Pepsi's Play For A Billion

[cyberjoek]

I thought it was a well put together special, it might become a cool thing once a year, I won't give away the result as the west coast hasn't seen it (and this isn't the spoilers forum).
Did anyone else watch?  What did you think of it?
-Joe Kavanagh

[HomieG1386]

I watched it, I loved it. I wish they would do more of these. It was quite a well-organized show, and it just fit for some reason. (Don't ask me how.)

[Adam Nedeff]

\"We're not even doing a real show tonight, it's just a bunch of jerky activity.\"---David Letterman, 1984

I thought that quote fit pretty well  for \"Play for a Billion.\" I would have been infinitely more satisfied with a straight two-hour game that just had an impossible twist for winning the billion; ripping off the \"Dream House\" end game, for example, would have made me much happier than determining the final outcome before they even played the freaking game. Hey, they ripped off Cram and WinTuition, after all. Might as well go a little further back.

[TheInquisitiveOne]

I caught a bit of Billion, and I found it to be a bit gimmicky. I mean, we could have done without the monkey and the constant glut of WB stars. Also, I also thought that many of the segments smacked of Cram and Wintuition. The show dragged at some points, as well.

While I will not go so far as to say that the show sucked, it could have been a lot better.

The Inquisitive One

[Speedy G]

I wouldn't have even known it was on if it wasn't for me surfing before the Conan O'Brien special came on.

The choice between \"onensix chance, onensix chance, onensix chance\" and \"Conan... O... BRI-EN!  ::looooooooooooooooooooong trumpet note::\" was a difficult one to make.  And then I stopped daydreaming, and continued back around the dial to my network of choice for the evening.  =D

Were they deliberately trying to mock the Weakest Link podium setup, or was it honestly meant to look like that?

[clemon79]

I enjoyed the show thoroughly. To respond to TIO, of COURSE it was a bit gimmicky, a TV spectacular to determine the winner of a major sweepstakes is a gimmick!

Thanks to cyberjoek and all for not spoiling it for us West Coasters, although I purposefully avoided the forum for the last two hours just to be certain. But the thought is appreciated.

Drew as a game show host: a little stiff, but ultimately genuine. He knew this was serious dollarage for all involved, and I think he was confused between that and his usual job of keeping the mood light. But I thought he did okay overall, considering.

Liked the metagames, the Jamie Kennedy bit where all three kids won cars was a little schtickey, but, again, this was all schtick anyhow. And it was fun to see the two \"losers\" open their consolation gifts and find out they were winners anyhow.

All in all, considering I forgot this was on (thank-you Tivo!) and I thought I was looking at a couple hours of a West Wing repeat and a Kevin James special, I considered it two hours well spent.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 12:10 AM\']
Drew as a game show host: a little stiff, but ultimately genuine. He knew this was serious dollarage for all involved, and I think he was confused between that and his usual job of keeping the mood light. But I thought he did okay overall, considering.

 [/quote]
 I kind of liked it, too, and I also thought Drew did a pretty good job, especially for his first time out with actual contestants. But did anyone else think he really blew the reveal of who won? All of a sudden, he's opened an envelope, the inside of which we never get to see. The reveal of the billion dollar number seemed plain hokey, if not manipulated. (Not that it was, but they didn't do enough to make it seem official.)

[Robair]

Three things...it was interesting that most of the people on stage made the correct choice, or so it appeared.

I also thought it interesting that the best match for the number was only four digits, and then the last four.  Was pretty odd though how they determined who was closer.

And how could they blow the final showdown between Richard and Thomas by not putting a clock on the screen? You never knew just when time was going to be up!

Drew Carey may have a future in hosting shows like this, or maybe even a straight game show. He seems to have that \"regular guy\" cachet that appeals to some folks.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Robair\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 04:39 AM\']

Drew Carey may have a future in hosting shows like this, or maybe even a straight game show. He seems to have that "regular guy" cachet that appeals to some folks. [/quote]
 How about maybe a Match Game revival for Drew?

[tommycharles]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 09:03 AM\'] [quote name=\'Robair\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 04:39 AM\']

Drew Carey may have a future in hosting shows like this, or maybe even a straight game show. He seems to have that "regular guy" cachet that appeals to some folks. [/quote]
How about maybe a Match Game revival for Drew? [/quote]
 Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Greed - he would be good at that. I really enjoyed the special, but there were some bizzare happenings in the flag game that even caused a contestant to remark about it at one point.

