The 20 Worst Game Shows of the Past 10 Years

[Loogaroo]

Or at least, four of them.

 

http://wp.me/pAdZQ-hr

 

I\'ll be doing four shows each week, plus a few sidebars. If any of you have insights on the shows in question (and it shouldn\'t be that tough to guess the ones that haven\'t been revealed yet), the comment boxes are open.

[TLEberle]

Being privy to the entire list I\'ll say this: There was so much potential to have some really great game shows in the last ten years, but various choices of things (I\'ll lump it under unabashed laziness) ruined them. If Downfall had contestant coordinators who could coordinate a contestant who knew to hear all the answers in a round before panicking, well at least that\'s not monumentally dumb. Notice that the Crosswords folks don\'t say \"Hey, thank you for pointing out this glaring flaw in our gameplay! We will fix it forthwith and as a token of our gratitude please have a watch with the show logo on it.\" In so many words it sounds like they said \"meh.\"

[BrandonFG]

I remember all but Hole in the Wall being discussed repeatedly on the forums, before, during, and after the shows aired. We mostly bashed them for being half-baked (or just sucking), but offered suggestions...very SIMPLE suggestions on how the shows could\'ve become passable. Like the two Travises, I thought Show Me the Money was a solid enough concept being produced by the wrong people*. Honestly, a few forum members have produced shows, but for the most part, quite a few solid suggestions have come from the Invision boards..........unfortunately, they also stayed on the Invision boards. :-P

 

The three shows had the potential to at least run for a few seasons. In the case of the ABC shows, the gimmicks far overshadowed the gameplay, and it killed any possible momentum.

 

*How I\'d do it: make it a daytime/syndicated show for about 1/20 of the budget (don\'t remember the total value one could win...I just know a lady won $600K+), cut the idiotic dancing, and you\'re on to something. Replace the models with civilians who stay all week...and if you flame out, said contestant takes your place, a la Jackpot.

[TLEberle]

*How I\'d do it: make it a daytime/syndicated show for about 1/20 of the budget (don\'t remember the total value one could win...I just know a lady won $600K+), cut the idiotic dancing, and you\'re on to something. Replace the models with civilians who stay all week...and if you flame out, said contestant takes your place, a la Jackpot.

Assuming you have a run of six answers right and pick the six highest values on the board you could win $1,150,000, and at least three contestants won over $500,000 including the first contstant who was infamous for playing the game while wearing his man-purse.

If you got six right and picked the six lowest valued scrolls on the board you would pull down $420,000. That is far too much money.

[SamJ93]

I\'m assuming that next week\'s discussion of Lingo will be limited to the Engvall edition?  The Woolery run had its flaws, but was enjoyable overall.

[TLEberle]

Guess you\'ll have to wait to see.

[Loogaroo]

I\'m assuming that next week\'s discussion of Lingo will be limited to the Engvall edition? The Woolery run had its flaws, but was enjoyable overall.

 

Woolery\'s Lingo premiered in 2002.

[BrandonFG]

Going back to Travis\' point about Downfall, the chrome of seeing prizes (replica or not) fall off the side of a building is prolly cool to a 5-year-old. Reading Tim\'s account of the show, it had to be hell on the production staff, esp. since they had to clean up before sunrise. You\'re honestly creating unnecessary budget issues, all in the name of chrome.

 

Chris Jericho kept the proceedings moving along nicely, and the trivia format was inoffensive enough, but the falling prizes format could\'ve been done just as easily in a studio, but with scaled down cutouts/models on a raised conveyor belt. At the end of the line is a \"black hole\" of sorts (think Cliff Hangers meets Russian Roulette). Hell, the TPiR audience still gets nervous once Hans crosses the \"20\"...and the only thing on the line there is a dinette or fancy trip or something. ;-) I don\'t think it would\'ve looked as boring as it may sound.

 

Tim\'s list proves that the chrome only covers but so much if the presentation and execution still suck.

 

/Resume available upon request

[Joe Mello]

a solid enough concept being produced by the wrong people*.

This kills a lot of things, in my observation.

