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Who Wants to be a Millionaire has yet another themed week for fans coming up at the end of the month.  This time, if you’re a fan of the hit ABC show Dancing With the Stars, you aren’t going to want to miss the show the week of March 29th.  The syndicated quiz hosted by Meredith Vieira will present a special Dancing With the Stars edition, featuring the cast of the show and more.  Fans of the show have been selected to compete this week, facing the show’s general trivia questions for a shot at winning the $1,000,000 top prize.  Special questions about Dancing With the Stars have also been thrown in to help these fans get higher up the money chain.

Celebrity Questions the week of March 29th will showcase various Dancing With the Stars cast members, like dancers Cheryl Burke, Mark Ballas, Lacey Schwimmer, Chelsie Hightower, Derek Hough and Maksim Chmerkovskiy as well as judges Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba.  In addition special Clip Question, with video accompanying the questions, will include memorable moments from Drew Lachey, Emmitt Smith, Apolo Anton Ohno, Mario Lopez, Shannon Elizabeth, Helio Castroneves, Melanie Brown and Sabrina Bryan.

The host of Dancing With the Stars, Tom Bergeron (who has guest hosted Millionaire in the past) will sit in as the expert for the lifeline Ask the Expert during this week of Millionaire.  He warned contestants that he’s good with pop culture, history, politics and celebrities, but not so good with literature, science and geography.

And finally Meredith and the contestants and studio audience will participate in a little dance, with music and mirrorball included, at the end of the show.  I’m a bit happy I wasn’t on set this week.

Photo courtesy of Valleycrest Productions Ltd.

Mark Burnett, the executive producer of the now-infamous Our Little Genius, is back at it with a new pilot just ordered by ABC.  ABC Entertainment News, from the Hollywood Reporter, says that the network has ordered a pilot for the game show Trust Me, I’m a Game Show Host from Burnett.  The slight twist is there are two hosts for the show, each talking about the same subject.  One will be saying truthful things and the other will be lying.  It’s up to the contestants, selected from the audience, to pick out which is true and which is false.  Burnett also did the great Shark Tank for ABC, which is awaiting renewal.

If I had to place money on it, I wouldn’t think we’d end up seeing this air.  Primetime game shows like to play it extremely safe and use the Millionaire cookie-cutter model.  This may venture out of the safety territory a bit too much and that seems to terrify networks these days.  Sounds like it could be interesting for a cable network, but it’s a bit too out-there for primetime.  But hey, I wouldn’t have figured people guessing if a Bingo ball number is even or odd would make it and somehow ABC ordered National Bingo Night.  I could be wrong.

I give Mark Burnett a lot of credit at least.  He does get a lot of original formats out there and that’s always nice to see.  It’s nice to see him come back nicely and so soon after the entire Our Little Genius fiasco which, in total honesty, he personally handled perfectly after he found out what was going on.

Slow news day, so here’s a few news flashes for you today.

*GSN’s newest hidden camera show, since the last one did so well, Instant Recall finally debuts tonight at 8:30PM ET.  It’s hosted by Wink Martindale and they’ve definitely been promoting him in this thing far more than the actual show which is probably for the best.  No idea what anything in this show will involve since apparently screener copies of shows are things of the past, but it looks to be decent and Wink is always a delight.  Then again Hidden Agenda looked decent also, and it tanked hard.  Our schedule (and everyone else’s schedule) says that Hidden Agenda moves to Fridays at 8:30PM ET, but the GSN online schedule says it doesn’t.  Next week Family Feud airs at 8:30PM ET on Fridays for sure.  GSN probably just didn’t send the new ones out, sorry.

*NBC’s promoting the hell out of Minute to Win It.  As if the comments from someone connected to the show in some loose way weren’t enough, we’ve got a behind the scenes look at the show.  That set looks remarkably like Who Wants to be a Millionaire mixed with Russian Roulette, so take that as you will.  I still don’t have high hopes for this thing in the long run, but it definitely could be far worse.

