28 Responses

1. Mark David

   1

   June 6th, 2007 at 5:55 pm

   Okay, this needs to stop. Now.
   This show is becoming an absolute embarrassment to watch. They should consider changing the title to Brains or No Brains, Who Wants to Win Less Than $50, or The Budget Saver Extravaganza Hour. I can no longer watch as my television set is infected with the world’s DUMBEST contestants. I predicted that this imbecile, who fits the dumb blonde stereotype perfectly, would win less than $50 at the top of the show, and what’s funny is that I NAILED IT! Never again will the show give away more than $100. In a way, Julie “I Won A Buck And I’m Happy About It” Lonero sealed the show’s fate by winning $1 some time ago. In fact, her game is what caused this once great game show to jump the shark completely. What was once something that I enjoyed watching is now dropping to an even lower position on my favorite shows list faster than the Banker’s offers. My respect for this show has declined significantly over the past few weeks, and games such as this one are the reason why. Call me when we have a contestant with brains who doesn’t play the game like a excited 5-year-old or a mental patient, or when someone wins more than $100,000. Oh wait, I forgot, THAT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN. Face it folks, Julie Lonero cursed the show, and almost every game is a complete write-off now. For some reason, Endemol likes these idiot contestants and their over-the-top emotions and such. Why? BECAUSE THEY HELP TO SAVE THE SHOW’S BUDGET! Isn’t it bloody obvious? I’m sure the producers high-five each other in the production booth each time some moron wins less than $50. “All right!” they say. “Another idiot won next to nothing! Woo-hoo! We didn’t have to pay out a huge amount of money again! We’re all going out for drinks tonight!” And so on. Can you honestly blame them for doing this? I certainly can’t. Anyway, I say that it will be a while before someone actually pulls off a decent 6-figure win again, since Endemol appears to have this unhealthy attraction to dumb contestants who they pick only because they look good, or have a good backstory, etc. I predict that the new Trinidadian contestant will win $50,000 or less. You heard it here first. We’ll see you next time with more of Who Wants to Win Less Than $50.

2. Cody alan merryman

   2

   June 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

   We haven’t seen a $1,000,000 win since WWTBAM on ABC Was canned.

3. Donald

   3

   June 6th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

   Not quite. Last time someone over $1,000,000 was Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Ken and Brad each have won over $3,000,000 in total and the difference between the two is less than $250,000.

   Other than that, its been over 2 years now since anyones gotten the mil.

4. Jordan Hass

   4

   June 6th, 2007 at 7:57 pm

   Well we were close in some times

   the numerous winners on “Identity” of Half a Million…
   The Murse Guy from Show Me The Money, for $740,000
   and Michelle Falco with $880,000 (was i right? Falco)

   i want a millionaire, and not from Reality/Talent Television, i mean, Deal, 1 vs “The Mahb” or Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

   I sure as hell know Meridith will never award a million dollars, because Syndication takes so much money out.

5. Mark David

   5

   June 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

   FYI:
   Murse Guy on SMTM: $590,000
   Big Fat Lady (forgot her name) on SMTM: $740,000
   Michelle Falco: $750,000
   Identity $500,000 Winners: 3 or 4 at least

   Like I said before, the show is now in a huge slump, and it will probably be several months before we have another legitmate winner of a six-figure amount. Like I said before, the Trinidadian guy who’s playing now will win $50,000 or less. Millionaire should have its name changed to Who Wants to Win $16,000 or $25,000, since every time I watch that show, that’s what everyone who plays wins. Back to DoND, Endemol, stop with the annoying contestants already. They just pollute our screens and win next to nothing. Learn to choose INTELLINGENT contestants instead of ones who you think the audience will warm up to. I didn’t like our lastest addition to the $10 Club at all, and I just knew that she would f**k up her game real bad. I was disappointed when she didn’t win the ol’ point zero one because she truly deserved it for polluting our TV screens and wanting valuable air time when someone WITH A BRAIN could have played.

6. DJ

   6

   June 6th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

   Yeah, I agree that lately Deal has been making its viewers feel as if they wasted an hour of their time. But, on the plus side, was it me or was the game a bit speedier than it has been? Have they taken the cue to get moving?

