Of all of the complaints that I attempt to tolerate from so many of our less frequent readers, which seems to include just about anyone else who even has a hot take let alone attempt a similar venture to this, perhaps the one that I’ll allow is more than justified is my attention to small details about game shows and what is euphemistically called “competitive reality”–even though in so many cases both of those descriptors are the farthest thing from the truth. When you’ve spent the equivalent of a couple of other people’s lifetimes as both a fan and a executive immersed in that world, one can’t help but develop both knowledge and appreciation for what it takes for something to resonate and how much hard work, trial and error and blood, sweat and tears typically goes into the process of such attempts.
Which is why I tend to get a bit more haughty and harrumphy when I come upon commitments being made for reasons that appear to have scant little to do with actual creativity and much more to do with a kneejerk overreaction to a name attached to something that gets greenlit, whether it’s a producer and/or an established intellectual property. Yesterday we got two such examples of such that I find both disconcerting and even a little galling.
The first was this jaunty little blurb that seemed to get picked up by just about every site imaginable, including of all things THE INDEPENDENT and correspondent Shahana Yasmin:
Wordle, the online word puzzle game that turned into a global obsession during the Covid pandemic, is reportedly being made into a television game show, with late night host Jimmy Fallon involved in its production. NBC is currently piloting the game show, with Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie signed on as host and Fallon’s production company Electric Hot Dog involved in development, according to Deadline. The pilot, which is also produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio, is reportedly filming in the United Kingdom. Fallon, who will serve as executive producer, already has a track record producing entertainment formats for NBC, including That’s My Jam and the network’s revival of Password.
I’ve very recently mused about the degree of infatuation NBC appears to have with anything that has Fallon’s name attached to it, including the recently launched “reality competition” ON BRAND whose hype funnel has gone mysteriously dry since its launch. Fortunately, sites such as TV RATINGS GUIDE still exist to provide some context even when NBC won’t. A quick Google search seems to explain the radio silence:
Today fans may soon see more of Savannah Guthrie on their screens. News of the game show comes after Guthrie missed the Monday, October 6, and Tuesday, October 7, episodes of Today. An explanation for Guthrie’s absence was not shared on the show. Sheinelle Jones filled in for Guthrie, who returned to the NBC morning show on Wednesday, October 8. While the Wordle series has yet to receive a series order, it’s possible the game show could affect Guthrie’s Today schedule. If the show continues to be filmed across the pond, Guthrie will likely take more absences from Today, which is famously filmed at New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Center.
Let me assure the clearly naive Ms. Strout that there is ample precedence for her not to worry. First of all, it is merely a PILOT at this point. Plenty of pilots have been shot overseas to save money, including a whole bunch you probably never heard of. One of them–in fact an entire order of 40 episodes–was shot in the Netherlands nearly a quarter-century ago. That show was called LINGO. A format that is based upon using process of elimination and wordplay to determine a winning five-letter word–in exactly one fewer turn than WORDLE offers up. Maybe you missed that version–it did last for several seasons and hundreds of episodes on Game Show Network, probably when you weren’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch. But if that title sounds familiar, it’s because CBS recently attempted a prime time revival with RuPaul itself–wearing pants no less–that somehow made it to a second season despite marginal ratings pretty much in line with what ON BRAND opened to. And guess where it was shot? Yeppers, England.
Finally, Netflix will answer the question: Was it Colonel Mustard with a pipe in the library? The streaming giant has picked up a series adaptation of the Hasbro board game Clue, reimagined as a competition show. Details remain scarce, but Netflix says that players will have to undergo physical and mental challenges in order to receive clues, with characters like the aforementioned Mustard, Professor Plum and others all represented. There will also be red herrings to throw players off the case. “
Like so many families and friends over the years, we’ve gathered around the table trying to figure out who did it – making Clue a source of nostalgia that everyone shares,” said Jeff Gaspin, vp of unscripted series for Netflix. “Thanks to the incredible vision of our partners at Hasbro Entertainment, IPC, and B17, we’re delivering a fresh, imaginative whodunit competition that will invite today’s audiences into that iconic world.”
