According to WiredNewYork, MDP taped today. I didn't see it until too late, so I didn't go--but has anybody seen ticketing announcements anywhere else, or for future dates?

I actually came across an email today for tapings this weekend. One on Friday, one on Monday, and two each on Saturday and Sunday. Each taping session is listed as 3 hours, but judging from the recent track record of new shows, I'll believe it when I see it.

Any NY-area members up for a meet-up?

Doesn't anyone ever tape in real time and allow a program to go NON-EDITED? Warts and all? That is the beauty of live to tape. Act like it's the real thing ALL THE TIME. Anyone with halfway decent software can edit 6 cameras and add stupid stagnant pauses and enhance audio. Are the days of shoot a half hour show in a half hour gone???

Yes.

Quite possible. When's the Monday taping supposed to start?

Saturday.

When are the tapings on Saturday? I will be in Manhattan on Saturday for a class and could possibly go to it after my class.

I believe Price still shoots in an hour, no?

As somebody who's been in the crowd of one, yes. Give or take 10 minutes.

This is the same show that wants janitors, so that America can root for an "underdog". Somehow I'm not surprised.

Not this sways my hopes for the show, but I don't like the idea of a game show "creating" a contestant. You either know how to play the game or you don't.

/Really sick of the PC crap making its way to game shows

You'd prefer the Mac crap?

Yeah, somehow I get the feeling that me saying I was a web designer negates the quintessential-clue-giver Password fan status I tried to project in their heads. I even superimposed my head on top of a conestant playing alphabetics with Betty White as my photo :p ..

the audition room was clearly filled with people who couldn't give a crap less what show this was, only that the craigslist listing said they could win a million dollaz!

once again the hardcore fan is trumped by the idiots who've never watched password but can jump up and down and scream really well!

/something i've come to expect from WOF.. but this?

Touche. :-)

Absolutely seconded.

I can guarantee I'm one of the best Password players on this board, but my audition taught me a valuable lesson:

When you tell them how much you love their game and they give you a dirty look, run like hell.

Except for Price, when has being a hardcore been a good thing?

Wheel and Jeopardy still tape more or less in real time too. They stop if there's a serious, need-to-stop problem, but it would be odd for one of them to take more than, say, 45 minutes to do a show. It's been years since I've been to a Family Feud taping, but I assume they also tape in the traditional way.

here's my litmus test... when you love their game so much that you notice subtle hints the contestant coordinators have never watched it before they took that 2 month "casting" gig.

case in point :D .. while we (about 25 or so people) were in the waiting room, they did this silly mock half-of-the-room vs the other half-of-the-room .. the password was "America" and some cone gave the clue "U.S." which screams 'illegal clue' but the girl running the game didn't have a clue and let it go.. and she was supposedly the one that was in charge of all the coords! she's the one that explained the rules of the game! (which about 8 people in the room raised their hands when asked if they not know how to play)
mock game or not, it was clear that she didn't really know that was an illegal clue.. I debated really hard if I should correct her in front of everybody, but chose not to.. it's clear now it wouldn't have mattered :p

and as a matter of fact, almost EVERY audition I've been to (27 now :D) has been run by people who seem to know or care very little about game shows .. i don't get it..

/preachin to the choir

Yes.

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/2862/ad...ac110706yu1.gif

Which one would you rather see as a Password contestant?


I think you'd be in for a very big disappointment.

And here we have the real reason why most of today's game shows aren't as good as they could be. If the people who make them don't care enough about them to make them the best quality they can be, why should I (for example) care to invest any time watching them?

/cynical much?
//yes; you have a problem with that?

Well, in fairness, there's a difference between not caring about doing a good job and not being able to do well in a game show trivia quiz.

Still, reminds me of a moment way back during my audition for Sale of the Century. The coordinators asked us if any of us had been on a game show before, and one guy said he has been on The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour. Even though that had only been about three years earlier, neither coordinator had any idea that there was such a show, and both thought he was telling them he had been on two different shows, which would have hurt his chances to be selected.

Or when I tried out for Millionaire and I mentioned that I lived in Kevin Olmstead's old house. The coordinator didn't know who that was. This was in 2002.


--Mike

hah wow..

how abouts the coords of Lingo not knowing it was ever a game show before its most recent iteration (dutch, canadian or otherwise)

they looked to be about 19..

i think basically these kids are handed a clipboard and a headset and boom: instant contestant coordinator

/sigh :p

Just call them Fremantle's Million Dollar Prize Insurance Policy! ;)

And even "WWTBAM" tapes a half-hour in about 45 minutes without any gratuitous stopdowns--if my experience is correct, the only edits are for contestants who take an extremely long time and, when they were using it, waiting for the AOL poll to come back. (As I've mentioned before, they waited about 2 minutes for an AOL poll to go through, with the ATA cue playing away all the time, put up on Meredith's prompter a "we seem to be having technical difficulties with AOL, so here's the audience poll" message--and then the AOL poll came through!)

This is the same show that wants janitors, so that America can root for an "underdog". Somehow I'm not surprised.

Not this sways my hopes for the show, but I don't like the idea of a game show "creating" a contestant. You either know how to play the game or you don't.

/Really sick of the PC crap making its way to game shows

I went to the first taping at Kaufman Astoria. Very cool set ala WWTBAM when it first debuted. As for the contestants, they all were nannies and waiters....yeah right! They all looked to be straight out of some agency! To their credit, they gave really good clues, to bad the celebs couldnt figure em out. The game was totally hamstrung by the "stars". "Um I don't know what that is?"

