Who’s Your Most Memorable Celebrity Game Show Contestant?
The Great and Mighty Pat Kiernan passed this article from USA Today over to us this morning. It’s all about celebrity contestants on game shows, and it’s an interesting read. You can read it here. The basic theme of the article is the incredible stress that celebrities are under on these shows. For instance, this season, remember Peter Gallagher on Millionaire? It was very evident he was just a bit short of terrified during his run, though he became the first aired contestant to play for six figures. Gallagher said, “You’re risking ego and pride. I was afraid I’d be exposed as dumb as a box of rocks. Except for talk shows, you’re not often in this position. You can’t blame writers or directors. And I have so many swaths of complete ignorance…like pop culture and sports.”
There’s lots of prep work involved also. Joan Rivers, who was recently on Fifth Grader, bought text books and studied with her grandson. No one wants to lose money for charity, obviously. However, many celebrities have done incredibly well. The best is Michael McKean, who won over a million dollars on Jeopardy! last season. Then you’ve got people like Tony Hawk and Regis Philbin who won over $100,000 on Fifth Grader. This is just a small taste of the article. Click here to read it all; very interesting.
Which leads to this fun question if you want to answer it: do you have any memorable celebrity contestants? I know this article discusses a lot of the good, but it’s next to impossible to forget Patricia Heaton’s single question for $50,000 on Millionaire. Even more impossible to forget if you were in the studio like I was. But at least I can vouch for what the article says. I saw three celebrities play, and they were each incredibly nervous during their down time, not wanting to blow it. It’s a lot of pressure.
For me, the most memorable contestant is, without a doubt, Norm McDonald, who after Regis begged and pleaded with him, walked with $500,000 on Millionaire, only to find out his guess for the million would have been right. I thought he was gonna snap Regis’s neck.
I know it’s from a real long time ago, but I’m a big fan of Pee-Wee Herman, and I remember as a kid watching reruns of The Gong Show and he appeared on it, my mom or dad said to me “Pat, does that guy look fimilar to you?” then they told me it was him and I was in total shock cause I really only knew him as Pee-Wee, not as Eddie, part of the comedy group “The Hilarious Betty and Eddie”. But if you want to talk about contestants in the past couple of years, then I would have to go with George Takei and his husband on the Newlywed Game, being the first openly gay couple on the show. Another would have to be Betty White, and her appearance’s on numerous game shows, including appearing on basically all versions of Password. And a final one would have to be a tie of Corbin Bernsen and Stephen Baldwin on Celebrity Mole Hawaii and Celebrity Mole Yucatan. It was too funny watching Corbin go nuts over clues and Stephen being….. Stephen haha.
This article seemed to focus on the shows where the celebrity is playing for charity, but, I would say that the stress (if the celebrity had any feeling what so ever) would be MUCH higher with the shows where they are part of a team trying to win money for the contestant…. Pyramid and Password probably the most notable ones. It was one of the “negative” things I think about Million Dollar Password and if they were to do a “high stakes” Pyramid…. that is a lot of pressure to put the celebrity in, especially if they make some mistake like use the word in their clue or something, that causes someone to drop from 1 million to $50,000, etc.
I have many favorites most are probably on everyone’s list, But I’m gonna mention a name that (IMO) doesn’t seem to come up that often: Charlie Seibert always a great clue giver on Pyramid and always a barrel of laughs during interviews and etc. but he knew when it was time to be serious and he seemed calm most often.
least favorites:
Brande Roderick (sp?): She seemed totally lost on Game Show marathon a couple of years ago, Even going so far as to ask if one of the trips on offer was by plane or boat (…….)
Tony Danza: I have an episode of the $25K Pyramid where I was really disapointed with him, he began talking at the middle of the show that he needed to win both games (this was a Friday show) to tie with fellow celeb. Melody Thomas Scott and in the 2nd game he mistakenly said the word when he and his partner were trying for the mystery 7 and got so ticked off he threw himself off (what poker players call being “on tilt”), kept swearing every few seconds and they only got 5 out of 7 in that category and ended up losing, Dick even had to stop things for a second to calm Tony down.
I’m sure there are others that’ll come to my mind later.
I’m not sure if this would count or not, but by the time he appeared on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”, Ken Jennings was pretty well considered a celebrity. He went all the way up to $500,000, but he avoided the $1,000,000 question when he saw the subject, social studies. I would have backed off too, because, well, I’m not sure what social studies is. Maybe it’s called something different in Canada.
Mark Mcewen(from CBS early show) did quite well on Jeopardy. When the other celebs. were clowning and just trying to get the guaranteed amount for charity, Mark played like it was his own money at stake.
Andy Richter absolutely killed Jeopardy, too bad he didn’t come back to finish his second round, but the NBC thing kind of got in the way.
Karen Lesco from “Match Game” – it was the only time in “Match Game” history that the show had to be taped over, and nipples and boobs became the norm to make the show #1 in all of daytime from 1973 to 1977!
She is/was a celebrity?
I misread the question – I am human after all!
What about Taylor from Price is RIght. He got the last two numbers exactly right won and first to win $26,000 on the wheel, and won his showcase. This was back in 2008.
Taylor (TPIR) wasn’t a celebrity. We’re talking about celebrities.
Billy Crystal’s (was it 23 seconds) run on Pyramids winner’s circle would have to be #1 for me.
I agree. However, for the record, it was 26.
When you look at the clip (it’s on You Tube) of that amazing Winners Circle run, Billy Crystal’s partner, whoever she was, should get the bulk of the credit. She got all six categories in ONE CLUE!
One of my favorite moments was when Bonnie Hunt and her mom Alice did “Wheel of Fortune.” and it contains one of Pat’s funniest instructions to a contestant:”Just spin the damn wheel!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XatSC91sgbo
I loved watching Weird Al Yankovick (if I spelled that right) on Wheel of Fortune back in the early 90′s. He always cracks me up.
He was also great on Remote Control, totally dominated the game and the end game was about the fastest I’ve ever seen anyone do it.
James Brown and Little Richard on Wheel of Fortune! They were so bad at the game!
I remember a circa-1975 episode of Let’s Make A Deal that featured Milton Berle playing for a home viewer. He won his regular deal, and later he won the Big Deal. It was really impressive.
Super article it is definitely. We?ve been waiting for this content.