you read probably wouldn’t make it here.  They’re always so nice and friendly and willing to help me out with this stuff that it staggers me.  It’s always unbelievably flattering to have people like the director come up to me and say how much they enjoy the site and what we (including you commenters) do.  I’ve known them for a long time, like three or four years now, and it was fantastic seeing some old friends from that show and from Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The big element to be happy with is that the core of the game stayed the same.  Instead of four couples playing, there are three because of time constraints.  There are three 5 point questions in round one; in round two there are two 10 pointers and one final 20 point question.  If there’s a tie, they do a short tie breaker to see who won the game.  The winning couple wins a second honeymoon and plays the bonus round against a couple from the original version called the Goldyweds.  The couple can be from the 60s, 70s, or 80s versions.  I saw all decades. The bonus round is five questions in the same Newlywed Game format as always.  Whoever has the most points wins a bonus prize.
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A while ago we posted about a new British show called The Colour of Money, which is essentially just a single player edition of GSN’s huge bomb How Much is Enough.  The first episode aired last week, and reaction hasn’t been good from the UK audiences.  However, inexplicably, the US people who have seen the show seem to sort of enjoy it, which befuddles me.  While the show isn’t as bad as I figured it would be and it is workable into something better and more coherent, it seems like sort of a one-trick-pony, more so than any show I’ve seen in a while, and the people that watched the show in England saw that.  Will it come to America?  I really am not sure not.  I hope not, and I really don’t think it was counting that in terms of what the network, ITV, expected for it, it was a rather large failure.  But who knows.  Check it out; I’d really love to know if I’m alone in the fact that I just don’t find watching other people screaming at a screen with little action happening enjoyable.

But hey, it’s a got a really nice set.  It seems like it’s wasted on this lacking format, though.

We’ve updated the ratings which were available for us that you would care about, which is essentially just the syndicated shows.  Nothing was looking too fantastic during the week ending February 15th.  In fact, the only show to stay even was Deal or No Deal, which for some reason has still not been announced for a second season yet.  The daytime edition of the once-popular NBC game show held at a 1.8, one tenth of a point behind The Doctors which is currently holding the number one slot.  Last we heard it was nearly positive Deal would be renewed and they were shopping it around, so I wouldn’t put too much into not hearing anything official yet.  It’s just a bit shocking counting that we’ve heard from a few other shows hovering in the same ratings area.

The other long running shows were all down.  Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! were at 7.4 and 6.2, respectively.  However, with those ratings, I really doubt Sony overly cares about a 6% or a 5% drop from the previous week.  Who Wants to be a Millionaire fell to a tying-season-low 2.4.  The show’s had a lot of press attention this week because of the extremely exciting Roger Storm (won $250,000) episode, and with some more exciting episodes in store soon, so that’ll be picking up soon.  Family Feud’s staying in it with a 1.4, and poor Trivial Pursuit sticks in the back with a 0.6.  There’s basically next to no hope for the show.

We still haven’t heard a word about Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? being picked up by anyone.  Though confidence of a pick-up was high originally, it’s been dead silent since.

It’s very vaguely game show enough for me to post about it here, at least while clips of a new British game show are uploading.  Another Whose Line is it Anyway? DVD is coming out in June, after a long delay.  The “Best Of” collection will feature a much more impressive lineup than the last few DVDs.

In the Los Angeles area and want to see the new season of Catch 21 tape?  Click here to get tickets to catch the hit GSN quiz/card game hosted by Alfonso Ribiero.

It’s a very exciting episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? tomorrow.  If you watched today (Monday, February 23rd) you met Roger Storm, a 59-year-old Digital Learning Network Coordinator at the NASA Glenn Research Center and a father of eight.  The former Jeopardy! champion worked his way up to $250,000 and he will be going for $500,000 at the start of tomorrow’s show (Tuesday, February 24th).

