[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Aug 14 2004, 11:11 AM\']I believe the highest total ever on a Canadian show was a $64,000 win on the Canadian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". I believe $64,000 Canadian would be about $48,000 US.[/quote]
Actually, my first game show, Charivari, had a 13-week tournament format where both winning team members would each receive a house and furniture, valued at $100,000 CDN! That's six houses a year... As far as I know, that's the record for highest-paying Canadian game show.
Now, regarding the commercial: Ryan Vickers told me he'd seen it, so I TiVo'd an hour of TVA the next morning and, of course, found the ad amond the many house promos for the new season. Here's my (albeit detailed) reaction:
First reaction: wow, they've done a perfect duplicate of the US set!
(Except, obviously, for the large "Vingt et un" sign centered above the
isolation booths) I wasn't as impressed as I would've been a few years ago,
since Ultimatum pretty much changed our expectations regarding expensive
sets for TVA prime time game shows...
Second reaction: the same theme. Phew! No Jeopardy!-style disappointment.
(House arrangement, of course, to minimize the royalty budget)
Three: looks relaxed enough, what with contestants allowing themselves
reactions usually only seen on US TV... B^) And the short-sleeved shirt guy,
sweat stains and all, doesn't that spell "casual"?
Four: the guy's name is Tim Helms. Huh. West Island anglo, or
out-of-province player? B^) B^)
Five: what the #@$&%? Contestant displays showing ON THE AIR? But, but...
didn't the June ad show "EN ONDES" floating among the computer-generated
flotsam? ON THE AIR, my ass. Couldn't they do it right, in French s'il vous
plaît? I immediately came up with possible reasons: they used the actual
Twenty One set, stored away since 2000, along with the computer system...
and didn't have time (or made the effort, or spent the money) to translate
the display. I toy with the idea of emailing TVA a complaint...
Six: I'm all excited! When I show Michael the ad, however, with
freeze-frames aplenty, I discover that...
HEY! WHAT THE...? There's a shot where we see Tim in his isolation booth, on
the left, and the host on the right, facing away from us, standing behind a
podium proudly bearing the logo... TWENT!
Well I'll be darned. They're serving us clips from Twenty One with the Vingt
Et Un logo strategically added! (Pretty well done, BTW -- I'm usually the
first one to gleefully scream "Blue screen!" They matched the camera moves
to perfection)
So anyway, we still haven't seen actual shots from Vingt Et Un...