*ABC has two ice dancing shows coming for some reason.  One is quite literally a figure skating competition called Thin Ice, hosted by Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Kurt Browning.  Can’t you just sense the excitement?  You can’t either?  OK.  Then it was just announced that they are working on importing the UK series that’s essentially Dancing With the Stars on ice.  Is ice dancing really that incredibly popular?  But then again I really think Dancing With the Stars is up there on the stupid-scale, so I know nothing about these reality competitions.  By the way, didn’t Fox do a show very similar to this before also?  I seem to remember it coming and going quickly.

*ITV in London shot a pilot some episodes for the quiz and stunt show The Whole 19 Yards yesterday.  If you recall CBS shot a pilot a while ago but it didn’t sell.  It’s a shame, because the format described by one of our favorites, Bother’s Bar, looks to be incredibly fun and entertaining.  And CBS seems to be the most trusted network for game shows these days, so I think it would have ended up fine. Read about it here, and there are some links to pictures in there.

*As we said in the MiniBuzz, the fantastic Wipeout will return on ABC Thursday, June 22nd.  People constantly want to think this is the old Peter Tomarken quiz show Wipeout (which is frankly vastly overrated), but it’s not.  Whenever I mention Wipeout it’ll solely be for the ABC series, and any odd reference to the other one will be labeled.  All the cast returns.  They are redoing a lot of the challenges, and you can see pictures visiting the show’s Twitter page.

Fans of Wipeout will be happy to know that the popular summer series will be returning to ABC on Tuesday, June 22nd.  The show is still hosted by John Henson, John Anderson, and Jill Wagner.  Special themed episodes this season include Ladies Night, Family Edition, and Wipeout Blind Date.

All you Canadian readers who want to take part in your own edition of Wipeout, listen closely.  TVTropolis will hosting Canada’s own version of the hit stunt show Wipeout.  It’ll be casting in a few months.  Click here for more information.

Don’t we all love lists?  Well, not really, but this one’s pretty interesting.  Television Business International recently compiled a list of the ten most popular game show formats of 2009.  This wasn’t based on their personal favorites or what the few random readers chose in a poll.  This is all based off of which shows got the most eyeballs around the globe last year.  A lot of the choices aren’t surprises at all, but a few are really shocking.

Coming in at number one is actually Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  I expected it to be Deal or No Deal after the huge few years it had across the globe, but apparently not.  This year was really interesting for Millionaire.  It’s the year the movie Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture at the Oscars, which definitely rose more awareness about it.  It’s also the year you could sense some age on the format and basically every country around the globe changed the format.  The norm these days is either the British 12 question format, the US clock format, or the Australian Hot Seat format.  The show was apparently the runaway winner this year.

Number two was indeed Deal or No Deal.  This also seemed to be the year that format showed some age.  Really…how long could a format as simplistic as this go without being changed?  Interesting, essentially all the US style versions of Deal around the globe are starting to dwindle away but the more original, location-specific versions are doing better.  Even the Australian version is changing when the new season starts on February 1st to try to battle Hot Seat.

Number three was one of my personal favorites: Wipeout.  It’s definitely a guilty pleasure that exploded around the globe, and has every right to.  It’s fun “turn-off-your-brain” viewing.  Number four is Wheel of Fortune which somehow, after all these years, is still knocking everyone else out of the park in ratings.  Five is Family Feud, still going pretty strong here and goes through yet another transition in 2010, with Steve Harvey becoming host.  Six is Don’t Forget the Lyrics, seven is somehow Hole in the Wall which blows me away, and eight is Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? which beyond my best wishes has turned into a very enjoyable daytime quiz.  Number nine went to Jeopardy! which keeps going nicely despite no major stunts or twists like every other show, and in the final ten spot is something I’ve never heard of: I Love My Country.  Anyone have any idea what this is?  Again, here’s the list.  How do we feel about it?  Agree or would you make some changes?

1. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? ITV (UK) 1998 Sony Pictures TV
2. Deal or No Deal Nederland 2 2002 Endemol
3. Wipeout ABC (US) 2008 Endemol
4. Wheel of Fortune NBC (US) 1975 CBS Studios International
5. Family Feud ABC (US) 1976 FremantleMedia
6. Don’t Forget The Lyrics Fox (US) 2007 RDF Rights
7. Hole in the Wall Fox (US) 2008 FremantleMedia
8. Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? Fox (US) 2007 Mark Burnett Prods
9. Jeopardy NBC (US) 1964 CBS Studios International
10. I Love My Country RTL4 (Netherlands) 2008 Talpa Media

Photo courtesy of Valleycrest Productions Ltd.

It’s our top moment of 2009, and it really shouldn’t come as a big shock.  It’s, of course, Ken Basin’s memorable loss on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  When ABC brought back the show this summer to “celebrate the tenth anniversary”, they essentially took the entire package of the syndicated version and added Fastest Finger.  We saw a few issues, like Regis not handling the clock well at all and the fact that the daytime difficulty is a bit of a damper in primetime since no one can win barely anything anymore.  It definitely got better as the series progressed, but Ken Basin saved the best for last.  He made it to the $1,000,000 question which was the following:

For ordering his favorite beverages on demand, LBJ had four buttons installed in the Oval Office labeled “coffee,” “tea,” “Coke,” and what?
• A: Fresca • B: V8
• C: Yoo-hoo • D: A&W

Ken answered C and Regis uttered one of the more memorable quotes on the show ever, “It’s not the final answer…you just lost a lot of money.”  It was Fresca.  Ken became the first contestant in the history of American Who Wants to be a Millionaire to miss the million dollar question, losing a staggering $475,000 to drop down to $25,000.  Why was this so painful when other shows with equal or greater losses haven’t been?  Probably because Ken was actually smart and earned it.  I feel nothing for contestants that lose a ton on Deal or No Deal or Fifth Grader, because it’s not particularly impressive to me to win big money having the knowledge of a ten year old.  Ken was smart, got a wrong hunch, and had one of the most, if not the most, depressing moments in Millionaire history.  Not only that, but the picture given out of his loss has to be one of the best press pictures for the genre I’ve ever seen.  It was a moment no Millionaire fan will forget and it was sure to be the most memorable moment of 2009.

Number eight on our countdown involves a specific person to me but it’s a generalized topic.  This was definitely a year of god awful celebrities on game shows.  We saw it infest so many shows.  Catch 21 and Newlywed Game got pounded by celebrities in a negative way.  Jeopardy! is doing one show a month which isn’t bad, but it’s been really embarrassing for the CNN anchors constantly losing to comedians.  Without a doubt, though, the most agonizing celebrity I’ve ever seen or experienced on a game show was Patricia Heaton on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

This summer on ABC’s special series of Millionaire at the end of the show a celebrity was invited to come on and play one question for $50,000 using one lifeline only.  I was physically in the audience for this show, as were some other readers I was with.  I’m a fan of Everybody Loves Raymond so I was excited for Patricia Heaton.  My god, I was ready to throw my Ask the Audience pad at her.  She just couldn’t do simple math.  You’re lucky you saw the edited version.  She refused to do the math in her head, had no idea how to use any of the lifelines, had no idea how the game really went, and did nothing more than seem like she’d rather be anywhere else but there at that moment.  It was the moment I realized, “You know, maybe adding a clock to the game is a good idea,” because if I had to sit around with a dozen people like her in the studio year after year I’d shoot myself.  Take a look at the clip below and enjoy?  What were your most memorable celebrity appearances of the year?

Looks like we’ve got another network game show to be watchful for.  Hollywood Reporter announced that ABC has ordered a presentation for a new show called The Six from Merv Griffin Entertainment.  The show is an import of the Russian format What?  Where?  When? and is pretty different than anything we’ve got on television.  In the Russian version, a team of six in-studio players spin a wheel and answer the question the wheel lands on.  The questions are sent from viewers and the six get 60 seconds to answer it.  A right answer earns them a point and a wrong answer gives the other side a point, as well as that home viewer a prize.

