Games Dumb people Can Play

[Skynet74]

Name a Game Show past or present that even dumb people can play?

 Make me Laugh
 The Dating Game

 
  Someone else mentioned any Chuck Barris Show.  



John

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'Skynet74\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 12:11 PM\'] Name a Game Show past or present that even dumb people can play?

 Make me Laugh
 The Dating Game

 
  Someone else mentioned any Chuck Barris Show.  



John [/quote]
 Wheel of Fortune...they pull in at least one dumb person a night! (rimshot)

[ITSBRY]

Name a Game Show past or present that even dumb people can play?

Card Sharks doesn't require a whole lot of cranial exertion.  It's just a guessing game.

ITSBRY
itsbry@juno.com

[goongas]

TPIR, the audience can help you out a lot of the time.

[Mike Tennant]

Let's Make a Deal
Hollywood Squares
Match Game (which doesn't mean they play well, as we know from various examples)
Truth or Consequences
Beat the Clock
Queen for a Day
Strike It Rich (Warren Hull)

[Robert Hutchinson]

The dividing line here is going to be fuzzy. A dumb person can play Jeopardy!--it's just very unlikely that they'll win.

Anyway, Press Your Luck.

[Little Big Brother]

High Rollers:  Even though there is Q&A, the luck factor outweighs any smarts

Concentration: I think this goes along with Wheel in that you don't necessarilly have to know what you're talking about, just say what you see

Weakest Link:  By "dumb" I'm assuming that does not mean "could never answer a question correctly".  Getting some answers wrong may allow a player to win simply because the others are too smart and knock each other off.

Double Dare (of the super sloppy or family variety):  So long as you can complete the physical challenges and the other team doesn't steal control through a Dare or failed challenge, a team could win, albeit quite sloppily.

[DjohnsonCB]

I don't agree with the notion of PYL being okay for dummies.  Besides the Q & A segments, there are a few angles to consider when you're at the big board.  If you manage to rack up $10,000 or more, then go again and hit Double Your $$ and a spin, it takes a bit of common sense to know that you'd be better off passing whatever spins you have left to someone else.  But what if you're the type who tries to break the bank and wants to add more, more, more to that total?  There's a Whammy waiting to happen.  And if you're in that position with $20,000 or more, and you've got three Whammies and don't have any spins passed to you, you'd be NUTS to spin again. But...

...if the opponent who's in line to receive those passed spins has enough on his/her own to conceivably catch up and pass your score, that's something else to consider.  Also, when it comes down to that last crucial spin in the game, if you've had bad luck with the Whammies and need to repeatedly get something with an extra spin to stay in the game so your score of $2750 so far can hopefully be upped to pass your opponent's score of $15,850, do you spin and hope for the best, or pass to the opponent in hope they get a Whammy and *you* win?

And of course, Michael Larsen was certainly no dummy when he came along and exposed the board's Achilles Heel.  What he did took nerves of steel and a keen sense of timing.

The ultimate game any dummy can win is Treasure Hunt.  Pick a box and hope for the best, or take the envelope.  Either way you win something.

[Starkman]

treasure hunt and LMAD certainly dont take much intellegence.

Neither does WOF its hangman, a 4th grade level game.

I agree somewhat that there is some more thought to PYL than meets the eye but not much, as is shown by some of the contestants there.

Match game doesnt take intellegence, just a good sense of humor, which well does make it so that a total fool cant play it too well.

Ill leave kids game out of this, however kids games for adults less so...STYD is definatly on this list. As would be BTC.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Mike Tennant\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 01:23 PM\']Strike It Rich (Warren Hull)[/quote]
From the episode I viewed at the Museum of Television and Radio some time ago, four of the five questions in the quiz were pretty easy--and Hull was coming close to giving you the answer on a silver platter for *those* questions.  The last question seemed to be the most difficult and could be missed, and I noted that while every contestant on the episode I saw bet their entire bankrolls for the first four questions, they all held back on the last one, so that they would leave with some money.

Of course, even if the contestant muffed the quiz, he/she could still have someone call in on the Heartline and offer who-knows-what after being touched by their "heartwarming" story, so I guess that you didn't have to be smart to come off with a good haul on the show in the first place--and that's why the streets around the theater got clogged with people who came to New York for no other purpose but to get on "Strike It Rich"--and what the New York State government made the producers register as a charity.

[Starkman]

well if we are to bring 50s game shows into it i think you could be dumber than britney and win a bundle on twenty one if you were able to kiss enright's ass enough

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'ITSBRY\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 12:56 PM\']
Card Sharks doesn't require a whole lot of cranial exertion.  It's just a guessing game.
 [/quote]
 But as Randy Amasia reported several years back, and Jim Perry even mentioned in passing on the show one time, CS producers were looking for contestants who could give good, thought out answers to the survey questions, and were tested on that when they auditioned.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Little Big Brother\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 03:34 PM\'] High Rollers:  Even though there is Q&A, the luck factor outweighs any smarts

Concentration: I think this goes along with Wheel in that you don't necessarilly have to know what you're talking about, just say what you see
 [/quote]
 As for High Rollers, it was reported a few years back that some contestants who auditioned for that show ended up on Squares or another H-Q show, and vice versa.

Al Martella's site a couple of years back did mention that Classic Concentration did have prospective contestants take a rebus test with partially revealed Steve Ryan-created rebuses, and had to get a certain percentage right as part of the audition. There was no memory test in the audition, however.

[inturnaround]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 06:50 PM\'] [quote name=\'ITSBRY\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 12:56 PM\']
Card Sharks doesn't require a whole lot of cranial exertion.  It's just a guessing game.
 [/quote]
But as Randy Amasia reported several years back, and Jim Perry even mentioned in passing on the show one time, CS producers were looking for contestants who could give good, thought out answers to the survey questions, and were tested on that when they auditioned. [/quote]
 But it still led to a lot of people saying, "Well, I think A...so I'll go with a guess that completely contradicts my reasoning"

Of course, this was a highlight of the show for me.

[Robert Hutchinson]

[quote name=\'DjohnsonCB\' date=\'Nov 3 2003, 04:11 PM\']I don't agree with the notion of PYL being okay for dummies. [/quote]
Well, see, that's what I meant by a fuzzy line. I was interpreting the question as "Given a person who is dumb, which game shows would he have the best chance winning on?" Yes, a smart player has an advantage over a dumb player on Press Your Luck, but it's a much smaller advantage when compared to Jeopardy! Basically, the games we're listing are either A) easy, B) dependent largely on luck, C) involve lots of audience assistance, or D) some combination of A, B, and C.

But, while we're at it, I'll put in my two cents defending Wheel of Fortune as a show that rewards smart players much much much more than dumb players. If you can figure out puzzles quickly, do a rough count of the letters not yet picked that are in the puzzle, and have at least some idea of where your spins are landing you on the wheel, you'll be breaking five digits on Wheel in no time flat.

("Pick the H before you solve! There are two of them! . . . No, all right, throw away 900 dollars. Idiot . . .")