Game show pet peeves

Cafe Society
1

Wheel of Fortune: Do they only allow morons to play? At $250 to buy a vowel, some of these people purchase them in puzzles that they already know the answer to. Is there some base instinct that makes people insist upon spending a third or more of their total prize money for the round to reveal letters they already know? Solve the puzzle already!

Jeopardy!: Alex Trebek is a pretentious twerp. It’s easy to be one when you have the answers right in front of you, but that’s no excuse.

Deal or No Deal: Pick a briefcase already!

Millionaire: If you need all three lifelines on the $200 question you’re an imbecile. That’s the bottom line.

The perfect game show was Press Your Luck, although Peter Tomarken could grate on you with his incessant repetition of the show’s name. All the same, I think I can see my way clear to forgive him. He made up for it with his Whammy call.

So, what really torques you off when you watch game shows?

2

The long drawn out reveal of the answer/prize/whatever. Half the time they draw it out and then go to commercial before revealing anything. They’d probably have at least an extra 5 minutes per half hour show if they stopped wasting so much time.

3

Modern game shows aren’t about knowledge or skill, they’re about suspense. I mean - we live in a world where “deal or no deal” is a hit show. It’s people picking random numbers, dramatic pause, and facing a decision of their risk tolerance, and more drama. There’s no skill, no knowledge, nothing interesting at all. It’s all suspense. And it’s a hit.

Even the trivial knowledge shows like 1 vs 100, and “are you smarter than a 5th grader?” are based on suspense, because the level of knowledge required and hence challenge is very low. So they take their stupid questions, and draw them out, and add a lot of prize totals, and try to make it suspenseful.

There’s almost no content in modern game shows - dragging it out is all they have.

4

I mostly agree… but on the same day he suffers a heart attack? Tsk tsk.

I’m faking indignation by the way… and mostly just wanted to hijack the thread to point out this bit of news. :slight_smile:

5

I get very impatient with shows like Fifth Grader.

The contestant blathers for a while and asks one of the kids.

KID: Five.

JEFF: The kid says “five.” What do you think? Do you agree, or… (a minute of blather)

CONTESTANT: (a minute of blather followed by…) I’ll go with “five.”

JEFF: Okay, you said “five.” Are you sure you want to say “five”?

CONT: (a bit of blather) Yeah, I’ll stay with “five.”

JEFF: Okay, you’ve answered “five.” Is it the right answer? Let’s see after this commercial.

(three minutes of commercials)

JEFF: Okay, we’re back, where the contestant answered “five.” Let’s review the question again and see what all the other kids said.

(review the whole stupid question)

JEFF: It looks like two of the kids didn’t say “five.” Do you still feel good about your answer?

CONT: Wow, I’m not sure. But I’m stuck with “five,” huh?

JEFF: Yep, now let’s see what the answer really is…

At this point, I change the channel and say heck with it.

6

I hate the “Let’s meet the contestants” part of every game show. I don’t care if Mary has 9 beautiful children and a master’s degree in interior decorating. Get on with the game!

7

This almost deserves a separate thread, but with rare exception there are certain rules that must be followed if you intend to succeed on The Price Is Right. Players who do not follow these rules annoy the living hell out of me and rightly deserve to lose. Some examples:

Ten Chances - on the second and third price, the last digit is always zero unless the producers want you to lose.

Safe Cracker - same rules apply, which means if you are otherwise clueless, you have a 50/50 chance to win.

Clock Game - if the value of one of the two prizes is over $1000, the host (at least used to) will tell you, which makes it much easier.

Squeeze Play - if one of the digits in the middle of the price of the prize is the same as the first or last digit, it definitely belongs there, pick something else!

Cliff Hangers - the first prize is about $20ish, the second $35ish, and the last $50ish. If you guess in this range, you should never lose.

8

Yeeps! I hope it wasn’t Sean Connery-induced.

Looking at the picture in that link: It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Trebek. Is he going for the George Hamilton look?

9

The sole criterion for contestant selection on that show seems to be find the loudest, stupidest person you can, inject them with amphetamines and let 'em rip.

Howie Mandel has the patience of a saint. I’d backhand the lot of them.

10

The incompetence on display in contestants’ row always drives me mad. Bids are $500, $750, $1100. Last guy bets $700. :confused:

11

Are you kidding? The one thought that sprung into my head when I saw the thread title was “Big bucks! Big bucks! No whammies!” Listen, moron (the contestants, not you, Airman), it’s lights flashing in sequence on a board. I know you want the good juju to come so the animated boogeyman will not take back his toaster oven, but shouting slogans isn’t gonna change anything so just press the fucking button already!

The guy who hacked that show was a genius.

12

It is my understanding that there is a board offscreen on “The Wheel” that lights up periodically, and when it does so the player in control MUST purchase a vowel. Not sure what the point is, of course, but there you go.

I’ll see if I can find a site for that.

13

Millionaire- jackasses who have to show everyone how goddman smart they are-(who’s on the 500 dollar bill? “well its not Salmon P Chase, he’s on the 100K, its not Cleveland, he’s on the 1000, its not Madison he’s on the 5000, therefore it must be McKinley”- uh you know damn well its McKinley, just say McKinley in the first place and cut out your brilliant display of reasoning skills, douchebag.)

14

Well, like much of the stuff mentioned in this thread, it’s probably heavily encouraged by the producers.

Look at it this way: if stuff like that were discouraged, and the contestant went straight to the right answer, you’d have to endure even MORE mindless chatter between Meredith and the contestants.

I’d rather have the reasoning. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

Alex Trebek is pretentious? He’s always seemed like a classy guy to me. I mean, sure, he’s pretentious if you compare him to, say, Regis Philbin who clearly knew none of the answers.

