We couldn’t possibly end our custom Deal or No Deal world tour without going to where it all started, The Netherlands. It’s arguably the most unique version of the show still existing and one of the few primetime versions of the shows not to sell out to the American way completely. The reason why their show is so amazing is because of the gigantic spectacle it is. A 500 person audience is narrowed down to six through an extensive quiz. The six come on stage and play another buzzer oriented trivia game which narrows it to two. The two have to fight over a buy-out to leave the game or play one final question. The sole survivor of the audience plays for 5,000,000 euro. The most money won was around 1.25 million euro, which I saw and was one of the most thrilling events I’ve seen on television. It’s my personal favorite version of the show and the most amazing game show I’ve ever seen because the cases part of the show seems like what it should, a bonus game. The entire show is made into an event-like program, and it’s scheduled only six episodes every few months which gives it off well. Plus, again, they have the best music package for the show out of any country, plus one of the better hosts: Linda DeMol. Take a look. Later we will have one final Deal video: what our show should be like all the time.
Archive for the 'Deal or No Deal' Category
In our on-going weekend series, the second stop on what NBC’s Deal or No Deal world tour should have been is the Australian version. The show began in 2003 as a primetime series with a top prize of $2,000,000. The next year the show was reformatted to a half hour daily edition for $200,000. It follows the same format as ours except it’s a lot more brighter, a lot more high energy, and contestants hold the cases as they do basically everywhere else on the planet. Take a look at some videos from the Australian take on the show.
A few writers and I have been talking, and we’ve been incredibly upset with how Deal or No Deal’s world tour has gone. The Philippines episode was fun because there are enough differences to make it exciting. Plus the Dutch theme music they use blows ours out of the water. However, Estonia and South Africa look like bargain basement editions of the show. They really aren’t doing a service to the rest of the world. So with that, we decided to do our own Deal or No Deal world tour. We will be showing videos of the best three countries that give a broader perspective and history of the show. The first country we go to is England. Why England? It has the daytime format we are going to use for a bit of a preview, it shows how the game is played usually in a daytime format, and it shows a much more low key version. Take a look at a few videos.
You know NBC couldn’t go long without bringing the Million Dollar Mission back, didn’t you? Well, it’s not exactly like the mission. It actually makes it a hell of a lot easier to get more cases On the May 22nd episode of Deal or No Deal, a group of golden balls will be present. I chuckle at this because what are the odds that Endemol, the same company that makes Deal, have a popular British show called Golden Balls? I’m guessing the odds are pretty good. Anyway, the golden balls are going to literally determine the fate of the contestant’s board.
Each ball will add million dollar cases to the board, according to the description NBC gave us. The worst you can do is two additional $1,000,000 cases, making it three total. The best you can do is turning the entire right side of the board into million dollar cases, giving you up to thirteen. Doesn’t seem like there are any penalties involved either yet, so there you go. Honestly I don’t think many of us enjoy the Mission or anything remotely like this. However, it’s hard to deny that it was popular and brought about some big ratings to the show. If it’s a hit, they might as well do it again to bring up the numbers. And we might as well hope they give it away so they can stop thinking not giving away $1,000,000 is the end of the world.
Being the dirty dirty liberal that I am, I got a large chuckle out of this. As you may know, President Bush appeared on Deal or No Deal on Monday’s show, wishing a contestant luck. The contestant only wound up (prior to the Deal Wheel) with $26,000 so that’s some luck there. But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is Bush’s appearance fell in the show that had the lowest Monday rating in the history of the program. Yeah, the show’s been down this season a bit, but Monday’s show was down 27% from its prior season average. Pretty staggering. Of course we can’t come right out and say that people are so repulsed by Bush that they turned it off. It’s a fun thought in my mind, but we can’t really say. You can watch his shameless appearance on the show here. Did he really think appearing would make him more popular?
I was at a party on Wednesday and not feeling too well on Thursday. I took some NyQuil to hopefully feel better and I thought it was working. I realized it wasn’t working as well as it should when I saw that the current president, George W. Bush, is going to make a taped appearance on NBC’s Deal or No Deal. He’ll show up when army transport officer Captain Joseph Kobes plays for $1,000,000 which may pay for five gallons of gas by the time his show airs on Monday. An ABC report about this is stating that the president will be sending him good luck on the show. If the Captain gets the same good luck from Bush that we got the past few years, he’s screwed.
According to the ABC news report, President Bush has taped the video thanking Kobes for his service in Iraq and wishing him good luck on the program that offers the potential to win $1 million if he chooses the correct briefcase. The video clip will be shown on the show on Monday night. The show’s producers had contacted the White House to let them know that Kobes thought of Bush as “one of his heroes.”