That’s really about it.  Merv Griffin Entertainment and ABC are touching it up to make it a bit more primetime friendly which is probably smart.  The part that will most likely stick, and the most interesting, is that the questions aren’t straight up trivia.  The questions are more logic based.  Apparently it takes the entire team of six to brainstorm and finally get the answer as opposed to someone outright knowing it.  Hollywood Reporter interviewed some of the show’s staff.  “It’s much more accessible knowledge and intelligence than you would think at a first glance that translates to the viewers at home, and they can play along,” Merv Griffin Entertainment’s Roy Bank said. “It’s a show about teamwork and interaction.”  They also provide a sample question:

An example of a question used on the original show: “They first appeared in 1908 in Mexico. There were two of them. Over time, they came closer and closer together, like wings of a black raven. Name them.” Answer: Frida Kahlo’s eyebrows.  Here’s a clip of the show.

It’s almost like a brainteaser more than anything.   It sounds interesting and I do agree that from the sound of how the format goes it could use a bit of the primetime game show flare, but this could be something fun to look forward to.

Wipeout Australia is basically exactly like US Wipeout and Total Wipeout, just with Australians.  And if you don’t know what Wipeout is, clearly, you’ve been living under a rock or something.

Anyhow, I present to you two clips from what could be considered the best episode in Wipeout history (yes, for all three versions).  In the first clip, a double Sweeper arm can do some interesting things; in the second, an extraordinary finish to the Dizzy Dummy round.

EDIT: Hey, these actually work now.

In my time doing this site I’ve seen just about every sort of contestant come through.  I’ve never seen anyone like Alan Carver, a contestant on last Friday’s and yesterday’s episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  To say he was the most hardcore contestant I’ve ever seen on this show is an understatement.  He’s almost terrifying.  My thoughts for him range from, “He’s funny,” to, “OK, I’m starting to get irritated,” and it switches back and forth often.  I’m really not sure what to fully think.  Here’s a bit of his appearance and a bit of commentary after.

If this isn’t proof that the clock needs to start after the choices are read, I don’t know what is.  This wasn’t Regis Philbin pissing around with the clock.  Meredith Vieira is good with it; she’s quick.  He finally did the ultimate strategy, which is to interrupt the host.  It came off looking awkward and people could easily construe him as a douchebag.  But he did the perfect strategy for the Tournament of Ten, so you can’t really fault him.  The tie breaker is the amount of time you spent answering the questions.  The faster he went the better shot he had of making it.  I’d almost guarantee we’ll see him in November playing for $1,000,000 (which I guess is after his birthday).  But jesus, he was just a bit too much for me.  I know he wants the million dollars (on his birthday) but it’s just a television show.  I could barely watch that it was so awkward.  But yet again, this should be the ultimate evidence of having the clock start after the choices are read.  It felt completely bizarre and Meredith looked confused and agitated.

We’ve seen just about everything on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  Lots of winners, people going all the way with no lifelines to use, lots of $0 winners, and people even walking away with $300.  I really never thought I’d see someone go for the $1,000,000 question on Millionaire and lose.  ABC lucked out and had easily the most exciting Millionaire moment in a long time.  Ken Basin lucked out and got a stack that he could breeze through (apparently so could most other people, including myself), and made it to the $1,000,000 question with Ask the Audience left.  The now-infamous question:

For ordering his favorite beverages on demand, LBJ had four buttons installed in the Oval Office labeled “coffee,” “tea,” “Coke,” and what?
• A: Fresca                    • B: V8
• C: Yoo-hoo                • D: A&W

I know I’ve said it over and over, and sorry to anyone in the audience, but I’d rather walk away without using it than being tempted since odds are they know no more than I do.  He went with them and a 40% went with C, Yoo-hoo.  Next highest was A&W.  I don’t exactly know what went through his head but he believed in Yoo-hoo enough to lock it in as his final answer.  Sadly instead of confetti Regis Philbin uttered what has to be the 2nd most memorable line (beyond the whole, “You’re going to Paris,” thing from the John Carpenter run) in the show’s history:

“No, it’s not the final answer, and you just lost a lot of money.”