7. AP

   7

   June 6th, 2007 at 9:45 pm

   I agree, however the point of DOND is that not everyone wins high amounts. The show has just run out of gas, thats why this low win was even more dissapointing

8. Mark David

   8

   June 6th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

   Yes! Thank you! Indeed, with crappy games like these, it sometimes makes viewers like us think like that. Yesterday’s episode was 44 minutes of my life that I wasted and cannot get back. The same goes for the other badly-played games that we had this season, and trust me, there were a lot of them. Dumb / annoying contestants belong on the 5th Grader show so we can laugh at them, not here on DoND, where they make a mockery of themselves (see Lonero, Julie and The $1 Caper). Please, someone light a fire under this show so we can get a decent win very soon. It’s no fun watching people win the current contents of my wallet, and it sucks the life out of the show completely.

9. shelly

   9

   June 6th, 2007 at 11:03 pm

   We haven’t seen a $1,000,000 win since WWTBAM on ABC Was canned.

   WRONG. Aside from the aforementioned Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, there was Nancy Christy on Meredith’s version of Millionaire, not to mention every Survivor winner between then and now, and every winning team on The Amazing Race between then and now.

10. dropzone5

    10

    June 7th, 2007 at 12:22 am

    Plus Kevin Smith on Meredith’s Millionaire, who I believe was the first one to take the jackpot on her version. (Or was Christy first?)

11. David Howell

    11

    June 7th, 2007 at 6:25 am

    Smith was the first syndie winner; Christy was the first female on either version. Though were they still making primetime episodes at that time?

    But unless I’m very much mistaken, Christy is the last non-tournament seven-figure winner on a studio show

    As for DoND, it really is luck. We’ve had a rough patch of luck on the US show, and I can only really pick out the hero episode as one where a six-figure win should have occurred. How many games since the start of sweeps have even had a six-figure offer? The ‘dumbness’ of the contestants is irrelevant; while there does seem to be some annoying casting, this is independent of the gameplay in most cases (which isn’t the case on Millionaire).

12. Cody alan merryman

    12

    June 7th, 2007 at 6:55 am

    I know. I’m not watching the show anymore until there’s a $1,000,000 winner.

13. Scott Meckley

    13

    June 7th, 2007 at 7:16 am

    DOND needs me on the show because i would play the game smart for example if my board looked like this with these amount left

    $1
    $25
    $200
    $1,000
    $10,000
    $500,000

    and i was offered $65,000 I would take the deal. Granted yes odds are in my favor of opening anything but $500,000 but i feel i would rather go home with $65,000 than $10,000 or even worse with this example board $1.

14. davec

    14

    June 7th, 2007 at 9:56 am

    Really, the rule is (or at least should be), if you get an offer of a fair amount more than the 2nd highest case, you should take it and run.

    As in your example.

15. Michael

    15

    June 7th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    Yeah but there is the greediness in there, they may say “no deal” to a big bank offer only to regret it later on when they wind up getting a $10 or a $5 case instead of $500,000 or a million dollars. Maybe the show has ran out of gas, I dunno.

16. myke25

    16

    June 7th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    Well, when the Dealmobile came through Indy, most of the promotion for the auditions focussed on “zany” contestants…the zanier the better. It was like the message was, “Don’t even plan to audition if you aren’t willing to act like an asshole on national TV.” So don’t expect the IQ level of players to increase much. The producers don’t want smart players. They want greedy idiots. Hero guy could have invested the banker’s $300,000+ offer and turned it into $1M pretty easily. Greed…and his dumbass family…did him in. I’d love to look back on this show in a few years and see how many marriages it ruined.

17. Anonymous

    17

    June 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

    Blaming her for random bad luck is foolish, and it’s not like she turned down terribly huge amounts of money either (from quickly overviewing the summary, $51k was the top offer I noticed) I found her to be a good sport about it when it came down to the end, and I was rooting for her to win with the penny—as odd as that sounds.

    Everything has slumps. I think the worst part of this episode was actually the overblown promotion of playing the game on her front lawn when it only ended up being one round.

18. Mark David

    18

    June 7th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    Agreed. Now, where’s Cheryl Jackson when you need her? She sometimes posts comments here, especially in the recaps of low-scoring train wreck games like this one.

19. Cody alan merryman

    19

    June 8th, 2007 at 9:29 am

    Acctually, I’m the one to post commentson recaps in here.