We’ve got two items of news about NBC’s Deal or No Deal for you today. First, let’s talk about the world tour which has the potential to be fantastic. They will be traveling, on May 5th, to Estonia, to play for $1,000,000. Next on May 7th will be the Philippines and finally on the 14th is South Africa. Yes, every one of those countries has a US looking set. I really think they missed a golden opportunity to go to France or Netherlands (British set is probably too small) and do one of the daytime editions, like what our syndicated format would be. I would have figured it would have been a nice way to test the water and see what people think of the new format.
Deal is also bringing back something remotely similar to the Lucky Case game after an absence due to a law suit, and they are doing it in a creative way. Starting on April 21th, three different potential briefcase models will be presented. People at home can text in their choice. The person with the most votes moves on in the competition to be the newest model, and an at-home player can win $10,000 in the process. NBC’s pretty tricky, aren’t they?
NBC announced their Fall 2008 primetime schedule far in advance, as well as their Winter 2009 and Summer 2009. They are getting rid of a vast majority of their game shows and sticking with scripted which I suppose is good. I’m a gigantic 30 Rock fan so I’m glad to see it’s sticking around for a third season. However, we do have a casualty which was definitely a fan favorite. 1 VS 100 appears no where on any schedule which makes it either a last minute addition out of desperation or it’s canceled. It’s looking like the latter for now.
Deal or No Deal, NBC’s only shining spot at this point, is going to air Wednesdays at Fridays at 9:00PM ET. You know, Deal has always done strongly on Mondays at 8:00PM ET. I understand they are trying to do more scripted, but why you don’t put, admittedly, your biggest show in the slot in which it does the best confuses me. We’ll have the syndicated version which I have high hopes for at least. No other game show appears anywhere, so there we go. It’s truly a shame about 1 VS 100. It went from being an OK show to a great show to “eh” very quickly. Four different scoring formats and dumbing down the show drastically really hurt. I’d love to see it in syndication, but I won’t hold my breath. However, I wouldn’t put it past GSN picking up the reruns for the show which would not be a bad acquisition at all.
I have to tell you, for the most part, this season’s Deal or No Deal gimmicks have been fantastic. They really change the game into something new and exciting, like Winner Takes All. Of course not all are hits, like the Million Dollar Mission. However, I think this one’s going to be a hit: Deal’s going on a world tour for May sweeps!
The show will be traveling to different countries around the world and taping from their set. Countries being announced are the Philippines, South Africa, and Estonia. They will be playing by their rules, which are our rules. No word on using their prize tree, though.
So yeah, they’re going to countries that have sets that sort of look like ours and with the same format. But still, the idea of traveling is really cool and one of the better if not the best gimmicks they have done. The only thing I would have done is go to the British set to do a daytime format episode. We’re going with a 22-case $250,000 syndicated edition of Deal this fall; it would have made sense to test the waters with their format. But anyway, it’s a very welcomed change that doesn’t take away from what the show is and doesn’t basically fix the board so it’s an obscenely better chance at winning $1,000,000. Are we all in good spirits about this one?
I’m often amazed at how Deal or No Deal, through NBC’s extreme over exposure, can remain extremely strong and popular. However, do you think it’ll keep it up for a two hour weekly episode? This is part of NBC’s midseason of midseason shake-up. First off, once 1 VS 100’s season finale is over on Friday, February 22nd, NBC’s new game show, Amne$ia, sees its debut at 9:00PM ET. If you note, the show has seven letters, with the “e” in the middle. There’s place to zoom through the “e” in the logo, so I think we’re safe. You can calm down, everyone.
Amne$ia can basically be described as a light-hearted Moment of Truth with a worse host, Dennis Miller. I like him, but he just doesn’t hold a candle to Mark L. Walberg of FOX’s lie detector show. Amne$ia just sees contestants recalling past events from their life for money. This is going to probably make me sound like a horrible person, but I can’t see this working especially since FOX’s version is on the air and really popular so far. It might just seem too tame and boring now, especially with the novelty off the lie detector already somewhere. I can just see something like The Chair/The Chamber fight occurring, though with The Moment of Truth lasting a while because of the post-American Idol slot.
A little 1 VS 100 note: for some reason only seven of the eight episodes are going to air. They are skipping the fourth taped episode and going straight to 205. Might have had an issue with it, or might have had the stereotypical Endemol “Your game sucked so we aren’t going to air it but pay you off.” situation. There will be a pop culture episode the week before the season finale. Also with interesting scheduling moves, Deal or No Deal will be staying on Mondays, but moving to 9:00PM ET on March 31st to make room for what will surely be a “fun(?)” “show(?)” (My Dad is Better Than Your Dad) at 8:00PM ET. Deal will have two hour episodes every Wednesday at 8:00PM ET starting on March 26th.
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