[TLEberle]

Chris Jericho kept the proceedings moving along nicely, and the trivia format was inoffensive enough, but the falling prizes format could\'ve been done just as easily in a studio, but with scaled down cutouts/models on a raised conveyor belt. At the end of the line is a \"black hole\" of sorts (think Cliff Hangers meets Russian Roulette). Hell, the TPiR audience still gets nervous once Hans crosses the \"20\"...and the only thing on the line there is a dinette or fancy trip or something. ;-) I don\'t think it would\'ve looked as boring as it may sound.

The one cool thing about Minute to Win it is the floor clock. I would ape that and put a prize at each quarter-minute. As the timer moves by each prize a spotlight extinguishes over the dance lessons or popcorn machine. Is it really important to the game that the clock speeds up with each pass? So much so that you risk confusing viewers who don\'t know why 1.2 seconds on the Downfall Clock (TM) tick away per second?

I shall leave that to the philosophers.

[Joe Mello]

Chris Jericho kept the proceedings moving along nicely, and the trivia format was inoffensive enough, but the falling prizes format could\'ve been done just as easily in a studio, but with scaled down cutouts/models on a raised conveyor belt. At the end of the line is a \"black hole\" of sorts (think Cliff Hangers meets Russian Roulette). Hell, the TPiR audience still gets nervous once Hans crosses the \"20\"...and the only thing on the line there is a dinette or fancy trip or something. ;-) I don\'t think it would\'ve looked as boring as it may sound.

The one cool thing about Minute to Win it is the floor clock. I would ape that and put a prize at each quarter-minute. As the timer moves by each prize a spotlight extinguishes over the dance lessons or popcorn machine. Is it really important to the game that the clock speeds up with each pass? So much so that you risk confusing viewers who don\'t know why 1.2 seconds on the Downfall Clock (TM) tick away per second?

You could just never specify the time and/or use something other than 60 subdivisions.  Hell, if you want to go LED-crazy, you could put 4 prizes on the quarters, then when they\'re all done, have 4 light tracks creep in on the center where the contestant would stand.

[Loogaroo]

Is it really important to the game that the clock speeds up with each pass? 

 

To keep people from winning the big money, maybe?

 

I also wonder at what level of the game they\'d dispose of the prizes altogether and focus on the money. Obviously, the $1M level would probably have nothing but the money on the belt, but if that\'s the case I\'m really curious what sort of prizes they\'d have for the $500K level. (\"On the belt for this round, we have... A three-bedroom house! A mint-condition Jackie Robinson rookie card! And a live tiger!\")

[J.R.]

Didn\'t Downfall catch some mild controversy over being looked at as being wasteful in a down economy?

 

Tim, that was a very well put-together write-up. Look forward to the next installment.

[clemon79]

Didn\'t Downfall catch some mild controversy over being looked at as being wasteful in a down economy?

 

Yes. I think this was the primary reason they went to such great pains to mention at the top of the show that the items on the belt were props and not actual prizes. \"But they\'ll still break real good!\"

[The Ol' Guy]

It\'s not surprising Crosswords made the list -- but I hate to admit that I\'ve found some positives in a show that I really trashed a while back. With reruns on RTV, I find myself watching the eps again and seeing a few things I\'ve mellowed on. Since it is a game played against the clock, Ty has little choice but to just go from clue to clue to clue with little chat in between. Alex doesn\'t discuss answers on Jeopardy at any great length, either, so I\'ve toned down my dislike of Ty\'s hosting. He tries to be personable. Not the warmest host, but he does keep it moving. And, like the classic games, I liked watching everyday people play, instead of the types of contestants that seem to come from central casting for shows like Deal or No Deal. Genuine happiness or disappointment, depending on how the game goes for them. The aspect of the chance of a spoiler answering only one question in the whole show and winning the game has happened so rarely that I find it less upsetting. What\'s the diff between that and a family on Feud happening to come up with 3 or 4 \"steal\" answers and winding up winning the game on them? A couple of the main gripes still remain - such as not allowing contestants to see the whole board being filled in while the game is playing. Still too many questions where several possible answers have the same number of letters - \"Five letters, a popular pie fruit\". Apple? Peach? Lemon? Without a clue letter among the blanks, one guess is as good as another -or as bad, since you lose cash. Still enough faults to make it a disappointment, but I like watching it again more than I used to.