Rumor Control: GSN Picks Up Blackjack Game Show “Catch-21″
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.
Awesome ! I loved Gambit, and it’s time a show like this returned in a fresh format. Gambit was perhaps the most original “quiz” game of the Heatter-Quigley portfolio, and truly original for its era.
WOO HOO! Sounds great, i wish they would use streight up questions instead of moltable choice ones. Please make the questions a challenge & not the type on Bingo America. The molti choice questions worked well on Russion Roulette but not here.
You might think i’m crazy, but Wink Martindale should host. It is a show built for him. http://www.tvpmm.com has two episodes on line you can watch the master at his best.
The first is from 1974 on CBS, the second is from the Las Vegas virson in 1980, both with big wins!
The big win from 1974 is on Youtube as well, but thanks for the link to the Las Vegas version!
You know, there is no doubt that Wink coming back to host one more show would be awesome! But what are the REAL chances of that happening? I don’t mean to pessimistic, (I hate Pessimism!) but I’m just saying that it’s not likely. Although, it would be nice to be proven wrong in this case.
And I’d suspect they’ll have a big Internet tie-in….Worldwinner.com, the site that does a lot of the GSN games, just happens to have a speed blackjack game called Catch-21….
I’m trying out on Thursday. I’ll let you know what I find out.
The tryout was a run-through of just the first round of the game (with only three players). Everyone starts with an upcard (mine were an ace in the first game and a king in the second). Answering a question gave you control over the next card, to either play on your own hand or on someone elses. Unlike Gambit, you actually see the card prior to selecting where to play it.
A player can opt to freeze at any point. However, after one player freezes, they claim no one else can, but this wasn’t entirely clear. In the first game, one player froze with 18, the other player made 20, and they stopped asking questions and began to just deal me cards. My next card was a face card, so I won with 21. There was a bit of confusion because technically, if the second player was not frozen, there should have been another question which, if I got it, I would have busted the player with 20 with any non-ace or ten and taken a 10 for myself otherwise.
I think the key thing they were going for was just who understood the rules and would play the game enthusiastically. I won both matches (got 20 early in the second game, the other two busted), but I’m guessing that didn’t matter as much as the fact that I was having fun.
The woman who was the head contestant coordinator was named Bev and was very nice. Apparently she had also done contestant coordination for a ton of other shows, including Don’t Forget The Lyrics. The other two contestants had also been on other gameshows previously, and Bev remembered one of them from way back when. She thought I looked familiar as well, but we couldn’t figure out from where.
There might be an issue with my Crosswords episode being not far enough in the past, but we’ll see what happens.
My parents were on Gambit about 100 years ago! :) Ok, I think it was 1973. They were on for 5 days and won a cr@pload of prizes and cash. I want to be on Catch 21.
What did they win, Stacey?