[Jimmy Owen]

I was thinking \"Eye Guess\" for Drew.  It's been off for so long it would seem like a brand new format.  Drew would fill the Bill Cullen role quite well IMO.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Robair\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 02:39 AM\'] I also thought it interesting that the best match for the number was only four digits, and then the last four. [/quote]
 Was it? They never bothered revealing the first digit after he got the second one wrong, 'cuz it was official at that point that the billion was safe. He could have nailed 5.

Was pretty odd though how they determined who was closer.

Not when you think about it...it seems to me that the determination was wholly engineered to make that final reveal as dramatic as possible.

(I liked that they gave a prize to Mr. Irrelvant, too.

And how could they blow the final showdown between Richard and Thomas by not putting a clock on the screen? You never knew just when time was going to be up!

I thought the crowd noise did a good job of telling that story for us.

I agree with the \"Eye Guess\" concept. I dunno about \"Greed\", tho. It's obvious that he shines when he gets to do schtick under a light format. The money would get too big on Greed for him to stay comfortable.

Let's leave MG dead for a while, shall we? It's becoming pretty clear that that was a personality driven show, since we haven't really had a good long successful revival of it since the Rayburn 70's days.

[Adam Nedeff]

Was it? They never bothered revealing the first digit after he got the second one wrong, 'cuz it was official at that point that the billion was safe. He could have nailed 5.

You must have quit paying attention because they DID reveal the first digit after it was over. It was a two; he only nailed four digits.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'TheInquisitiveOne\' date=\'Sep 14 2003, 10:50 PM\']I caught a bit of Billion, and I found it to be a bit gimmicky. I mean, we could have done without the monkey and the constant glut of WB stars. Also, I also thought that many of the segments smacked of Cram and Wintuition. The show dragged at some points, as well.[/quote]
It was slow starting (although I liked Drew's reference to \"Whose Line?\" in the beginning), but once it got going, it got going--but there was no way you could fit that comfortably in two hours--and the prelims were entertaining.

I don't exactly call Jamie Kennedy and Holly Robinson Peete a glut of WB stars--actually, they avoided the temptation to do a major plug job (no Steve Harvey, no Tarzan, no Clark Kent--but with all due respect to Mr. Moneybags, they could've had Reba McIntire or a Gilmore Girl draw the number position--Holly already did her job in selecting the digits).  And I figured out that the prelims were a way of guaranteeing that The WB's target audience was going to be represented during the show (and in the second prelim, I wasn't thinking \"Cram\" or \"WinTuition,\" I was thinking \"Your Big Moment/Moment of Truth/Happy Family Plan\").

Unfortunately, the overnights were late today, so we won't know immediately how they did in the overnights--but they had a 90-minute jump on Conan (and \"Carnivale\" over on HBO, but the HBO audience isn't The WB audience), which may've helped, and the only other serious competition was the NFL game on broadcast in the Chicago and San Francisco markets.

The one major blunder was that of WGN's in Chicago--an itchy trigger finger in the control room started up the 9 p.m. news promo during the credits, although due to the length of the show there was no split-screen full credit roll--they went to black right after the Diplomatic logo.  However, WGN Control put up Robert Jordan's face on the left-hand side of the screen covering up the credits--and even if there had been a split-screen full roll, they might've been cut off by that odious recent local news cliche \"WGN News at Nine starts NOW!\"  I realize that they have to start up the promo immediately at whatever time, since they have to also serve the superstation feed where the movie was wrapping up on time, but it sure screwed up the end of \"Play for a Billion.\"

[Brakus]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Sep 15 2003, 02:45 PM\'] The one major blunder was that of WGN's in Chicago--an itchy trigger finger in the control room started up the 9 p.m. news promo during the credits, although due to the length of the show there was no split-screen full credit roll--they went to black right after the Diplomatic logo.  However, WGN Control put up Robert Jordan's face on the left-hand side of the screen covering up the credits--and even if there had been a split-screen full roll, they might've been cut off by that odious recent local news cliche "WGN News at Nine starts NOW!"  I realize that they have to start up the promo immediately at whatever time, since they have to also serve the superstation feed where the movie was wrapping up on time, but it sure screwed up the end of "Play for a Billion." [/quote]
 I type this thinking to myself, \"I can't believe I'm asking this of Mark Jeffries....\"

But why do we care so much about closing split-screen credits being intact for a show like this? And did WGN-TV's interruption interrupt any game play in the process, or at the very least, did it interrupt Drew's closing comments?