$4 million of prior Game Show winnings (this is important later) went to see two episodes of GSN's new show Starface (with Danny Bonaduce) tape yesterday afternoon.
The format:
*Three players
*One miscast host
*Round 1: A face is shown. Whoever identifies it, 50 points. A few follow up questions for 50 each (open to everybody).
*Round 2: Repeat for 100 points per.
*Round 3: "Below the Beltway", where the person to identify is given in four Trebek-Double Dare style clues for 200 points.
*Round 4: Players put on a mask (all of the same person such as Renee Zellweger) and answer some questions about the person in first person. Player who has the most points at the end moves on to the bonus game. The other two are shot by Danny Bonaduce. (Note: one statement in this line is false)
*Bonus: You are given questions about the same two people who are comically linked (such as Vince Neil and Neil Armstrong). Get 10 in 60 seconds, you win some form of Central American or Carribean vacation. Not getting 10 nets you $100 per.
The host:
He's O.K., but no human being can handle that voice for 30 minutes.
The crew:
I realize this was only their second day of taping, but they made many, many errors that involved many, many stops such as wrong sound effects, incorrect scoring, incorrectly cropped pictures, etc. It took them 1:45 to tape 2 shows. According to the floor director, they only managed one show on the first tape day.
The question:
Ed Toutant, with us as part of the group, asked the floor director if they had to wait for the question to be completed. The floor director said yes, there was a light they were watching for. When I asked a follow up question on how do they see the lights through the masks (since they don't have eye holes), I was told what a great question that was without given an actual answer.
The problem:
They will run out of material fast. (Slight spoiler ahead): One segment was on Kimberly Stewart, who is hardly a household name in the Stewart household. All of the questions were straight out of her Wikipedia page.
The funniest part:
Had nothing to do with the show. The warm-up guy, who just plain wasn't funny, realized that his shtick wasn't working with us. He then talks about how he can't win anything and then asks the audience if they've ever won anything. He first asked this to Kevin Olmstead. He didn't get to Ed Toutant before they had to resume taping.
The concluision:
It's not bad, but it could be better. A better host and sharper contestants would be a start.
--Mike