16

I’ll disagree on this one. To me, it’s no fun to watch a competition of some sort (be it a game show, or sports game, or whatever) if I’m not rooting for someone, and those “meet the contestant” bits are generally how I choose who to root for. Oh, Mary is a scientist, I’ll root for her, or Oh, John’s from my home state, I’ll root for him.

My pet peeve? Deal or no deal. The whole thing.

17

Deal or No deal - how is this even a game? It is 100% luck. And for heavens sake it shouldn’t take an hour to play the darn game, speed things up. I don’t know if this qualifies as a pet peeve, I pretty much hate the whole concept. I don’t watch very much (ever), do people ever end up with next to nothing-like 1$ or whatever the lowest is?

Amazing Race (it’s a game show of sorts) - the bottlenecking sucks. I want to see someone ahead by a week, that’d be cool. To hold peoples interest, give out second and third prizes. You’re CBS for heavens sake pony up 150K. You probably spend that much on craft services for CSI.

The Price is Right - the last number in the price of a huge ticket object is almost always a 5 or a 0. I haven’t watched this show in a decade, maybe that isn’t the case anymore. Also, on contestants row, if you are the third contestant to bid NEVER bet one dollar over either the first or the second contestant because the forth contestant will always bet one dollar over you. I’ve never understood the thinking behind that.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire - why would you use the “ask the audience” after the 25 thousand dollar question? You’re just going to get 3 or 4 equal bars. Remember, the audience is just as stupid as you are. Also, the online at home ask the audience thing they had for a while - don’t even listen to them, THEY ARE ALMOST ALWAYS WRONG!

18

The list is almost endless for me but, without a doubt, the single most egregious trend is the dumbing down of challenges and the contestants and the attempt to minimize the possibility of failure. I think the networks believe that people watch game shows to see people win large sums of money, therefore every attempt is made to facilitate the potential for wining prizes. The quiz shows (except for Jeopardy which is excluded from pretty much my whole rant) not only feature incredibly easy questions but also contain a whole system of bailouts, “lifelines,” outside assistance and second chances designed to keep the moron contestants in the game longer. When I watch Jeopardy, I watch it to challenge myslf more than anything. I want to play along. There is no challenge in playing along Millionare or 5th Grader, not only because the questions are dumbed down to such a kindergarten level (even multiple choice should never be allowed, IMO) but because there are so FEW of them. I think 5th Grader only has about 4 questions written per show or something and Foxworthy holds onto them like they’re made of cocaine.

Another thing I hate almost beyond rationality is the recent trend to drag out every contestant’s family of inbred, slack-jawed yokels to shout worthless advice about what briefcase to choose. Who gives a shit about Aunt fucking Mabel or her inane number theories based on her dogs’ birthdays? Are there people who find that shit entertaining?

I would love to see a hard, straight ahead quiz show (like the 50’s show Twenty-One, but without the fixing), with no multiple choice, no lifelines and no clan of fucking Hills Have Eyes mutants cavorting and drooling all over the set.

Either that or let’s go the Stephen King Running Man route and start doling out some physical punishment for the losers.

19

[Who Wants…Millionaire] I’ve mentioned before that I think 3 things killed this show in America:

1- overexposure

2- Those nonsense <$1,000 questions. While the host is reading all the “A banana is an A- fruit B- sea mammal C- lotion D- venereal disease” what I’m hearing is "Let’s surf channels… ooh, Wild West Tech is on… I ain’t leaving gallows episode to go back to hear “Aloha means goodbye in A-Latin B-Siamese C-Braille D-Hawaiian”. I think they lost half their audience during those things because they never switched back.

3- Not a pet peeve so much as just one of the things that destroyed the show: when they stopped having the 1-800 contestant number. One of the big reasons people tuned in was because they fantasized about BEING on the show (I know 2 people who were- one won $64,000, the other never got the fastest finger thing). Take away the 1-800# (when they got to a big enough contestant pool they’d discontinue it for the rest of the year) and you kill the fantasy.

JEOPARDY! I like talking to people. I really do. But I couldn’t care less about most of these people- I fast forward through the “Well Alex, they call me Dex because when my youngest son was born I ate his placenta and I raise orchids, so it was natural that I alkja jfhf z a8l zo” stuff. Fill that with more questions, or a trained seal and monkey act, or a 1-900 question or something. And while Trebek recovers, let Bobcat Goldthwaite host to bring some new blood (get him good and coked up in the greenroom first).

Deal/No Deal I hate damned near everything about this show (other than the fact it’s an interesting allegory for religion, but that’s a whole other post, though it has nothing to do with the fact Howie Mandel is getting richer while there are emergency rescue workers and soldiers and orphans [or, for that matter, anyone else] who aren’t rich, in and of itself disproves the existence of a loving God ). It requires no skill beyond knowing when to get out, which most people do, and the only way they could make it interesting to me would be to have some hot male briefcase models (I mean, Howie’s certainly not going to touch them and half their contestants are straight females or gay males, so hello!)

OTOH, it’s one of the biggest shows on TV so apparently I don’t know a lot about baking bread and circuses.
My favorite game show these days, actually, is CASH CAB. Good pacing, good host, reasonably difficult questions, fun concept. I’d love to see him drive across America.

20

I was with you right up until there. That actually sounds kind of cool.

I am another life story hater. It just takes away time that could be spent playing the game. I have no difficulty choosing who to root for:

  1. The pretty girl, if any.
  2. If no pretty girl, any female.
  3. If no females, just whoever seems the least like an asshole.
    And I can change my pick in midgame - it’s not like I’m attached to these people.