The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: mmb5 on January 05, 2025, 10:20:02 PM
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Now that Pointless (at least Season 4) is legally on YouTube, I've been watching an episode a day. Alexander Armstrong is just too polite. Everyone is a good contestant. Any missed answer is "bad luck".
So, what shows where a lot more honest when the contestant didn't play that well. One example I can think of is Dick Clark on Pyramid. Others?
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There was at least one interchange on Studio 7 where two players have answered incorrectly and are on the voting block, and Pat says "with those answers do you dread facing either of them?" He was less circumspect in discussing wrong answers, though perhaps not to the level of Gene Rayburn or Richard Dawson.
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I remember a few Fast Money games where Ray flatly told the player "Looks like we're playing for $5 a point here..."
Fast forward to the Louie era, and he'd tell players they needed a miracle. I believe there was one or two instances where he said he'd do something outrageous if whatever answer was worth the 70 or so points they needed.
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Now that Pointless (at least Season 4) is legally on YouTube, I've been watching an episode a day. Alexander Armstrong is just too polite. Everyone is a good contestant. Any missed answer is "bad luck".
So, what shows where a lot more honest when the contestant didn't play that well. One example I can think of is Dick Clark on Pyramid. Others?
An obvious answer, though not in the spirit of the question is Weakest Link.
I seem to remember Monty Hall making snippy comments to traders who made a bad deal. There's times I felt he was pleased he fooled a contestant.
ETA:
Here's an example at the 5:45 mark. Monty sounds like he's scolding 3rd graders who acted up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZzdbbfQ3fc&t=345
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An obvious answer, though not in the spirit of the question is Weakest Link.
Even thought he was more of a wiseacre I thought George Gray had no truck for stupidity in terms of contestants being rather thick in terms of missing the easier material. Same with Jane Lynch.
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I feel like it's become more en vogue in the 2000s, probably since Weakest Link.
Dick Clark was given as an example, but his brutal honesty was usually constructive. "This round is not going your way. Let's power through it and focus on doing better next round." That sort of thing.
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Inquizition 8) It's too bad Showdown remains lost to time, descriptions of Joe Pyne's presentation suggest that it fits this thread.
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Monty was also mighty quick to criticize wrong guessers at pricing groceries, even when his “reasonable limits” weren’t all that reasonable. Barker wouldn’t rib contestants unless a response was so dumb, the audience was laughing already.
Allen Ludden had his way of cringing to camera after a bad guess or clue. Betty even brought it up in an interview about him.
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Bill Rafferty and obviously Dawson made this quality part of their legacies, and more recently Alec Baldwin channeled his version of Gene Rayburn’s “that’s a rotten answer”. I suppose Steve Harvey’s exaggerated eye rolls qualify too?
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Even thought he was more of a wiseacre I thought George Gray had no truck for stupidity in terms of contestants being rather thick in terms of missing the easier material. Same with Jane Lynch.
Wasn't that part of the schtick of being the host of Weakest Link, though? I've never seen the Lynch version, but I certainly remember Anne Robinson being pretty condescending to contestants. I felt like that was part of the show, not that she was a mean person in real life...
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Ron Ely had no trouble laughing at the contestants when they gave dumb answers to the puzzles or wildly incorrect titles to songs on Face the Music. In one of the episodes Wink recently posted, he asked one of the contestants "When you look at the words, don't you ever look at the title of the song?"
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Bill Rafferty and obviously Dawson made this quality part of their legacies, and more recently Alec Baldwin channeled his version of Gene Rayburn’s “that’s a rotten answer”. I suppose Steve Harvey’s exaggerated eye rolls qualify too?
Rafferty was one of the first to come to my mind when he hosted Every Second Counts. Especially in the end game, where it became virtually impossible to win the car if the couple took too long reaching the first two prize levels.
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Eye Guess:
(The time's up whistle goes off after two contestants have missed five consecutive questions)
BILL: Well, I had two questions left, but you wouldn't have gotten them right anyway.
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Dick Clark's comments are about the fairness of the game.
https://youtu.be/nNNKt50nvEY?si=1Tff5I2dhdVURPWm (https://youtu.be/nNNKt50nvEY?si=1Tff5I2dhdVURPWm)
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I too remember Monty being almost gleeful at times..."And there is the dining room that you DID not win!"
I know Trebek had a few quips over his 36 years at the helm of Jeopardy, especially one in particular about none of the players knowing anything about football terms.
Jack Barry during the Joker's Wild when a contestant needed a triple or 3 Jokers to have a chance to win...
"Solar System...Pot Luck...NOPE you cannot win!"
Though not a host, have to give an honorable mention to the "You Fool!" fiasco from Hollywood Squares with Gilbert, may he rest in peace.
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Ben Gleib and John Michael Higgins on Idiotest and America Says, respectively. They both fit the Richard Dawson mold of playfully mocking contestants for dumb answers without coming off as too mean-spirited pretty well.
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While Pat was much more likely to give the wheel grief, there was that round from a Hawaii trip where everyone kept guessing horse puzzles.
Pictionary regularly roasts a bad drawing, a practice that has carried over to the UK version.
Speaking of the UK, I don't know how Bradley was in earlier years of The Chase, but he usually doesn't let bad answers or contestants off too easy.
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When the show is called Idiotest, I guess a bit of snark goes without saying. Ben did it with great good humor, though. He really was terrific.
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I remember Jeremy Clarkson making comments on his first season of WWTBAM if the contestants didn't use their lifelines or if they were bad. He doesn't make those comments anymore.