In October, I had the opportunity to work as the head writer, as well as a game consultant, for a pilot produced by IMG Media for VH1 called Pop Quiz Live. It was an ambitious project--if sold, the show would have been live from New York every weekday afternoon. The content for each episode concerned anything that may have happened in the world of pop culture in the 24 hours prior to showtime. We taped the pilot on October 23, 2013 in Manhattan. Our host was Michael Torpey, who was doing a bit of work for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, in addition to having appeared in a Chase Bank commercial. Co-hositng was Julia Alexandria, a pretty lady who most recently worked as a sideline reporter for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network.
The game started with four players, situated on a woodgrain set that resembled a diner (for some reason), complete with syrup bottles, salt and pepper, and VH1 coffee mugs. The centerpiece of the set was the "Trending Board" (which would have been touchscreen for the series, but for the pilot, was just large magnetic planks). The board listed the top 9 most talked about stories on VH1.com in Pyramid-style pun format (ex: 'It's OK To Be Grey' was in reference to Charlie Hunnam dropping out of the 50 Shades Of Grey movie).
Round 1: Each player picked a category off the Trending Board. Julie would briefly talk about the selected story while an off-camera stagehand grabbed the category off the board. Then, in Pyramid fashion, Julie would announce a category related to that story (for example, 'It's OK To Be Grey' = questions having to do with the number 50). Then, like The Chase's cash builder, the player had one minute to answer as many questions as possible, earning one point for every right answer. This continued down the line until each player got their one-minute speed round. Lowest-scoring player at the end of the round was eliminated from the game by two huge bouncers (who, incidentally, were former MetRx World's Strongest Man competitors). In case of a tie (which there was), there was a quick sudden-death buzz-in question between the tied players. Points carry over to each round.
Round 2: The three remaining players picked a category each, and instead of tangentially-related questions, all three players were shown some sort of social media relating to the category. In the pilot, a clip of Rihanna feeding some animal on Instagram was used, as well as some scandalous tweet by another celebrity and a Foursquare check-in, or something like that. You get the idea. Three one-point questions were asked in each category, and again, the bouncers came out and took away the lowest-scoring player. By the way, there was a silly little jail off to the side where the eliminated players hung out and watched the proceedings.
Round 3: This round tested the memory of the two remaining players. Each of them was shown 30 seconds of a viral YouTube video (the pilot used that terrible Chinese Food music video from the makers of Rebecca Black's "Friday," and a Bruno Mars video that, luckily, had just premiered the night before). After the 30 seconds of video, each player had another 30 seconds to answer questions about the video they just saw. At the end, the player with the highest score moved on to the bonus.
Bonus: All nine categories returned to the Trending Board for this round. The player was given 45 seconds to pick the five most popular stories on VH1.com from the group of nine and put them in order from most to least popular. Like the Race Game or the Wipeout bonus game, the player was told how many were in the correct position each time they had five up on the board. This round played a bit clunky, since the categories were these big floppy refrigerator magnet things instead of something electronic. Putting five in the correct order was worth $10,000; if unsuccessful, the player got $250 for each one they had right. This bonus round was actually shot twice; one version required the answers to be in order, while the second version only required the top five to be picked out of the board of nine. In both versions, the player failed to get the $10,000.
It wasn't a terrible show; there was a definite MTV Remote Control sort of vibe throughout. I was definitely pleased with it being more of a pure quiz game as opposed to something sillier, although I think there were some elements (the diner set, the bouncers, the jail) that were out of place. The cheap pilot set hurt us in the bonus round as well, simply because of how silly/impossible it made the game look. Michael Torpey and Julia Alexandria were great together. Michael was especially funny in his role as host, and I'd like to see him get more hosting work. However, I think it would have been incredibly difficult to gather all that material the show needed five days a week. Each episode required a total of ~160 questions in nine different categories (which means nine new things have to happen in pop culture every day), as well as Round 2 social media elements for each of those categories, not to mention two new viral YouTube videos we could grab 30 seconds from. We would have been exhausted pretty quickly.
Around the same time our pilot taped, another pilot by the name of Tweeterdome was bought by Comedy Central. That pilot was later retitled @midnight. I think that pretty much spelled the end for our project, because frankly, @midnight does what our show tried to do, but infinitely more efficiently, with less dependence on written material, no prize money, and "contestants" who are guaranteed to be funny and entertaining every night.
It was a hell of a ride, though. To be able to write for a game show, as well as have a hand in the development of the game and the production itself, was an experience to remember.
