2024 USA Today Game Show Articles

[That Don Guy]

It is missing the Melody Roulette round which was almost as signature to the brand as the Bid-a-Note round.

What surprised me the most was, when they play Spin Me Round, they don't call that "Melody Roulette" instead. It's not as if half of the audience would respond, "That's not 'real' Melody Roulette," and stop watching.

BTW, in the earliest 1970s nighttime episodes, when the first round was Pick-A-Tune instead of Money Tree, they didn't play Melody Roulette; instead, it was Cassette Roulette - the quick version: there were eight "cassettes" (actually 8-track tapes), each with a category; a contestant chose one, and a corresponding tune was played by the band; four of the categories had prizes associated with them; I think it was best of 7 tunes.

[The Ol' Guy]

I'll toss my 2 cents in, and I may have posted this here before. Every moment that can be filled with a contestant showing off a talent, or shots of anxious relatives, or drawn-out reveals is a moment that the game isn't being played and money isn't being given away. Yeah, there's the human interest aspect, but when you're turning a good 30-minute game into an hour show, you have to cut corners everywhere you can to stay in budget. Then there's the element that always bugged me about Deal or No Deal. How many people ever took a big early offer? Makes one wonder if strongly encouraging a contestant to go on was always part of the plan. Heck...if I picked my first set of cases and the bank offered me $35,000 - I came in with nothing, so why not take it and run? Can't see DoND go through 6 contestants in an hour taking early cash grabs and staying budgetarily viable...

[JasonA1]

My theory on the backstories dates back to whenever NBC got the Olympics.

I make a lot of analogies between sports and game shows. I understand they're nowhere near the same level when it comes to economics. But I think a lot can be gained by treating them the same way, particularly with doing them live to tape, etc. You'd never do a pickup of a free throw because the camera was out of position. Frankly, the camera would almost NEVER be out of position in basketball, whereas on modern game shows it can be, but I digress.

To that end, I think story packages CAN have a place. To go to sports, I think they make sense at the Olympics, because the whole thing is about a long journey to one moment in time, a life spent training, etc. And I think they're OK on game shows where the action isn't too dense. Deal or No Deal is a perfect example. Sure, some countries play it a little more straight. But there's an obvious appeal in tying the big six-figure swings on a U.S. version to a compelling personal story. You're not distracting from a barrage of questions, or competition between multiple players.

But on shows that are format driven, I really start to question how much is enough when it comes to contestant chat. You shouldn't stop a football game mid-drive to show a 3-minute package about one player. People are watching for the competition. Similarly, when you've got a dense game show, I think the audience is coming for that, first and foremost. If not, why not do a talk show instead? You can still develop that sort of personal attachment on a game-heavy show organically; returning champions would be one way to do it.

If there's loads of research that says regular people won't watch regular people play a regular game no matter what, then the story-forward strategy makes sense. I just have a feeling that certain shows are making that choice for the viewers, rather than the other away around.

-Jason

[Joe Mello]

To go to sports, I think they make sense at the Olympics, because the whole thing is about a long journey to one moment in time, a life spent training, etc.

Most Olympic disciplines, though, face similar challenges to most game shows in that they are trying to draw an audience that is either actually or functionally watching them for the first time. Unlike game shows, there is no real play-along value to many sports, so the Olympics have to lean into the human interest angle because otherwise they're presenting games you don't care about featuring people you don't care about.

I feel like there's a big meaty philosophical discussion here that we could spend hours on (if we haven't already) but in reality, I'm not sure how much more complex the answer is going to be other than "we need ratings" and/or "this other successful show did this, so we should do it, too."

[BrandonFG]

I watched some of the opening ceremony on Peacock last night. I know she has a talk show syndicated by NBC and I know he hosts “College Bowl”, but Kelly Clarkson and Peyton Manning made the ceremony damn near unwatchable by being so chatty. Felt a little “How do you do fellow kids?” Between that and Hoda and Savannah talking about what celebrities are in Paris, I have a feeling the fluff is going to overshadow the spirit of competition more than ever this year.

The reactions on Threads has been overwhelmingly negative (mostly wishing the commentators would stop talking and let the moment breathe), so again I ask what audience is NBC trying to reach?

[Dbacksfan12]

so again I ask what audience is NBC trying to reach?

Not saying there’s zero overlap in the Venn diagram between “Interested in athletics” and “Swifties”, but my guess is Swifties.