So there we have it. I never thought it would happen but we had the first million dollar question loss in America ever, and an astounding $475,000 tumble.  It was just chilling and unbelievably depressing to watch.  It’s right up there with Raul’s $263,000 loss on 1 VS 100.  I feel especially bad for him because you can’t be a Deal or No Deal grade moron and win on this show.  I feel nothing for people that throw away $400,000 on Deal.  He was clearly smart and played the game beautifully.  He just messed up on that last moment.  It’s truly an amazing game show moment, a flat-out amazing television moment, and something no Millionaire fan will forget.  I’m just stunned (and truly happy) that I wasn’t spoiled about this and I had absolutely no clue this was going to happen.  I usually hear about all these huge moments beforehand so being like everyone else in this instance was great, so thank you to all those who kept me in the dark.  Never do it again or else I’ll have Michael Davies come and hunt you down.

I’ve never been happier for the celebrity segment, though.  If the series ended like that it would just be heartbreaking, but Meredith Vieira and Regis really lightened the mood.  First off, daytime Millionaire host Meredith Vieira invited the nine Ring of Fire contestants left to have the first guaranteed spots on the syndicated edition, so you can see each of them in September.  Also she turned the tables on Regis and asked him a question for $50,000.  Fantastic way to end a show.

Well it was without a doubt one of the most memorable Millionaire moments ever and one of the most memorable game show episodes in an unbelievably long time.  What did you all think?

ABC really (accidentally) saved the best for last in this season finale of the primetime revival of Who Wants to be a Millionaire hosted by Regis Philbin.  Most people seem to agree that the first two or three episodes of the series were really rough, but by Monday last week the show was at the basic comfort level that we know and like.  I’ve been really digging the show the past week, so I’m crossing my fingers.  The ratings have been relatively stable around the seven million viewer mark which for summer isn’t bad.  Hell, it’s not that bad looking at the ratings for a lot of Fall shows.  As many have said before, if Big Brother can survive at this ratings level each summer I don’t see a reason why Who Wants to be a Millionaire can’t return next summer for some new shows.

Tonight includes a lot of special and surprising moments.  First off, Meredith Vieira, host of the daytime version of Millionaire, will be the special celebrity guest at the end of the show.  She’s got a big surprise for Regis, too.  She’ll be asking Regis a question for his favorite charity.  She previously appeared on the show and won $250,000 a while ago.  She’s got a big surprise for players in the studio.  It’s great and you’ll have to watch tonight to find out what it is.

The most exciting is that it’s confirmed that tonight will feature the first $1,000,000 question since Lyn Payne in November 2007.  ABC has said this million dollar moment is, “like we’ve NEVER seen before,” which has me really wondering.  We’ve seen someone go all the way with all lifelines left and basically burning all lifelines really early.  Could we have the first person to miss the $1,000,000 question?  But maybe we have the first million dollar winner in seven years and the first under the new format.  It’s the most anticipated Millionaire episode of the year and it’s definitely something not to miss.  The season finale of Millionaire is tonight at 8:00PM ET on ABC.

So Michael Davies, you apparently don’t have to hunt down and kill anyone from inside information.  The spoiler information comes after the break.  It’s not an earth shattering spoiler and I think you are all safe to read it.  If anything, it makes the remaining shows more exciting.

If you watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire last night then you saw Patricia Heaton’s moment on the show which can only be described best as embarrassing.  For her $50,000 charity question, she was asked a math question.  I’m sure we’ll be asked to take the video down but for now, you just have to see this thing.  The question was:

If a euro is worth $1.50, five euros is worth what?
A: 30 quarters B: 50 dimes
C: 70 nickels D: 90 pennies

It’s not the easiest thing on earth but unlike the poor contestants who we actually care to see play, she had no 45 second time limit to answer so she should have been able to get this. Even if she couldn’t have done 30 x .25 mentally, she could have counted each quarter out and would have gotten it. Or she could have realized that 90 pennies isn’t even close, nor is 50 dimes. But instead we got a lot of moaning about the question, complaining about how her charity won’t get money anymore, and basically constant blather which probably would have been a good time to count some money. Trust me, this was severely edited from what you saw on TV.

