Million Dollar Cat Game Show on GSN; I’m Serious
Ever read about one of those shows that makes you question humanity and makes you see if you have any easy way to remove your eyes lying around? I got a press release from representatives this weekend (sorry, I was out of town) about GSN partnering with Meow Mix to do a cat game show called “Think Like a Cat”. My jaw dropped and I just kept thinking, “There’s no way they can be doing another cat game. Was the last one, Catminster, that popular?” I triple checked with representatives from each company and it’s true. This time it’s an actual game show rather than a pageant. This sounds absolutely painful. Could have had Lingo or another season of some original, but nope, we have a cat game show. So you can join in the misery, here are the rules, and these are all 100% confirmed from the official rules of the show:
Round One: “Lightning Round”: Eight cats are standing in front of food. The first three to finish their bowl of food, or the three who finish the most food, move on. A cat food eating contest. Unreal.
Round Two: “Are You Smarter Than a Cat”: Honestly it’s Jeopardy! just to add to the lack of originality and insanity of this. Six categories, five questions in each, point totals are 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. No Daily Double at least. All questions are general cat knowledge. That should get fives of tens of people to play along. Highest two scores move on.
Round Three: “Think Like a Cat”: The final two contestant’s cats are taped doing seven different situations. The contestants have to answer three questions based on the actions of the cat. The contestants, before each clip is shown, wager a portion of their points. The contestants basically have to predict what their cat’s next action is going to be. Thrilling, isn’t it? You can’t wager more than half your points on the first two questions to stop people from going bankrupt. Highest score plays the end game.
Round Four: “Meow Mix Million Dollar Challenge”: Ten sealed Meow Mix bags of food with a different symbol inside are placed on the set. Only two bags have matching symbols, the other eight are unique. The human chooses one and the cat chooses one. If they match, they win $1,000,000. I’m not kidding. If not, they still win $25,000.
We can’t get Russian Roulette. We can’t get Whammy!. We can’t get Lingo, or That’s The Question. But we get a friggin million dollar cat game show? Seriously? Think Like a Cat debuts November 15, 2008 on GSN. I’m pretty sure our little gag of LitterBlog will reappear around the same time. Also you don’t know how many dirty jokes I have going through my head but I’d be yelled at by people on here for saying them, haha. If you have any dirty jokes about this, please feel free to comment them!
Just checking:
-Before the first commercial, you lose half your contestants
-There apparently are more than thirty cat-related Jeopardy questions
-The owners are predicting their cats’ behavior in staged situations (which, of course, will be just like at home)
-Whoever wins by sheer luck gets a one-in-ninety shot at a million.
Wonderful! I’m curious if GSN’s trying to appeal to the two-to-four-year-old cat crowd with such a catty show.
I think I just coughed up a hairball…
If the suit at GSN who approved this doesn’t have a drinking problem, he or she ought to have one.
Jeez mo flip… Just wow…
Somebody get me a shovel, maybe two, one for the show and one for the cats.
Don’t be surprised if this somehow becomes successful, not only putting in perspective the current state and public mentality of game shows in this country, that GSN plans a revival in “THE $1,000,000 THAT’S MY DOG.”
Let me get this straight:
1st Round: Meow Mix Derby
2nd Round: Feline Jeopardy!
3rd Round: Wait Til You Have Cats!
My cats will love this! That is, if they ever stop climbing trees, sleeping, etc. to watch the show.
What is GSN thinking? Are they high or something? We can’t get classic game shows, but we can get a pet show? This belongs on Animal Planet, not GSN!
I’m going to watch at least once, maybe until somebody wins $1M. Then, I’ll let my cat bury it in the litter box.
I may be committing blasphemy here, but being a cat lover myself, I may watch this once or twice. It sounds terrible, and it probably is, but I’ll watch a bit.
At least this way to win a million dollars makes Million Dollar Password better by comparison. ;P
Lingo, Russian Roulette, even Chain Reaction and How Much is Enough, please come back……Anything (and I mean anything) would be better than GSN showing this cat s**t.
Better get GSN a life raft, ‘cuz they’ve officially gone off the deep end.
Just when things were starting to look up for once with the direction GSN was heading, now they decide to take a huge step backwards with something clearly designed for Animal Planet. We can’t get any decent game show revivals or any reruns of classics like The Joker’s Wild, and yet, we end up with crap like this?! Whoever approved this idea should be taken out back and beaten with a sack full of hardened kitty litter. I’m hoping someone has the good sense to scrap this idea (or at least send it over to Animal Planet). Otherwise, GSN just threw its’ money into another black hole (lest we forget how much of a financial sink hole “How Much Is Enough” proved to be).
