Improving WLoD

[Dbacksfan12]

I didn't want to hijack the thread in the A/V section for this, so I thought I'd start one here:

How do you make WLoD "better"?  Adam is correct that the show went through a myriad of formats. 

My suggestion for improvement:
Go the Super Password route.  Have $200/$400/$600/$800 rounds. 
Have a general category, such as "Animals".  Two packets of differing answers.  Team one sets the standard; team two has to beat the mark.  A tie splits the money. 

A celebrity has to draw in R1; a contestant must draw at least once in a later round.

First team to $1,000 wins the game and plays the bonus round.

[JasonA1]

The best episodes I can remember were when the celebrities were interesting without being overbearing. I'm talking about making a meal out of the men vs. women competition, goofing off in that Match Game way that's additive without being distracting, etc. And when WLOD was young, nobody seemed particularly good at drawing or guessing yet, so rounds weren't super quick, or all going to the steal.

But as it went on, I could see where both things started to slide. The bookings on WLOD were...uneven. Perhaps they would have benefitted from what Pantomime Quiz did. That is, having a regular celebrity or two somehow -- or at the very least, some semi regulars a'la Pyramid who you can count on to be fun whether or not their couchmates are up to the task. And Pantomime Quiz found great success with ridiculous, long-ish charades. Perhaps WLOD could have found their own brand of main game puzzles that were interesting without being ludicrous, offering more opportunity for wild guesses and funny drawings to keep adding to the entertainment. It sounds like the later-era attempts at new categories were too far.

The show's genesis was a casual get together with people not known for playing TV games, and that feeling was unique and welcome in the early episodes. If they could have kept up that momentum, it may not have burned out the way it did. But I think they went tinkering in the wrong areas. For instance, while being on the road was neat -- Central Park and Hawaii being inspired, given the scale of the actual show being performed -- many of the travel shows were tough to watch.

-Jason

[Jeremy Nelson]

The bonus round made the game worse.

WLoD is a great example of how leaning on the game turns the show into a different animal (like Match Game 7x vs Match Game '90), but I don't think that it works better here. As uneven as the play was in the beginning, it's closer to how game nights just work, and the relatively lower stakes meant that having fun was as important as winning; nobody was getting screwed out of big money because their celeb didn't know how to draw a faucet. Adding the bonus round basically turned the game into high stakes Pictionary, and the vibe just changes when more money is involved.

Hollywood Game Night did a great job of creating the vibe of early WLoD, and I think that Draw, in 2024, might work better as a round on that kind of show than as its own show.

[TLEberle]

I think "more game" solves for the wrong equation, coming from the Jonathan Goodson School of Game Show Design.

The vast majority of people watching don't give a rip about the actual sketchpad charades or the Fox O&Os Pictionary would be in its 30th season.

There has to be enough of a game show for it to be called one, but it can't overpower the celebrities. My colleague from the midwest is correct, though HGN had a different problem in that the celebrities didn't know their role to take their feet off the gas in the High Stakes Quintuple Points Rounds, or indeed the Celebrity Name End Game.

In a field like this with guest stars someone is going to end up being disappointed--it's like the trolley problem. Either you disappoint the viewers who really care about Sally Struthers and Dom DeLuise, or the hell for leather gamers who want to feel like they can test their mettle with the stars.

[Neumms]

Mike Stokey had some that seemed ludicrous and well nigh impossoble, but I assume the stars got enough of them right. If that’s what it took for WLoD to offer a challenge, then why not. “Tabloid headlines” don’t seem so bad, indeed they might be amusing.

Did they have proper names of people as puzzles? Presuming Mort Drucker isn’t playing, you’d have to be kind of clever drawing a scene.

[JasonA1]

Did they have proper names of people as puzzles? Presuming Mort Drucker isn’t playing, you’d have to be kind of clever drawing a scene.

When GSN began running WLOD, it seemed every Round 1 category was Famous Person. That's probably just perception talking, but it was a go-to for them, at least.

-Jason

[Neumms]

When GSN began running WLOD, it seemed every Round 1 category was Famous Person. That's probably just perception talking, but it was a go-to for them, at least.

Thanks, Jason.