I am happy for the fine folks at IPC, a Sony company, for finding a way to sell something in today’s increasingly competitive landscape. But I wonder how many completely original formats they pitched Gaspin, who made his mark as a top NBC executive who took gambles on breakthrough shows like FEAR FACTOR and, drat, THE APPRENTICE and who currently oversees a platform that has cemented its status among “competition reality” fans with similarly original stuff–a point not lost on obsessive journos like CINEMABLEND’s Mick Joest:
Netflix has successfully adapted shows like Squid Game into a successful reality competition show, and even something as simple as The Floor Is Lava. I have full confidence the Clue show will be enjoyable, though I do hope there will be one specific way for those at home to also play along. There are a lot of quality reality competition shows out there right now, but many of them are missing a unique component, I think, that would send them over the edge. I’ve written about this previously for The Traitors, but I’ll repeat it for Clue. I would love for this series to have a way for the audience to play along at home. Clue was the game that was always the highlight of my family’s game nights, and I would love to replicate that with the television spinoff. To sit alongside other family members and make it a competition to guess who got it right. I know my daughter would be thrilled to figure out the crime before me and would love the spookiness of solving a murder mystery.
For as forgiving and almost apolgetic as Joest is trying to be, it does align quite well with Gaspin’s spiel. And I can pretty much assure you it more than likely has either never been discussed or was summarily dismissed as unnecessary. Because, hey, it’s CLUE. You know it, you know it, you can’t live without it.
Just like a host of other HASBRO titles past and present have been sold into a nervous and lazy marketplace who continue to think that name recognition alone creates an audience. The company has attempted three previous versions of TRIVIAL PURSUIT, one as recently as last year on the CW, that crashed and burned. The same fate also recently befell its CW stablemate SCRABBLE, which actually had some success in the 80s as an NBC daytime show–albeit with a format that had scant little to do with the actual game. They built an entire series that incorporated a host of different games in PRICE IS RIGHT-ish rotation on the late and unlamented Discovery Family Channel called FAMILY GAME NIGHT that barely registered despite substantial cross-promotion on sister networks that actually had viewers. And please don’t get me started on how MONOPOLY has been bastardized–including a primetime version that was for decades Merv Griffin’s answer to Moby Dick in pursuit of his never-acheived third hit after JEOPARDY! and WHEEL OF FORTUNE.
What each of these failures over the course of several different decades and degrees of expectation have consistently shown is that what people enjoy playing themselves isn’t necessarily what they like to watch others playing. I know that may not be obvs to many of you. But I certainly would expect professionals being paid really decent salaries who have been around more than a few rodeos of their own to know that. Or at least be self-aware enough to ask those of us who have been what our takes are.
Or maybe that is too much to ask in today’s world. After all, look what happened to the dude who kept saying “prove me wrong”.
Until next time…
5 thoughts on “Gaming The System? Be Prepared To Lose.”
Yahtzee in 1988 with Peter Marshall which had a smidge to do with the actual game, but that had behind the scenes issues beyond its only being seen on a few stations(same people as the original Lingo around that time)
Excellent point and yet another hasbro failure
Scattergories in 1993 too on NBC daytime, but game shows were starting to be sort-of persona non grata for most of the 90s, as that and the Scrabble revival were said to be placeholders until the John and Leeza talk show was ready(better known as Leeza as of about a year into its run)
Also true and further proof.
Pictionary failed as a game show for 13 weeks in Summer 1989 for Barry-Enright and MCA(when Win Lose or Draw was a modest hit in syndication), again in 1997-98(produced by Kline and Friends and the owners of the board game, and KLine’s company co produced Draw), and did get a three year run with marginal ratings in a far different TV universe from 2023-2025.