Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Speaking of Game Shows...

Our friends over at IGN FilmForce have a nice holiday treat for us...a clip from Q.I., which stands for "Quite Interesting," which is a funny and educational game show in Great Britain. The show is based on the principle that it's more important to be interesting and silly than to get the right answer, which is how some of us live our lives. Here's the link. Take a gander.

• Posted at 10:33 PM · LINK

The Bigger Deal

The first night of Deal or No Deal did fairly well in the ratings and the second night did even better. Tonight's episode is against weaker competition so I'm guessing it will do fine. It was a pretty good episode, too...though I wish its makers wouldn't do so many obvious edits. Also, much of what Howie Mandel says has been dubbed in later, usually to overexplain what's on the line at some key moment. On tonight's installment, they did more of it than they did on the first two shows — or at least, it seemed more obvious — and that further took away from the "live" feel.

If there's no sign of ratings fatigue by the time the week is out, NBC will probably order up more episodes — the producers are already searching for contestants — and all the networks will probably green-light some more Big Money Game Shows. So what does this mean on the Grand Scheme of Television?

Let's flash back a few years. In August of '99, ABC debuted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with similar stunt-scheduling. It was an unexpected smash and quickly, we had more episodes flooding that network's schedule and imitations like Greed and The Weakest Link and Winning Lines and Twenty One and I can't remember them all, nor can you. Most failed rapidly and even the original Millionaire show got tired in a hurry. Still, for a brief time, the networks couldn't get enough of 'em. Why? Well, for one thing, they were pretty simple formula shows, easy to launch. With other kinds of programming, you have to worry about getting a good script each week and developing storylines and characters and maybe booking guest stars. The variables are a lot more complicated. But the real reason the suits upstairs will order game shows (and reality shows, as well) is that they like to think they can make themselves impervious to union uprisings. That was part of the thinking that got us all those game and reality shows then, and history may be starting to repeat itself.

The three big labor organizations in Hollywood are the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild. Of these, the directors are the least likely to ever interrupt production. The DGA does not strike. (Well, they did once but it only lasted — I am not exaggerating — about 15 minutes.) Depending on who you ask, this is either because the DGA is wise and sage and knows how to work creatively with the producers...or because they know how to make a quick deal that undercuts the other unions. In any case, a DGA strike — if such a thing ever occurs — would not likely stop the taping of a show like Deal or No Deal. It might harm a show that needs a more sensitive hand in charge...someone skilled in story and characterization and nuance. But with a game or reality show, even if the union director were to go pound pavement, there would always be some technician who could slip into the chair, follow the real director's shot list and crank out what would seem like an acceptable episode.

So that leaves the writers and actors. Most game shows are not WGA-signatory, which means that they either employ non-union writers or they employ WGA writers but call them something else — segment producers or production staff or researchers or something — and argue that the guy sitting there writing dialogue and questions is not a writer. The WGA is challenging this via various avenues but hasn't gotten very far...yet. In any case, you could probably still go right on taping Deal or No Deal if the writers go on strike, as seems highly possible when the current contract expires in November of 2007. Hollywood has not seen a big, production-stopping strike, by the way, since the WGA went out in 1988.

What about actors? Deal or No Deal employs 26 models and they're probably all union members but, I dunno...call me crazy. I suspect that if you scoured Hollywood top to bottom, you could find 26 attractive women without SAG cards but with a burning desire to get on network TV...and you could replace the guy who plays The Banker on Deal or No Deal with the NBC parking lot attendant. So all they really have to worry about is Howie Mandel. Doing the show without him might be tough but not as tough as, say, trying to do Will & Grace without Will or Grace.

Now, I'm not suggesting here that NBC's interest in Deal or No Deal is because they expect a SAG strike soon. The current contract doesn't expire until July of 2008, which is the same time as the current DGA pact. Nor can they even assume that this particular series will be on their schedule then. But it got on the air, and may well become a series, in part because that's the current thinking at the networks; that at least one of those three unions — probably not the DGA — is going to go to war for long overdue gains, and it will not be a brief skirmish. So recently, there's been a renewed interest at the networks in cultivating reality and game shows, in part because, once again, they're smelling Big Strike a few years down the line. As when Millionaire debuted in a similar time of labor unease, someone is saying to someone else, "This is the kind of show we need to work towards."

Will this strategy work? Of course not. In fact, I'd be very surprised if there's anyone high up at the any of the networks who thinks they will not take a massive, crippling hit if they try to rely on "union-proof" shows. It's the Nuclear Option they know will result in massive, self-inflicted wounds...which doesn't mean they won't try it. In a future posting here, I'll try and explain why.