Ok, I don’t like this either. I like cats and all, but this is a bit overboard!
But Wheeloon, I think you’re overreacting a little. I believe the public mentality and state of game shows are just fine, and intelligent. Look past this idea, and look at the GOOD shows that GSN is producing, including it’s new CATCH-21. Also, look no further than next season. The new syndicated shows and returning favorites are proof enough (with more on tap for ’09, we hope). Many primetime we’ve seen have been decent or better as well.
Still, I agree, blech to this creation!
Let me get this straight. A 1 in 45 chance of $1,000,000, $25,000 guaranteed.
That’s an expected prize value of $44,000 and change per episode, making this the biggest-money show in GSN history.
And it’s on THIS format?
Wow, I can only presume Meow Mix are coughing up most of the money. And frankly they deserve a $1m win every episode to punish them for what might be the worst game show format in the world, ever.
Sounds stupid why doesn’t gsn just fix temptation instead
So…
…That would be a high-steaks, American, speciesist, version of Pets Win Prizes, then?
Oy, and GSN wonders why they can’t get ratings. but this is proabbly mean to be competition for CBS’s “The greatest American Dog” (or something like that not sure on the exact name), now IF this sounded good on paper and it bombed fine that’s all they can do. but this doesn’t even sound good and they’re investing $1,000,000 in in?, someone check the TV record book I think GSN’s going for the lowest rated show ever,
and yeah I agree Gene, Temptation could possibly have worked on GSN with some changes, the prize budget is a perfect for them.
If GSN has $1,000,000 to blow on a stupid format like this. I think they can afford to get Sale Of the Century, Scrabble, Classic Concentration and other formats we all miss so much, GSN cut the horse sh*t!
I think one tiny thing to note is that there’s obviously some sponsorship deal here with Meow Mix so it’s not costing them as much as other shows.
But still it doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Ok. Whoever greenlit this BS must’ve been on crack. A game show based solely on cats? I’m sorry, but GSN couldn’t pay me $1 million just to watch this train wreck. Don’t get me wrong, this show would be perfect for Animal Planet, but GSN could’ve done better. They could’ve paid NBC for the rights to Concentration or CBS for the rights to TPIR (every network has its price to relinquish game show rights).
No, GSN, bad! Off the furniture!
So… um… it’s not April 1st… is it? I’m really confused.
I have given GSN way more credit then they have been due for a long time, but, can a television network Jump the Shark?
This one just did.
And I thought Godhill was starting to get the network back on the right track……..
I will piss myself if the show’s theme song is “What’s New Pussycat?” by Tom Jones.
Alternative Title – “That’s My Dog II : Pussy Galore!”
Seriously, I am cringing at this, something tells me this will only be a one time thing, or at least it reached “Pilot” phase and nothing else…
GSN, get back to making shows like Inquizition or Russian Roulette that had play along factor.
Excuse me while I piss on GSN’s soon to be complete burial space.
Seriously, they’ve already dug it with BS like this. All someone has to do is chisel it.
I’ve been seeing banner ads on GSN’s website for this, but I figured it was just a Meow Mix ad campaign. In fact, this sounds like a thinly veiled Meow Mix infomercial to me.
If it it’s just a one-off special (which I think it will be – November 15 is a Saturday), then I could see it being mildly amusing, at least for cat lovers like myself. Still, a million dollars is an excessive prize for something as silly as this.
I can’t believe they greenlit THAT… I just can’t believe it…
Words cannot describe the pain I felt in my head when I read about this.
I was going to comment that the money being spent on this show would be better used trying to get Scrabble, but Marc Power took the words out of my mouth.
Personally, I think Jordan Hass is right. This kind of a thing, and ESPECIALLY the $1,000,000 prize, screams ONE-OFF at the top of its damn lungs.
“Meow meow meowmeowmeow WTF meow meow?”
– Henrietta Pussycat, Mister Rogers’ Neighorhood
Hey, maybe it’s not so far-fetched after all…
http://pwa.rollplaygames.com/jeopardycat.jpg
“Well, at least it LOOKED like coconut..”
It sounds a lot like “That’s My Dog”, a Family Channel show from the early-90s. It was pretty corny, but this just sounds bad.
Maybe I need to pitch some of my ideas to GSN…after I get my agent.
guys it will only be like a two show thing it is not a full series probally meowmixs is paying for most of it as gsn would never do a million dolar show them self so there willl still be room for whammy or whatever you wan to come back :) this cat show sound silly but if they were offered alot to do it since gsn is not very rich if i was them i would take it.