So as if not knowing how to count was bad enough then she didn’t know the rules to the show.  She thought that the Phone A Friend time limit was thinking time and you could answer after.  She was stunned at the taping when her husband was gone after 30 seconds and complained quite a bit.  Then she thought she couldn’t answer the question and she lost once Phone A Friend was gone.  It finally took Regis Philbin to do everything but shove her Hot Seat over and scream, “DO THE DAMN MATH!” before she finally got it with massive assistance from Regis and the audience who were sit of the 15-20 minutes it took to answer.  It was a staggering display I’ll never forget.  It’s her big nightmare right now because her clip is hitting some big websites and she’s looking incredibly dumb right now.  It’s awesome for Millionaire because they are getting a lot of extra press they wouldn’t have gotten.

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So we’ve gone through six of the eleven episodes of ABC’s 10th anniversary revival of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and admittedly the reactions have been mixed both from critics and the ratings.  I really don’t know what to think of it or how to project it.  It looked doom-and-gloom on Wednesday’s episode but on Thursday is jumped back up to its highest rating of this series with 8.4 million viewers and doing far better than a lot of ABC’s programming this summer and in the time slot in general.  We’ll have to see what the ratings look like this week before we get into any long-term plans.  I really hope no one was expecting this to come back to a weekly primetime thing in the Fall because it was almost a given it wasn’t going to happen, but if Big Brother can survive in this ratings area for Summer seasons then I’m sure Millionaire could if all parties are interested.  I’m really hoping they all are, too.  This summer season has been a roller coaster ride but it looks like we’re finally on the up-hill ramp (in terms of quality.  I can’t predict ratings.).

I know we were a bit hard on this edition at first, but it’s been improving.  By Sunday’s episode Regis Philbin is much more at ease with the clock.  Not as at-ease as daytime host Meredith Vieira, but he’s not nearly costing people money from slowly reading or joking around mid-question anymore.  We’re starting to see some good contestants and just all-around good play.  They really had a rough first two episodes but by now it’s back to being a very good Millionaire series.  I don’t quite know why those first two or three episodes were that rough but there we are.  We’re just about at the great quality of the daytime version currently which is all I was hoping for.  Looking at some of the editions around the globe currently we could have had it so much worse.

I also think the criticism comes from the fact, as I’ve said before, that people (including me) had unbelievably high expectations because of the unbelievably high standards of the show.  It’s just for some reason some of the daytime items have not been fully clicking in primetime.  I still think doing the straight translation of the daytime format to primetime wasn’t the greatest decision but I’d have to know what ABC’s final budgetary call was since I’m taking a pretty great guess that that had a lot to do with what we are seeing.  Basically the only unanimous criticism I’ve seen has been the clock really should be starting after the choices are read instead of before, something which I agree with.  For the millionth time I do enjoy the clock on each question, but it just took a bit of practice to get Regis up to speed with it.  I was so used to Meredith that it took time for even me to adjust.

The fact of the matter is it took a few episodes to get there, but Millionaire’s really starting to look up.  By this week we got the awkward beginning out of the way and it should be a really great run until next Sunday.  Hopefully the ratings will stick around in this area so we can see the show back next summer.  It’s a timeless format which is fantastic seeing back on primetime television.  We basically got a full year of new episodes because of it.  I do have to give a special shout out for the directing of Matt Cohen.  They added a lot of new work with the steady-cam which looks fantastic.  Millionaire is still my favorite game show of all time so the more I can see of it, the better.  I’m sure many of you are feeling the same way.

I was at Monday night’s episode’s taping, and you won’t want to miss celebrity guest Patricia Heaton’s question.  I’ll never forget it as long as I live.