Roger used his final three lifelines to get to the $250,000.  The question was “Al Gore’s famous and oft-ridiculed quote “I took the initiative in creating the Internet” was made in 1999 to what journalist? A: Barbara Walters, B: Larry King, C: Wolf Blitzer, D: Matt Lauer.”  Not knowing, he first used Ask the Expert, with Ashleigh Banfield of TruTV.  She believed it was C but wasn’t too confident.  Next he used Ask the Audience; they believed the answer was B.  He finally used his Double Dip lifeline to select both answers.  Roger first chose B, which was incorrect; afterwhich he chose C which won him $250,000.  Will he be the first $1,000,000 winner in nearly seven years and a thousand episodes?  Watch tomorrow to find out.

Want to know the $500,000 question?  Check under the break for the question and see if you can work it out.  WARNING: READ THE COMMENTS AND BREAK AT YOUR OWN RISK.  THEY WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE SEEN THE SHOW.

Photo courtesy of Valleycrest Productions Ltd.
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We’ll have our behind the scenes look at The Newlywed Game, presented by e-harmony.com, very early this week if not today.  Sorry for the delay, I’ve been waiting for some pictures to show you all.  Until then here’s a clip of Entertainment Tonight interviewing former host Bob Eubanks and current host Carnie Wilson.  You can get a few glimpses of the set from it.

Last night was very special for game show and movie fans alike.  Slumdog Millionaire, a movie based on a young man going on the Indian game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and exceeding people’s expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials, won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  It’s pretty staggering that a movie with a giant image of the most popular game show of all time won it, so an huge amount of congratulations to them.  From my standpoint, it’s even more staggering that the director of 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle, won a Best Director for this movie, so again, congratulations to all.

I haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet, sadly.  I’ve decided to spend me theater time enjoying such classics as Friday the 13th instead which I openly regret.  So I’m curious if you’ve seen the movie what you thought of it.  It got a bit of attention, but it was severely downplayed in the game show community for some reason; something I’m extremely guilty of as well and sorely regret.  I’ll definitely be seeing it this weekend, so I’m extremely curious as to your opinion of the movie.  It’s always looked fantastic; I just apparently like machetes more than real human emotion.

We got hit with a lot of attention about Roger Storm’s appearance on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? next week.  Some people seemed to remember him from Jeopardy!.  I expected to have to do some actual research about this, but apparently I don’t need to.  He came up instantly on YouTube.  Here’s Roger Storm on Jeopardy!.  Look out next week as he faces the hot seat and host Meredith Vieira on Millionaire.  Note: The show’s going to be preempted in New York City, so I’d look elsewhere for it.

I hate doing posts like this, but this is just a small response to a lot of stuff I’ve been reading.  I’ve noticed in a lot of blog posts and comments in various places that I stated Cat Deeley is the new host of Millionaire according to unnamed sources.  I just wanted to completely discredit this stuff.  A British tabloid, Mirror.co.uk, posted the story originally.  We reported on it.

For the record, I don’t think she will be the new host.  Meredith’s with the show through 2011, and possibly further.  I think the rumor is a publicity stunt for her stint on Millionaire.  Meredith Vieira doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.  But we just wanted to make it absolutely clear that we at BuzzerBlog did not start this rumor about Cat Deeley hosting the show.  To reiterate, the last line from the original posting:

If anyone has more insight, I’d love to know. Otherwise, who knows what’s going on.

We were supplied with a small preview of next Tuesday’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire? which is up on YouTube now.  Definitely take a look.  Could he be The One?  The clip does have a pretty decent spoiler about next week, but it’s exciting and doesn’t ruin the episode.

The long national nightmare of Donny Osmond’s Pyramid is going to be staved off by the long-awaited return of two versions of Dick Clark’s Pyramid when GSN revamps the schedules a bit on March 30th.  First off, in a bit of an amusing change, Match Game PM will air at 9:30AM ET, replacing Card Sharks (Eubanks), weekdays.  Let’s see how long until the little old ladies get confused.