    If this keeps up, DOND would be canned in a hart beat.

20. Mike

    20

    June 8th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    Cody,

    1. Explain your reasoning why you think Deal will get cancelled even though it’s one of the few shows generating ratings for NBC.

    2. Who made you the recap king? You’re the only one to post comments on recaps here? I don’t think so.

21. Jamal

    21

    June 8th, 2007 at 5:49 pm

    My girlfriend had this show pegged after the second round. She merged DonD with Jeopardy and came up with this:

    Answer: $51 thousand dollars
    The Question Is: What is the highest offer you’re going to get in this game?

    We laughed at the outcome. What a dumb lady. The Wigglers were pretty annoying too.

    As for next week, can’t you see the gimmicks coming? I like the contestant and hope he wins some cake, but you just KNOW there’s going to be Miami Heat and Dwayne Wade all over the place.

    I can’t take the gimmicks anymore.

22. dropzone5

    22

    June 9th, 2007 at 1:30 am

    Agreed, Jamal. I’m sick of all these “guests” that come on the show…we are not here to watch people get surprised by their idols or whatever, nor are we here to watch people winning, as Mark David put it, “the contents of our wallets”. We are here to watch a game show, where there will (hopefully) be a big win by a contestant with enough sense in his/her brain to tell left from right. But then again, given the fact that this is Endemol we’re dealing with (and the fact that the contestant coordinators should be shown the door), are we really surprised after that hoax of a kidney donation show or whatever it was that they could be any worse?

    You’ve gotta feel sorry for Howie to deal with these people. Sheesh.

23. Greg

    23

    June 9th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    This is DOND, not a circus! I think NBC’s lost it!

24. Mark David

    24

    June 9th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

    Thank you, dropzone5 for nailing my point home. As I said before, my respoect for this show is dropping faster than the Banker’s offers in that idiot contestant’s game, and the constant overuseage of gimmickry is killing the game. My mom says that the show may end up going the same route as ABC’s Millionaire at this rate because of this. What sayeth all of you?

25. Jamal

    25

    June 9th, 2007 at 11:02 pm

    I don’t think it will burn out like Millionaire did, but the thing to watch out for is this: celebrity contestants playing for charity. Playing for charity is nice, but they do it for the ratings the celebs pull down, not the charities.

    It’s been renewed for next year, right? They might get through until next spring, but when the celebs start coming on to play, you know the end is near.

26. dropzone5

    26

    June 10th, 2007 at 12:18 am

    Looking back at past shows that added celebs toward the end of their runs (namely Password, Whew!, Bullseye, et al), they all fizzled shortly after they added celebs. Network execs haven’t really learned that yet, have they?

    But seeing how much of a viewerbase this show has, I really don’t think this is going anywhere anytime soon. I don’t expect many celebs to “play” the game per se, but there will definitely be appearances by many for such “gimmickry” that Mark and Jamal alluded to.

    Come to think of it, the celeb appearances really kicked off after Celine Dion’s appearance on the season finale, didn’t they?

27. Drew

    27

    June 12th, 2007 at 7:43 am

    Yes dropzone5, it WAS Ms. Dion that made NBC and Edmol decide to invite celebrities on the show.
    They should change this to “Let’s meet your idols,” or because of the rash of puny winnings, “Who wants to win grocery money?” Last night, or more specifically, Julie’s $1 caused the show to LEAP GIGANTICALLY over the shark.

28. Mark David

    28

    June 17th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    No, how about Win Your IQ as a title? If that change were made, they’d have to use a bard where the top amount is $50. Anyway, with regards to winning grocery money, here’s what I think should be used as the new board:

    Left Side:
    $0.01
    $0.03
    $0.05
    $0.10
    $0.25
    $0.50
    $0.75
    $1
    $1.50
    $2
    $2.50
    $3
    $4

    Right Side:
    $5
    $7.50
    $10
    $15
    $25
    $50
    $75
    $100
    $150
    $200
    $300
    $400
    $500

    The way that contestants have been playing lately, they deserve to be playing with this kind of board. After all, no one seems to be interested in winning more than $500 anymore, anyway. So Endemol should just change the board to be like this one because it would really help to save the show’s budget. Thoughts?