April Fools “Jeopardy!”, “Wheel”, “Price”, Or Why Can’t Games Be Fun?

Lots of game shows today had an April Fool’s Day special.  We’ve got a recap of some, and more will be flowing in as time progresses and video becomes available, along with more information.  First off is, of course, The Price is Right.  They somehow topped last year’s special and made an unbelievably great, funny, and enjoyable special.  It was one of the best episodes of the season for sure.  Take a look below.  The highlights of the Price episode were the opening and the Showcases.  Kudos to Drew, Rich, Mike, and the rest of the crew.

We also had some hijinks on Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! We already went over the at-home game Wheel of Fortune was having.  This episode was definitely a good one for Wheel watchers who can notice anything.  Some special additions were Pat and Vanna walking in opposite, some misspellings, extra nametags, and more.  Did you get them all?  Be sure to comment.  The one that came out of nowhere was Jeopardy!.  The usually staid quiz show actually did some gags for the holiday, which was a nice change.  People like Pat Sajak, Jeff Probst (host of Rock and Roll Jeopardy!), Neil Patrick Harris (can you please say something about The Cube, CBS?) and more.  Not only that, and this wasn’t really a gag, but one of Alex Trebek’s old game shows, Pitfall, got a shoutout.  What was Pitfall?  Take a look below.  Overall a great day for game shows and an invitation for psychiatric help for some fans.

This last part is an honest question, and this is only directed towards emails I got and not comments or tweets to us: On Price today, one gag was that Mimi Bobeck, the “executive producer” of today’s episode, was bad with names so everyone was just called Pat.  A few people emailed me saying that the gag got old after a half hour or so, and  I can completely see that.  But some say they would have felt cheated, which I don’t fully buy.

I’m just wondering how many of you would have felt cheated by this because here’s my philosophy about this entire thing: who gives a crap.  You were just given some form of a consolation prize regardless.  You have a fighting chance at a prize worth a few grand and then further potential for tens of thousands in cash and prizes.  And you want to complain about being called down as Pat?  So if someone said to you, “We’re going to call you down, but to fit with this gag we’re going to call you Pat, is that fine?” you’d say, “Screw you, not unless my name was called down,” or raise a fuss and say you were cheated out of your moment?  I think not.  It’s easy to say you’d feel cheated when you’re watching.  If you were in their shoes, you wouldn’t have said a thing.