Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Has Ruined Everything

In the beginning there were only two game shows, as God intended. Jeopardy and (For those who had suffered frontal lobe damage and enjoyed the fine sport of competitive clapping) Wheel of Fortune. Sure, there were rumors of something called The Price is Right, but I am a blogger. I have no time for vague legends. These two shows kept everyone happy, and for everyone else, there was America's Funniest Home Videos (Quote from a wise man upon a shot of Bob Saget on this program:"Look closely at his face. That's the face of a man who hates himself.") Then in 1999, a show imported from the Brits as part of their most recent attempt to destroy America emerged: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. This programme (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) was in the form of Jeopardy in that it was a quiz show, but featured only a single contestant attempting to answer questions of increasing difficulty, with possible answers being listed in a multiple-choice format. If this sounds extremely straightforward, well, that's because it is. What the eventually will be known for is something other than these things. Millionaire's legacy is the

Interminable




Pauses



Employed by host Regis Philbin after the contestant has ALREADY GIVEN HIM THEIR ANSWER. These are presumably done to heighten the tension or some absolute crap like that, but all they do is drag out the proceedings and make this vein in my forehead start pulsing. I really should get that checked out now that I have a job that gives me benefits. Eventually Millionaire left primetime for syndication, but while it is now removed from the spotlight, the pauses have taken over everything (Except Jeopardy. Thank God for Jeopardy). The Official Girlfriend has been watching a lot of The Gameshow Network lately, and for each one-hour programme (I DID IT AGAIN), I would estimate there is approximately 3 minutes of actual gameshow combined with 572 minutes of pauses. My math may be off there, but let's just go with it. It is no longer limited to gameshows, either. NBC's smash only hit show The Biggest Loser each week features 25 minutes of actual show (In a two-hour time slot) and a full hour of people standing on a giant scale while the number goes up and down at random despite the fact that IT'S A DIGITAL SCALE AND DEAR GOD JUST SAY WHAT THEY WEIGH AND GET ON WITH IT. This is why, when the multitudes ask me on a daily basis "Mike, why is network television dying?" I tell them that it's all Regis Philbin's fault.

8 comments:

lemming said...

Mike. The pauses are there so you can switch to another channel in between the actual game show. I can't believe you haven't figured this out yet.
P.S. Horror movies are the best to watch in between.

lemming said...

P.S.S. FF7 is easy to play with a keyboard. Also, I regret not naming Barrett Mr. T.

kathy g said...

Not only did I enjoy/raugh my way through this post, I also doubled my pleasure/doubled my fun by following the tags to many interesting older posts. Hoorays!

HOLLA(R) said...

Oh wow. I had almost forgotten about Dragon Wars.

And yes, Isaac, that does count as a missed opportunity. And now I can't believe I've never done that.

lemming said...

Do you still have ff7 Mike?

HOLLA(R) said...

No,but Dani does. Why did you think we're still together?

lemming said...

The resemblance is scary.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=126183047436748&set=a.126182770770109.34519.100001351597674

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://donbcivil.net/pics/misc/jar_jar.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10590&h=478&w=501&sz=12&tbnid=k_-2MAc0rzuMwM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djar%2Bjar%2Bbinks&zoom=1&q=jar+jar+binks&hl=en&usg=__HkUvNSifHbV-rDHwmnQLs2Z77U8=&sa=X&ei=WuHETIqtF4rEsAOo6pylDA&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ9QEwAg

Be very afraid.

JackOfShadows said...

We could eliminate you as a suspect if you'd be willing to put on these ears and stand in a line-up for us....