A Note to GSN: Can You Stop Making Fun of Game Shows and Fans for a Bit?
We’ll have a more direct review of GSN’s Big Saturday Night, which I’m just calling BSNight since that’s essentially what it is, later. However, there’s been a really good topic of conversation I’ve been getting emailed and IMed about quite a bit frequently, since GSN did the 2009 Game Show Awards. I didn’t notice it until it was pointed out, but the more I watch some of their recent stuff, I can easily see how people feel. Does anyone else get the idea that GSN is just making fun of game shows at this point? I’m not saying poking fun at them is bad. I do it constantly here. However, I foresee a lot of messiness with this.
The Game Show Awards started out poking fun at them. The entire marketing idea for the awards was to “walk the shag carpet” with the show, and they played off the cheesiness of game shows and poked fun at them a lot of the time. However, there was none of that cheesy humor in the show. It would have been better off with it, truth be told. But they suckered in people who were intrigued by the cheese factor and essentially gave them the middle finger during the awards by having it a generic overblown awards show with a modern game show feel. That was just poking fun, though.
BSNight (Big Saturday Night) was a bit too much, though. This should have been a slam dunk, really. GSN’s daily afternoon show GSN Live is extremely well done and apparently pretty popular, so setting up what is essentially a primetime extension of the show should have been easy. But it didn’t remotely work out at all. It wasn’t the issue with the first time of a live show. Truth be told as far as a live show can go on the first day it was actually really smooth. But they just seemed to, again, sucker in game show fans and them promptly curb-stomp them soon after.
A bit work related here, but a few months back I pitched a game show which was essentially a parody of the modern game shows which are really overblown and overly dramatic and all of that. Things went OK but it didn’t get picked up the first time for reasons I agree with and for reasons why I don’t see BSNight doing well. First off, in my show, the humor was too “meta”, or it had too much inside humor. If you don’t watch the shows being parodied or being made fun of, you won’t know what’s going on. That’s exactly what happened Saturday. If you didn’t know the incredibly inside humor they were talking about, the comedy bits weren’t funny. The second problem with my game show parody show was that people won’t like shows they enjoy being made fun of in such a way, and I can understand that. And this was a giant problem with Big Saturday Night. They brought in game show fans with this humor that only they would understand and proceeded to make fun of and ridicule the shows and essentially the fans themselves. I take game shows the least seriously out of probably anyone here; probably less seriously than I should for running a game show site. However, even I saw that a good 95% of the game show related gags and comedy bits they did ranged from painfully not funny to embarrassing.
I know making fun of game shows isn’t GSN’s idea here, but it just seemed like it. The network isn’t that popular. You’re not going to be dragging in the young people who are out on Saturday nights to watch game shows because you make fun of the fact that Jeopardy! gives away luggage. The audience watching that is what the majority of GSN’s audience currently is and who their callers were: middle aged to little old ladies as well as the hardcore game show fans. It’s not helping to make fun of these shows to the level that it was done on Saturday. With how good their interactive live stuff has been as of late, like GSN Radio and GSN Live, I’m befuddled how Big Saturday Night turned into what it was. Or how Game Show Awards turned the way they did. And again, I know it’s not remotely the intention of the network to make fun of game shows. But that’s the way it seems to a lot of people. Judging by what I’ve been hearing and reading, the percentage of people who watched and enjoyed the BSN segments was very low. And (sorry to be redundant) when you make fun of game shows and the game show fans on the Game Show Network which essentially only game show fans watch, they will swiftly turn it off. The initial ratings I saw for the Game Show Awards justified this argument, as did the massive amounts of emails and IMs I received about it. I’m really interested to see how Big Saturday Night did. This is the exact same thing which happened during the awards, just to a larger degree.
The Money List and 20Q were actually good shows. I can’t see them being helped by what happened Saturday night. But more on that in our review coming soon. That next review, believe it or not, is probably more scathing. I haven’t even touched on the hosts, the games, or anything else.
Are the comments I’ve been receiving overreacting, or are they picking up what some of you are?
I tried to watch some of the BSN content, but quickly skipped over it to watch the "real" games. This is essentially a painful way to pad out two new shows. I have not seen the GSAwards yet, but plan to on DVR, mindful that I may very well switch it off before too long. I have to wonder what GSN is thinking here…it's not a good idea to offend (or waste the time of) the fan base.
I almost always watch shows as recordings on my DVR and not live. On your advice, I actually DIDN’T watch the BSN segments, focusing only on “20Q” and “The Money List.”
Although I don’t usually do so, I agree with your assessments of those shows. “20Q” has great production values, but it’s actually pretty dopey. The bonus round where you face off with the computer seems COMPLETELY arbitrary. The producers could arbitrarily make the computer smarter or stupider at will. While I enjoyed the gentle humor of “Mr. Q”, I thought the gameplay was also a bit arbitrary. Lucky guessers can easily triumph over more knowledgeable competitors. This could make the later rounds rather lame to watch.