• Posted at 8:05 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

George F. Will takes what oughta be the Conservative view of the Bush spying matter. But in most cases isn't.

• Posted at 6:18 PM · LINK

There's No Such Website!

You know how this works by now. We give you links and descriptions of five websites. Four actually exist on the Internet. One is a shameful lie. You pick the shameful lie and you win a big cash prize. (That's another shameful lie. There is no big cash prize. There's no small cash prize, either. As a matter of fact, if you had any decency, you'd send us money.) Okay, here we go! Time to play There's No Such Website!

• Toastman - Maurice Bennett makes portraits of celebrities out of toast. He toasts slices of bread until each is proper color to lay into a mosaic.
• Ball of Paint - A couple in Alexandria, Indiana has created the world's largest painted baseball by applying over 19,000 coats of paint to one. Thank God they didn't waste all that time on something silly.
• The Center for the Prevention of Shopping Cart Abuse - You see them all around the city...discarded, claimed by the homeless, used to transport things other than groceries. It's about time someone did something.
• Buffo the Clown - He's the world's strongest clown, able to rip up telephone booths, juggle meat cleavers and even bench-press members of his audience.
• Shaker's Gallery - We've all seen sites that had great movies performed by Lego blocks. Are you ready for a site that reproduces the greatest works of Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Picasso and others on an Etch-a-Sketch?

And that's how we play There's No Such Website! If you'd like to be in our studio audience, write for tickets and tell us when you'll be in town. Good night!

• Posted at 3:49 AM · LINK

Second Deal

Based on a couple of e-mails I received, I almost feel like I need to apologize for enjoying the second episode of Deal or No Deal, too. But I won't. We all like some things that in a more critical frame of mind, might bore or offend us...and I'm not even talking about "guilty pleasures," which I've always felt was a weasely way of viewing some things you enjoy. If you like it, just like it. Don't make excuses for liking it. Deal or No Deal is a game show calculated to hook the audience and draw them into the suspense, and it's well done. It's working on me, anyway.

One reason I perhaps relate to the game is that it parallels what I so often go through in my career at those chilling moments that it's time to negotiate the money for something. They offer you 100 and you think that's okay but you also think that if you say no to the 100, that will get you an offer of 150...but you just don't know for sure. Sometimes, after you turn down one offer, something happens and there's either no next offer or it's lower. It's happened to me every possible way: I say no to a weak offer and they go hire someone else. Or I say yes and find out later they would have gone much higher. I used to also go through something of the sort when I was card-counting and playing Blackjack. In addition to keeping all those aces and "plus twos" in my head, I had to continually wrestle with a simple question: I'm ahead a little. Do I quit now or press my luck and try to get ahead a lot?

Getting back to the first aspect: I wonder if the following ever occurred to the producers of Deal or No Deal. They have this shadowy figure on the set called "The Banker" who offers the contestants fluctuating fees to bail out. (In actuality, the actor who plays the role has nothing to do with the offers. When Howie Mandel picks up the phone to get a new price from "The Banker," he's talking to the producer.) But I wonder if they thought of making The Banker a real player in the proceedings — audible, if not visible — who'd attempt to psych out the contestant, perhaps working in a little Donald Trump hardball banter.

At every network, there's a Business Affairs department and it's filled with people who play this game every day...often, for amounts of cash far greater than anything that's going to be given away on Deal or No Deal. Sometimes, they play Good Cop, hinting that they're on your side. They're giving you the best terms they can but their bosses...well, you can never tell with those guys. They already think the offer is too high and have been eyeing someone cheaper. Then there's the alternate, Bad Cop approach, putting you down, jabbing at whatever vulnerabilities they sense. Once, I had a Business Affairs guy look me over and say, of the offer he had on the table, "I gather from your clothes, you need this pretty bad." Some of these negotiators are even more adept than that at hitting sore spots, saying things to stifle your bravado. I wonder if they ever thought of incorporating that into Deal or No Deal. They sure wouldn't have to look far to find people who can do it.

Anyway, I intend to keep watching Deal or No Deal. If you'd like to try your hand at a simulation of the game (minus the cute models and the tension imposed by real money), this page on the NBC website has a reasonable facsimile. I suspect you need to have seen the show to enjoy the online version, which I've now played about a dozen times, once actually getting to the point where there were two unopened cases, one containing a penny and one containing the million dollars. I went for broke and wound up with the penny...a situation not unfamiliar from a couple of investments I made in the past. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but think that the producers of the TV show are probably always praying for a contestant to reach that moment of decision. That would be good television no matter how it turned out...but better if they went home rich.

• Posted at 12:04 AM · LINK