Good news on the Bingo America front: the at-home contest is truly legit. I just got my $50 check in the mail today (I won on the premiere episode, 3/31. If only I won the next day…). If you won, too, it’s time to start looking for an envelope labeled “Promotional Consideration.”
Archive for the 'GSN' Category
04
May
Weekend Replay: “Gambit”
We have a new name which makes it special in some bizarre way I suppose. Anyway, this one came from a great suggestion from reader Travis E. who runs a website which features a page showing nearly every game show contestant who has won at least $100,000. Take a look here. I’ve talked about how GSN’s new game show Catch-21 and I’ve said it’s basically a retooled revival of Gambit with a new end game, but I never showed anything about Gambit. I don’t know classics really, and I’ve never seen the show, so I figured today would be a good day to show you a clip of Gambit. Enjoy.
GSN has an interesting Mother’s Day marathon this year: it’s Whammy!. Featured in the marathon from 9AM ET to 4PM ET on Sunday, May 11th, will be the special all-celebrity mother edition of Whammy! from season one. This will be on at noon. Also, host of Whammy! Todd Newton will stop by GSN Live on Friday, May 9th, to talk about his experiences on the show. And remember, Bingo America doubles the at-home top prize to $100 all week long. As a little preview, here’s a clip of the celebrity Whammy! episode courtesy of GSN.
GSN’s giving Bingo America viewing mothers and more a nice surprise for entire week of Mother’s Day. GSN’s popular bingo participation game show is doubling the at-home payout from $50 to $100 for each verified Bingo during this week alone. As part of GSN’s weeklong celebration of the most important women in our lives, the series is giving its audience a chance to win a little extra money for mom all week with $100 pay outs for every verified “Bingo.” From May 5 through May 9, BINGO AMERICA’s at-home audience can tune in to win twice the dough per show and give mom a Mother’s Day she’ll never forget.
You can download ten sets of cards, print them off, and play along as studio contestants answering questions, hoping to spell B-I-N-G-O and win the game’s jackpot. On the bottom of cards are two numbers. If the studio player picks both of those numbers on the Bonus Board, you also win another $100 while the contestant in the studio could win up to $100,000. Home audience players can receive two additional pairs of “Bingo Bonus Numbers” by simply texting BINGO to 94949 on their mobile phones or by downloading them directly from www.GSN.com/bingo.
This is a rumor control, but one I’d bet money on and basically confirm. There’s no official press release out yet, that’s the only thing, but I can basically guarantee this is happening. We’re so confident we’re putting a new category up for it. An extremely reliable source tells and shows us that GSN picked has up the trivia/blackjack show we were previously discussing, and the show is called Catch-21. It’s a remake of sorts of the classic game show Gambit and should be debuting in July 2008. They are now casting.
The show is, essentially, the Casino pilot that Distraction Formats taped ages ago. Casino is, essentially the retooling of the old game show Gambit to fit snugly in a half hour time slot. In Catch-21, contestants answer multiple choice questions to earn cards to add to their blackjack hand. After a right answer, the player can keep the card or pass it off to someone else in hopes that they will bust. Each round won earns a “Power Chip” (another item stolen from World Series of Blackjack) which can be used in the end game to trade out bad cards. Speaking of the end game, after three eliminator rounds, the sole survivor goes against the house with four chances to get 21 and a chance at a $25,000 cash jackpot. This is down from the $100,000 in the pilot but that’s to be expected. The pilot had way too much money involved and seemed extravagant even by today’s standards.
I think when I posted about this pilot a while ago the feedback was extremely positive, so hopefully we have a winner here. It’s a shock it’s taken this long. And if anything this should give hope to the people clamoring for Russian Roulette/Whammy! to come back. GSN’s CEO David Goldhill is obviously willing to look back at past shows and bring them on in full force, as is evident with Russian Roulette and now Catch-21. It’s also nice to see some money being thrown at more originals instead of just one. I’ve said it over and over and this is exactly what they need. If they take some chances on some young, fresh, cool game shows with an interesting concept anyone can love and some money that means something, people will take notice. Again, the show is currently casting (apply for it here) and we’ll try to get some more news as soon as possible. The show is now also up on our casting page.
Russian Roulette is back in full force on GSN. Apparently it’s pretty popular too. It’s getting a lot of airings, it’s the only show beyond Bingo America I see actually advertised on GSN’s website, and there are commercials airing for it as if it’s new or something. It’s like they are testing the ratings to see if a new version could be popular, isn’t it? I often blast America for having severely inferior game shows than other countries such as England. There are only two modern shows I will hold higher over theirs, though. 1 VS 100 (before the season two crappy format came out) and Russian Roulette. Take a look at how they messed up the show and then thank Rich Cronin for not messing the show up this badly.
Here’s some information on two upcoming marathons that GSN will be presenting. First, on Memorial Day, if you need to sit and relax for a bit what better way than with Match Game? This is going to run from 9:00AM ET to 3:00PM ET. It’ll feature some of your favorite episodes with guests like Marsha Wallace, Bill Cullen, Jack Klugman, and more. All of the episodes are from the 70s Gene Rayburn edition of the popular comedy game show.
Coming up Sunday, June 1st, is going to be a Password Plus/Super Password marathon. Why, you ask? GSN is “celebrating” the return of the classic game show to the airwaves, as this is the date the show returns to CBS primetime. So really what you get to do is watch some classic episodes and then turn to CBS and curse the heavens, asking why Fremantle did this to the show. Or you may like it, whatever floats your boat. This marathon is going to feature some big wins.
Edit: The video has sound now!
GSN can now proudly say they gave away more money to a contestant on their Bingo America than ABC did on National Bingo Night. Last Friday night, contestant John Stefan took home the main game bank of $1,447 and was the first contestant to match two $100,000 spaces to take home the grand prize on GSN’s popular interactive game show. It’s honestly refreshing to see. There hasn’t been this much excitement on GSN in a while, probably since Grand Slam, another risky big money show.
I’m telling you and I’ve said it over and over again, if the network would take chances and throw some big money on shows they have faith in, we come up with some incredible moments such as this.
The drop zone is back. Russian Roulette returns to GSN today at 6:00PM ET and starting tomorrow in primetime at 10:00PM ET.
Hey, remember that Friend or Foe? returns to GSN tomorrow afternoon. It wasn’t the best of shows but it’s sure a hell of a lot better than a lot of what GSN’s pumped out since the rebranding. Fun host, great music package, nice set, and it actually had some questions (tricky ones at that). I’m in the minority that enjoyed the Trust Box, but regardless, it’ll be interesting to see what some newer viewers of the show think of it. Here’s a video of the opening of the show featuring our friend and Lingo god Robert McKee and a bit of the awesome soundtrack.
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