“The Money List” is the real deal. The show provides ample opportunity for the viewer to play along and fantasize on how they would perform in the same situation. The bonus game is also well-structured by awarding NO guaranteed money as long as one chooses to play. I loved that feature because it makes the teams consider carefully how confident they are, lest they endure crestfallen regret. Last Saturday, I was convinced that “Michelle” was an A-side Beatles hit, as it is one of their most popular songs. I love that type of inversion of expectation, although the category WAS a little bit unfair since who the heck knows or really cares what side of a 45 these songs were on?
I look forward to additional episodes of the Money List. Thanks for airing this show, GSN.
I really think you're over-analyzing things. It's not that they're making fun of game shows or their fans. It's that the Big Saturday Night segments are horrible. They're not funny, not entertaining, and detract from the shows that you may or may not like. No one will watch GSN for that garbage, just the way that GSN Live is a waste of their money. They obviously spent some money on 20Q and the Money List. Hopefully that means they'll spend more in the future, but I hope it's on actual shows and not dumb segments in between them.
While I can't actually comment on any of GSN's new shows (having been away this past Saturday), awards show included, I get the feeling that GSN is being run by people whose actual knowledge of game shows is limited to the big four (WoF, J!, TPiR, WWTBaM) and DoND. Look at the current schedule- there are fewer classics (not to mention more Match Game and Family Feud than necessary) than last year (or even three months ago). With the likes of Lingo and Chain Reaction hogging prime scheduling real estate, it's beginning to look a lot like lazy scheduling on GSN's programming front. If getting rid of Card Sharks, Press Your Luck and Let's Make A Deal is GSN's idea of saving money, it's a very bad one (especially hearing that most of it's going towards GSN's BIG "Load of Crap" Saturday Night; shouldn't "Ross The Intern" be "Ross The Unemployed" by now?).
Right now, it feels like GSN isn't serving their core audience…or anyone (and that's a big problem). It seems to me they're dealing with an identity crisis (much like Cartoon Network and G4 as of late), one that will most likely end up making more fans and viewers unhappy than satisfied.
I know I'm going way off-topic, but if GSN keeps (mis)treating their core audience like this, short of my intervention, I have a feeling they'll be becoming more like G4 (annoying and larded with movies, which they'll probably call "GSN's Night At The Movies"- they won't even be game show-related; it's like Cartoon Network showing live-action stuff- it doesn't make sense at all).
Heed my warning, GSN- remember your core audience, the ones that put you on the map. Go back to showing classic game shows, dump Chain Reaction '06 and Lingo, remove "Big Saturday Night" altogether, put in some new classics (like $ale of the Century and Scrabble), and never, NEVER again have "Ross The Intern" host anything (or anyone from MAD TV, unless it's Bryan Callen or Phil LaMarr). I know it's wishful thinking, but by this time next year, I don't want to refer to you as "SonyTV", "GSN XD" or "Sony Classics".
BSN on GSN was hit and miss for me. I enjoyed the mini-games that they played. The little "Weekend Update"-esque segment was pretty good. The Whammy, Alex Trebek, and Keynotes things were awful. I loved 20Q, surprisingly, and The Money List was great. The worst thing about BSN for me was Ross. I work nights, so I hardly ever watched Leno (was it Leno he was on?). Maybe if I had, I would have known what to expect, but he was just annoying to me. Not his personality, but his voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I'll watch again, but may mute it when Ross is on.
The shows themselves were pretty good. The Cheesy Jokes that "Mr. Q" quipped only are passible because 90% of the audience knows its Hal Sparks voicing it. The format is good. Cat did a marvelous job as hostess.
Is it just me or did anyone watch "The Money List" wondering how Fox messed this up? Its an amazing show. Has a play along factor probably not seen since "Duel". You know the kind that was what interactive TV was Before the internet.
I too would like to see more classics like ( Sale Of The Century, Scrabble, Wipeout, High Rollers since GSN doesn't have a dice game classic Chain Reaction, Jackpot. as far as newer shows they can keep the Money List, Deal or No Deal, 1 VS 100. I wouldn't even mind if they went and got Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, Duel, The Power Of 10 and Million Dollar Password. If they want to bring in some new originals I would love to see a revival of GO, Wipeout and Trivia Trap.
Since my cable company moved GSN to a higher tier, I haven't been able to see it. But based on what you describe, I can understand why there'd be at least a little desire by the network to make fun of classic shows and the hardcore fans: there must be plenty of frustration at GSN that no matter how many big plans they come up with for lots of interactive games and poker tournaments, the most popular show they offer (at least, the last time I checked), is 30-something-year-old reruns of "Match Game."
That's got to annoy them when they'd probably love to get away from licensing fees and just make up their own stuff.
Whatever happen to Opportunity Knocks? Will JD Roth return for season two of the ABC mega-flop?