[TLEberle]

A nit to pick:  Her information on NTT was inaccurate as to when it first aired.  Two minutes of research would have prevented this.  Also, I noticed that author said Password is “only” played for $25K.  Glad she’s swimming in money.

When The Wall has a possible eight-digit grand prize and weakest Link has a $500,000 round six, twenty-five grand feels picayune. I wish that the show would allow players to play three or four games in an hour and thus have that chance to win more., but they don't. There's other things I don't like about the new iteration but that prizing structure does hit the podium.

I think the third season of American Gladiators was perfect in terms of having seven events (I forget if the Eliminator was seven or eight?) but also being able to flesh out all four contenders and also spotlighting the Gladiators. For me, content is king. If you can reasonably replace interviews or check-ins with your celebrity guests with another round or a more satisfying tiebreaker, I would prefer more game. Most contestants will be gone after the conclusion of the show, and in most cases forgotten. I will find out whatever I care about their personality through the play of the game/

For the new Name That Tune, it felt like so much of what worked was cast aside. Bid-a-Note's song values overpowered anything from earlier rounds and Melody Roulette was essentially jumbling the money amounts from $1,000 to $6,000 rather having an actual carnival wheel. For as much that Beat Shazam does that irks me, it feels like a more complete presentation, and watching celebrities play a game where a wrong guess in Golden Medley is treated like an oopsie, keep trying, I'll move on because they've lost me.

[MSTieScott]

When The Wall has a possible eight-digit grand prize and weakest Link has a $500,000 round six, twenty-five grand feels picayune. I wish that the show would allow players to play three or four games in an hour and thus have that chance to win more., but they don't.

I don't watch Password, but my instinct is that they would want to make the bonus round easy enough that the contestant wins nearly every time. If I'm right, that's $50,000 an hour. According to the fandom.com wiki-keepers, the current version of Weakest Link is averaging a little more than $60,000 per episode, so there actually isn't much of a difference between the two. It's all a side effect of shows advertising nigh-impossible-to-win grand prizes ruining things for shows that want to present a lot of happy winners.

For Password, the next natural-sounding grand prize amount would be $50,000. I'm guessing the network doesn't want to open its pocketbook by that much.

[Joe Mello]

so again I ask what audience is NBC trying to reach?

The OC and CC usually have a high level of abstraction, and in theory both Manning and Clarkson's skills of being approachable while having a high level of institutional knowledge should be able to help de-mystify the proceedings. Clarkson should be able to comment on the performances and Manning would be able to provide an athlete's perspective on both the spectacle and what will happen with the athletes both before and after the ceremonies.

My take having watched the whole thing as part of a group is that a good plan did not survive first contact with the ceremony (although Manning doing a bit was never going to work).

[TLEberle]

I was thinking there had to be a reason Name That Tune was getting multiple seasons, but not a lot of love on this board. What about the show makes you want to rank it lower?

"Name that tune."
(band plays a snippet.)
(Finalist signals, band stops.)
"Pass."
Audience: "ooooh."

The 70s and 80s iterations weren't set up for reaction shots other than finding the players, but the FOX version is worse for it. Yes, we know that a passed tune will need to be guessed on another time through the rotation, and we can actually see dots on screen to indicate which songs have been guessed successfully. (That's actually not terrible or a knock as the old show had the countdown ring).

Hold a shot on the contestant and break away after a signal. Keep the round moving and don't reset the situation unless it's one to win the bonus or time is short. (that might be something that a good host will know, or a producer/director can feed via IFB). Just because Millionaire brought the crowd into view doesn't mean I want to see their reaction as opposed to the contestant.

The game was fine and there was a nice mix of gettable and recognizable songs that someone who pays attention to the radio should have no issue identifying. Everything else detracted from the final product.

[BrandonFG]

I was thinking there had to be a reason Name That Tune was getting multiple seasons, but not a lot of love on this board. What about the show makes you want to rank it lower?

"Name that tune."
(band plays a snippet.)
(Finalist signals, band stops.)
"Pass."
Audience: "ooooh."

When the show premiered I remember being annoyed that the audience went "Oooh" every time a contestant made a bid during Bid-A-Note, and that the only time anyone reacted like that in the past was when someone said they could Name That Tune in one note. I know 1984 was 40 years ago, but I would think producers wouldn't have to force the enthusiasm.