I rarely ever watch any of these new prime time gameshows but have seen a few episodes of the newer ones like Deal or No Deal, 1 vs 100, that Shatner show, and now the newest one, Identity. It appears that the only way you can get on these shows is to act like the biggest bumbling moron in existence. These shows could be an entertaining diversion while surfing the net, but the completely assinine contestants (and their caravan support network/family/friends) are so annoying and over the top that I can’t even leave the TV on in the background.
It seems that the requirements are:
You MUST over react to EVERYTHING that happens on the show.
You MUST show overwhelming suprise at every case/identity/person or whatever else is revealed.
You MUST have some redneck trailer trash family, or church group, or redneck trailer trash church group, that will come to the show with you to support you. And they MUST over react to every decision you make.
You MUST laugh hysterically at every comment the host makes.
You MUST have some annoying reaction to every reveal, like jumping around like an ass, screaming like an ass, dancing like an ass, crying like an ass, assing like an ass.
I truly don’t know where they are finding all of these people because if the world was as full of them as the shows lead me to believe then I don’t want to live here any more.
Well, people watch that sort of stuff in order to feel superior to the contestants on TV --“Heck, even I could do better than that idiot!” Given that intelligent people aren’t going to be watching, except by mistake, that means they have to scrape the bottom levels of society to find contestants.
Did you see that little guy from the Phillipines (who apparently doesn’t know he is gay since he is married with three kids) who guessed everyone right on Identity? I was amazed. He had so much personality he could bottle it up and sell it.
Game show producers want contestants who will be interesting to watch. So, they weed out the boring folks, leaving the highly-excitable people in the contestant pool. That’s all there is to it.
Really, would you watch a game show if every contestant was some drab Calvin Q. Calculus with all the emotional range of a dead elk?
I’ve been thinking about this after watching parts of Deal or No Deal. Not knowing anything about the show, I was sure that the contestants were actors. It doesn’t seem to me like that they are natural. It seems very scripted. Either that or they tell the contestants to be as phony as possible.
I believe Max Torque was referring to weeding out boring people from being contestants in the first place, not favouring them once the game has started.
I don’t think contestants acting like idiots is what makes a game show entertaining. For a game show is entertaining if I can a.) play along with it and b.) it’s reasonably challenging.
These days the game show format has been simplified into little more than giving away money to idiots based on how they randomly guess at suitcases or faces. Deal or No deal is the worst. winnning or losing is pure random luck. There really isn’t any “game” to it. Not only that but they further protect the idiots from losing by constantly offering to pay them off. I hate that show.
I’ve been watching the weekly repeats of 1 vs 100 Thursday nights (MNBC or something) and not only are the contestants generally doofuses, the premise for the show is pretty lame. The “Mob” has won a grand total of like $700 ea so far.
For those of you unfamiliar with it, there is one contestant and a mob of 100 to start. Each question is asked, the contestant and each mob member answer. If the contestant is correct, he/she gets a certain amount of money for each wrong answer from the mob. The amount for each wrong answer escalates with each question. Mob members who answer wrong are eliminated. If the contestant is wrong, the remaining mob members split the amount the contestant has accumulated up until that point.
So far, each contestant ususally gets a decent amount of money accumulated and stops. The mob gets to split nothing. Mob members who have answered all questions correctly get to sit through another contestant until that contestant gets a decent stack and quits. I’ve only seen one guy get a wrong answer and the mob divided his purse, ended up being just a few hundred dollars each for the remaining mob members.
So far I’ve missed one question: Which judge usually sits in the middle on “American Idol”? Beats the shit out of me, I’ve never watched “American Idol”.
[spoiler]Paula Abdul, It could have been Lou Alcindor* for all I know.
*Famous Laker, later known as Kareem Abdul Jabar. Paula Abdul was a Laker Girl. There. [/spoiler]
Just after I took (and passed, though the bastards never called me) the Jeopardy test, I was watching Wheel of Fortune with my roommate and made her promise to kill me immediately if I ever clapped for myself on national television.
As long as I’m at it. You know what I hate most about Deal or No Deal? That whole charade with the “banker.” They concoct this totally fictional “banker” character who is supposed to care about how much money people win (why? it’s not his money) and the audience is supposed to boo and hiss him like he’s a villain. Why would he be a villain? Do the idiots who act put out by the "banker’ offers (which are automatically calculated at predetermined intervals and having nothing to do with any banker) think it would be better if there were no bail out offers? Would they rather have the game consist only of the contestant picking one suitcase and being stuck with whatever’s inside it?
I don’t understand why we’re supposed to boo a fictional character for honoring the agreed upon rules of the game. That whole device is so stupid it’s insulting and yet, the contestants and the audience actually seem to think it’s a real person. In one episode they even hit a silhouetted figure in the “banker’s” booth with a pie and the audience was cheering. What kind of a numbskull actually buys into that stuff and thinks it’s real?
I actually watched my first “Deal or No Deal” last week. I disagree that it is just a matter of random luck, because there is a bit of math and statistics (expected value etc.) that goes into the decision whether to keep the case or sell it. I thought it was an intriguing idea, so I watched.
Oh my God it was awful. The obnoxiousness of the contestants and their families was intolerable. You are right, it is not in the least bit entertaining to watch some knob acting like an overbearing attention whore. Needless to say, although I’m intrigued by the game itself, there is no way in hell I’m watching it again.
No doubt, and that’s the bit I’m questioning. Are they really allowed to weed out the undesirables?
FWIW, I tried out for Jeopardy once. During the Q&A session I asked if the categories were tailored to the contestants. “No, that’s illegal” was the answer. And yet we had to dress as we would have if we made the show. Which leads me to believe that we could be rejected on the basis of our looks.
It just seems kooky to me that in one way game shows aren’t allowed to cheat, but in another way they are.
Well that’s true. There is something to be said for the strategy of knowing how to work the odds (similar to gambling), but they so overwork the cheesy drama that it makes the show unbearable.