Hope for better times, CBS has confirmed that two all-time cult favorites, The $10,000 Pyramid and Let's Make a Deal, are returning to daytime in September, in place of Guiding Light.
I'd never seen Ross until the Game Show Awards. I was looking away from the screen at the moment, and I thought I was hearing a woman. Not an effeminate man, a woman.
BS Night. You nailed it, Alex.
While it was nice to see GSN splurge into the budget, $10,000 is ridiculous for such simple games as were played. If you're gonna dig deep like this, make the contestants EARN that sort of huge prize; don't just throw it at them. A huge cash prize only adds to a show when it's rightfully earned. It's called execution. Learn it.
As for the… uh, for lack of a better (or worse) term, on-air "talent," you can REALLY do better, GSN. Keegan-Michael Key was, at best, borderline passable. Not great in any sense. Charissa Thompson was an okay host, easily the best of the three. Then there's… Ross Matthews. I've been deleted TWICE at GSN Buzz for commenting about how he carries himself, and that's why I'm commenting on BSN here; because I found Ross to be the worst part of the night altogether. First off, no adult male human being should have a voice that's THAT freaking high-pitched. It's unnatural. I have to turn my head when he's talking and pretend it's a woman. I watched this with some friends, and they all agreed with me. Secondly, I wish he'd not flaunt his sexuality so much. This isn't a statement against gays in general; if you're gay, whatever. It ain't my place to judge you for that. Just because you're gay, though, doesn't mean you have to shove that fact in my face as if it makes you better than me. During the Wide World of Games, when Keegan announced that Adam Lambert had come out of the closet, Ross squealed like a little schoolgirl for like 7 seconds. It was as if he was saying "Oooh, I wanna piece'a THAT!" Gross. If you want to be gay, fine. Just keep your sexual preferences to yourself. I have certain sexual "fetishes" myself, but I don't go around shoving them in people's faces. It's inappropriate, especially on a lighthearted game show. I'd feel the same way about some buck-wild straight dude flaunting the fact that he's slept with countless women and promoting the idea that it's okay to do so. It's all relative, and there's many better places to do such things than game shows. I tune in to game shows hoping to watch simple and fun games be played, not have sexual agendas shoved down my throat.
I must've been the only living thing on the planet that enjoyed the sketches. I actually thought they were cute. Maybe that's just my depravity of PYL speaking… I dunno. Then again, I liked Kenny vs. Spenny. I digress.
The shows themselves, 20Q and Money List: nothing short of AWESOME. I thought 20Q looked like a trivia version of Scrabble (take two tiles, take two questions… very similar). Very engaging format. Cat Deeley was an absolute delight. Very personable and friendly, not bad at all to look at, and intelligent. Hal Sparks as Mr. Q was a treat too. His snark factor couldn't have been more perfect.
The Money List was equally as awesome as 20Q, if not more. It was a nice change to see GSN dig deep into the budget for a very challenging game. The lists are great to play along with; lots of shout-at-the-TV factor. Always a good thing. The contestants weren't screamin' idiots, another VERY nice change to see for GSN. Fred Roggin was just fine as host. Unlike many people, I actually thought that some of the drawn-out reveals added to the show. Fred pulled those off like a pro. I don't mind a drawn-out and dramatic reveal as long as there's no commercial break involved. That's where I draw the line on that.
Overall, an okay night of television. I'll give BSN one more shot this week, just to see if they're listening to our criticisms. If the stank factor goes down, I might keep watching. There have been many shows in TV history that needed to figure out what works before they became smash hits, and this may be one of them. I do see some potential here, but they've got some major kinks to work out before it'll shine.
Ooh, got BUZZED out of the Buzz because of a Ross Mathews rant? That'll get you nowhere on that board. I'm glad i'm not a member of that "biased" board. Who's running that dreck? Guide_Angel? I smell trouble here.
Biased indeed. I actually tried to link to my comment here on a third attempt at getting my voice heard at GSN Buzz, and got a ban warning! If what they wanted was constructive criticism for the sake of bettering the show, they wouldn't censor honest opinions of viewers who saw something wrong with the show. Guide Angel, since she represents GSN in doing this, has all but told me that the show ain't getting any better and not to watch it next week if I don't like the idea of liberal-fueled sex agendas being promoted on lighthearted game shows. So, forget that last paragraph of my last comment. B.S. Night is now off of my list of things to do. I'll just catch The Money List and 20Q as they ought to be shown on Sundays from now on.
Here is my take on it- GSN has not been paying too much attention to their channel. A lot of the commercials that I see are for their website and the games that they have on their website. When I think Game Show Network, I think of… well… gameshows, not games that I can download from Popcap.com. If they stopped paying attention to their "Precious" online games, they would have time to make new, high quality programming. I think that if GSN tried harder, they could have done much better with BSN and come up with programming that anybody would understand.