Probably the most exciting change comes after that.  Dick Clark’s The $25,000 Pyramid will air weekdays at 11:30AM ET, replacing the severely rerun abused Press Your Luck.  That’s not all, though.  1:00PM ET will see airings of The $100,000 Pyramid, replacing Card Sharks (Perry).  Talk about a great bunch of schedule changes there.  The $100,000 Pyramid is far-and-away my favorite game show ever, so I’m glad to see it come back.  An encore of The $100,000 Pyramid will air at 2:00AM ET, and an encore of The $25,000 Pyramid at 2:30AM ET.

Speaking of coming back, an old but new GSN favorite returns to the lineup at  3:00PM ET and 1:00AM ET, replacing To Tell The Truth and Wheel of Fortune, respectively: Hollywood Squares.  No word on what version just yet, but counting that it’s airing after the line-in-the-sand at 3:00PM ET and that the classic version essentially bombed before, it’s probably going to be the Tom Bergeron recent revival.  

Late nights are also getting a change that’s going to make people partially made.  Family Feud (Dawson) will air at 3:00AM ET replacing What’s My Line?.  But if you stick it out to 3:30AM ET, you get an original Allen Ludden episode of Password as a treat instead of To Tell The Truth.  

Weekends will also see a change.  Match Game will air at 9:00AM ET (replacing Card Sharks), Password Plus at 9:30AM ET (replacing Card Sharks), Super Password at 10:00AM ET (replacing Blockbusters), the Richard Dawson edition of Family Feud at 10:30AM ET replacing Child’s Play which I just never understood the enjoyment of, Whammy! takes the old Match Game weekend slot at 11:00AM ET, Chain Reaction takes the old Password Plus slot at 11:30AM ET, Let’s Make A Deal replaces the old Whammy! slot at 12:00PM ET, Hollywood Squares replaces Press Your Luck at 12:30PM ET, Lingo takes the old Let’s Make A Deal slot at 1:00PM ET, and Meredith Vieira’s edition of Millionaire replaces Chain Reaction at 2:30PM ET.  Dog Eat Dog takes over the 2:00AM ET hour on Saturdays, replacing To Tell The Truth.  Then don’t forget that all-new Newlywed Game airs at 6:00PM ET starting April 6th, as well as the new season of Catch 21 at 6:30PM ET.

There’s a lot to digest, we know.  That’s why after the break is a graphical breakdown of the new schedule.
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Exciting news for all you Wheel of Fortune fans.  Vanna White, the long-time co-host of the top rated syndicated game show, will be appearing on GSN Radio tomorrow, February 20th, at 1:30PM ET for a game of “Ultimate Wheel of Fortune Trivia”.  Be sure to check it out.

We’ve been hyping up Cat Deeley’s guest hosting gig on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, happening all this week, quite a bit for a few reasons.  But now that it’s here I’m curious what you thought of her.

I’ve seen her enough over the past few days to make up my mind.  It’s obvious she’s a little bit nervous; a serious quiz show is something new for her.  However, for her first time, she did just fine.  If anyone watches the original British edition of Millionaire? it’s extremely clear she takes  after UK host Chris Tarrant, which is understandable.  That’s the version and host she’s more used to.  She’s more chatty than American audiences have ever had a Millionaire? host be and pontificates on low level dollar questions, where our hosts have always fired through them quickly.  I don’t know, if she does indeed get the permanent hosting job whenever Meredith is done rumored by Mirror Magazine in England, if she’ll either be told to speed it up or if American audiences will be told to just get used to a new host with a new style that’s not a cookie cutter of the original.  I have a feeling it’ll be the former, since the latter hasn’t been working so well with the enthusiastic fans of The Price is Right.

The only thing she really needs to be excessively careful of is the clock.  She’s the first guest host to experience the clock and she doesn’t seem used to it.  I don’t mind the chatter she engages in constantly.  It’s sort of refreshing.  However, when really needs to speed it up when reading the answers.  Or contestants (if we could go back in time) need to start interrupting the host like they are allowed to.  Other than that, I haven’t seen any big problem in her style.  She’s clearly enjoying the gig a lot, she has a talent for it, she just needs to work on it a bit more and she’d be great.