Rooting Against Contestants

[TLEberle]

Looking over that poor contestant who got the big donut playing Plinko, I'm reminded of two times that I rooted against the contestants, both times on TPiR:

Either last month, or close, a woman in Contestant's Row makes an incredibly dumb bid (that narrows down the field how much?), is generally not paying attention to the game, and so forth, but miraculously makes it onstage to play Plinko. ("Damn it all, you stupid woman; why on earth are you onstage?") Imagine my disgust that such a good game is wasted on her. I hope for the worst, and damn near get it: three chips and $600 is all she gets. She's bounced in the Showcase Showdown and all is right with the world.

Last year, more TPiR ineptitude abounds, two college age yokels make it on stage, completely botch their respective games, and luck into the Showcase. I say, "you know, I can't stand either of you. I hope you both go over." Ta-da, double overbid, Bob exits through the audience. And it was an atrocious double-over, at that. Not even close.

I know it's not very nice to hope that contestants lose, but sometimes people on that show really irritate me. Am I the only one that thinks that the viewing audience might enjoy watching people who know what the hell they're doing onstage rather than the Cross-Section of America thing the coordinators are doing now? And I don't mean knowing the secrets of the games like us, I mean not making dumb choices, like underbidding by $1 in Contestant's Row, being able to play the games properly, and making the Showcase a reasonably exciting final act.

Commence to discussion.
Travis

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 01:25 AM\'] Commence to discussion.
 [/quote]
 Yes, I occasionly root against a contestant.

One that comes to mind is Skyler from the Whammy! premiere

[PPatters]

Actually, I'm pretty sexist in who I root for. When a man and a woman play against each other, I ALWAYS root for the woman. Don't know why, I just do.

[aaron sica]

This ranks up there with the weirdest things I've said here...

I only root against a contestant when they're playing "Cliffhangers" on TPiR....I get some kind of inner joy seeing the mountain climber go over the edge..

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'PPatters\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 05:57 AM\'] Actually, I'm pretty sexist in who I root for. When a man and a woman play against each other, I ALWAYS root for the woman. Don't know why, I just do. [/quote]
 I root for ladies a bit more if its a show on which women win less than half of the time(i.e. J! and WBSM)

[Ian Wallis]

I root for ladies a bit more if its a show on which women win less than half of the time(i.e. J! and WBSM)

On shows like "Super Password" or "Pyramid", I always rooted for the male contestant, only because it seemed there were so few of them.  It seems most of the time those shows (and others) had two women playing against each other (is it because more women were likely watching during the daytime?)

I don't know why shows like "Super Password" didn't use two male celebrities more often, especially if they were going to use mostly female contestants.

[Fedya]

I find myself rooting against contestants in "The Amazing Race", notably Flo and Zach, with Flo's bleating, "We got beat by retired people!" particularly funny.  (Too bad that was a non-elimination leg.)  I also really disliked the team that finished second in the most recent Amazing Race.

The then-fat Katie from the second Mole was also irritating and I rooted against her.

[Robert Hutchinson]

I root against contestants all the time. My most recent memorable rooting-against was a contestant on WoF who clapped CONSTANTLY. He clapped while he was picking letters, he clapped while his opponents were picking letters, he clapped when he heard the time-is-short signal, he clapped during the speed-up round, and it seemed to pain him to have to stop clapping long enough to spin the wheel.

I believe he won, though. Rrgh.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 10:18 AM\'] I root against contestants all the time. My most recent memorable rooting-against was a contestant on WoF who clapped CONSTANTLY. He clapped while he was picking letters, he clapped while his opponents were picking letters, he clapped when he heard the time-is-short signal, he clapped during the speed-up round, and it seemed to pain him to have to stop clapping long enough to spin the wheel.

I believe he won, though. Rrgh. [/quote]
 Two other players to root against are from Name That Tune 1984-85: Les Gould who faced Tammy Warner in the TofC semifinals, and Alfred from one of the aired pilot episodes. Les got overly excited about winning, when in reality there was still less than a second on the clock in the Golden Medley SHowdown round(Lange didn't notice this at first because of how excited Les got), and he was only leading by one tune.  Alfred was jerky against his female opponent in Bid-a-Note, saying "I'm so impressed" and other remarks.

[FeudDude]

I personally think that dumb contestants can be part of the fun of game shows, unless it's a show like Jeopardy! where you're actually supposed to display intelligence.  Besides, I think some of these "dumb" contestants might just be having stage fright.

[DrBear]

It isn't really rooting against, but my wife hates J! celebrities who make safe bets to win, say, $8000 to $7000 when they're all getting $10000 for their charities anyway. Why not go for the bigger bucks and get more for your charity, she argues.

[Jay Temple]

A member of J!'s message board has been rooting against a player because he goes all over the board, not even going top to bottom, looking for Daily Doubles.

I remember rooting against at least one player in Celebrity J! because I didn't like the charity he was playing for.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 10:22 AM\'] [quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 10:18 AM\'] I root against contestants all the time. My most recent memorable rooting-against was a contestant on WoF who clapped CONSTANTLY. He clapped while he was picking letters, he clapped while his opponents were picking letters, he clapped when he heard the time-is-short signal, he clapped during the speed-up round, and it seemed to pain him to have to stop clapping long enough to spin the wheel.

I believe he won, though. Rrgh. [/quote]
Two other players to root against are from Name That Tune 1984-85: Les Gould who faced Tammy Warner in the TofC semifinals, and Alfred from one of the aired pilot episodes. Les got overly excited about winning, when in reality there was still less than a second on the clock in the Golden Medley SHowdown round(Lange didn't notice this at first because of how excited Les got), and he was only leading by one tune.  Alfred was jerky against his female opponent in Bid-a-Note, saying "I'm so impressed" and other remarks. [/quote]
 How do you root against a pilot contestant?

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Dec 11 2003, 11:35 AM\']A member of J!'s message board has been rooting against a player because he goes all over the board, not even going top to bottom, looking for Daily Doubles.[/quote]
In other words, the guy would've hated Chuck Forrest (although I don't believe Forrest was looking for DDs).

That was one of the surprises in the Million Dollar Masters tourney--that Forrest didn't execute his trademark strategy once.  Of course, I believe that in his one game he didn't get control of the board too often enough to get to execute his trademark strategy.

[gameshowguy2000]

On the Primetime Millionaire, after watching TWO women leave empty-handed, I rooted against the women, until this version ended in June 2002.

And when that number went up to THREE, I still rooted against the women.

You know why? If women are smart as (or smarter than) the men, they wouldn't leave with a big fat goose egg now, would they?

Only exception was Phyllis Harris, since she did so well on Greed, that'd she do well here, and she did, winning $64,000.

However, when the Daytime Millionaire came up, I wasn't nervous at all. Heck, on one episode of the Twins Week last season, 2 women left with nothing after getting the $1,000 question wrong, even though they conferred. But when I saw that there were 2 in the hot seat, I said, "What the heck, at least they conferred with each other." That's better than totally leaving empty-handed.