Clearly they didn't cast up Betty White, so I'm already gonna teeter this sucker over the "fail" bin.

/who knows, contestants giving good clues makes excellent play-along value

I won't bore you with the incredibly lengthy details I was told about the show. If you care to get into it, just go to my site. But here's the truncated version: it's all lightning rounds and a money chain. Actually, it's Pyramid for Dummies.

Main game: Same celebrity/contestant thing for four rounds. One person gives clues for a password and the other guesses. They have 30 seconds to get five words. One point for each. Celebrity/contestant trade off giving, and after round two the celebrities switch. Most points plays the Winner's Circ...I mean end game for $1,000,000.

End game: Basically, just get a five words out of a certain amount in 90 seconds to go up a tier. There are six levels.

Tier 1: 5 words out of 10: $10,000
*Tier 2: 5 words out of 9: $25,000*
Tier 3: 5 words out of 8: $50,000
Tier 4: 5 words out of 7: $100,000
Tier 5: 5 words out of 6: $250,000
Tier 6: 5 words out of 5: $1,000,000

$25K is a checkpoint. Get that and you can't leave with less. After you beat a tier you decide to take your money and split or play the next level. If you lose, you go back to $0 or $25K obviously. After the player's done with the end game, two new contestants come to play.

Opposites are allowed as clues. Perhaps the most perplexing to me, if that's possible, is that you can only give three clues per Password in the end game. Then you're screwed.

I was a bit worried initially, and this did confirm some of my fears. However, I never expected it to become the all lightning round show. That's one I'm shocked about.

I was at the Sunday afternoon taping. I thought the game moved at a good pace, but it's definitely not your father's Password. I lucked out in that the celebs at my taping were well known and could play the game, especially the female one. She's a fan of game shows and she's definitely not shy. And she is well known. The male celeb is known for games, but not game shows. If you have a PlayStation 2 or Xbox, you've probably heard of this guy. Everyone had to sign a release not to reveal anything about the show, so good luck with speculating.

Regis is, well, Regis. Either you love him or hate him. None of the contestants at my taping were janitors. I actually think this show has a shot of catching on, but they need celebs who can play the game.

I may be about to commit game show heresy, but here it is.

Betty White seems like a wonderful human being, and is unquestionably very good at games like Password. But she is 86 years old. And with this thing having nothing but timed gameplay . . . I just don't think it's a slam dunk to have her on.

A series of speed rounds? Once in its heyday was fine by me, but this borders on overkill. I know, in this hurry-up world, we have to do this & do that in a timed situation & honestly, I don't see it working out on this version & will get old real quick.

As for the bonus, it's been there/done that with the money chain. $25K for a "safety net"? I'd rather have it at $50K. Still, if that's what they want, so be it.

Hm .. I guess if they ever do a follow-up casting call, I'll have to tell them I traded in my web gig to mop floors in a soup kitchen and my wife gave birth to quads..

so how did Regis do?

The male celeb is known for games, but not game shows. If you have a PlayStation 2 or Xbox, you've probably heard of this guy

Tony hawk?

/if you have a ps2. time to upgrade

Full disclosure: I played some runthroughs, only of the endgame. I'd never seen the front game. While waiting to play one day, I was making small talk with the young woman who'd be my partner in the next round. I asked her if she'd ever seen Password on TV. She said she hadn't, "But didn't this show used to be called $25,000 Pyramid?



The main game has two minutes of gameplay, and the endgame up to nine? Is something wrong with my math, or is the front game the "fastest finger" of Password?

As for this speed-round main game, the timed format certainly makes it more about words than celebrity banter. That could be considered to be a good thing.

Missed all the tapings this weekend, but I'm still looking forward to this show.

I count four minutes of gameplay in the main game; four rounds, thirty seconds... two players.

But yeah, I agree in principle that the staging and format is disproportionately balanced towards the million dollar end game - but then again, that seems to be the standard nowadays (Power of 10, anyone?).

Speaking of the standard, we may see 13 minutes of gameplay per match, but I wouldn't be surprised if the producers see about 40. Also, the "3 clues only" rule seems curious, but considering the tree in makes a little sense.

Cautiously optimistic.

I don't see how they could. I'm sure the main-game will take more time to play out, what with host-chat and such--and, of course, we haven't factored in the dramatic pauses while a player decides whether or not to go for the next level. I was just talking about the timed rounds themselves.



As am I. The three-clues per word isn't unprecedented: it's a throwback to Ca$hword. And even main-game passwords in Plus and Super had limits on the number of clues per word.

Not unprecedented, just like you said. See: "Deal or No Deal," first Australian format.

I'll wait until I see it to pass judgment, but boy howdy, I will have a giant problem with this game if the judging isn't consistent.

Any verdicts on that, from those who attended tapings? I don't think such comments would violate disclosures... about the judging and what clues were allowed, etc.

I can see 40.

Regis: "And who did you bring with you?"

Contestant: "My Aunt Barbara, Uncle Phil, and two annoyingly boisterous co-workers!"

Aunt Barbara: "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"


/holding my breath

Sure--but I wouldn't count that as game-play time.

In fairness, the amount of gameplay in a half hour of Dick Clark's Pyramid was less than eight minutes.

Did you know that PS2 sales still run neck-and-neck with all three of the next-gen systems? And that the PS2 ate the PS3's lunch this holiday season, despite, erm, no shortages in the supply channel whatsoever?

No, of course you didn't.

Tony Hawk is the male celeb? Eh. Not good, not bad either.

/still just has SNES and N64
//not a damn bit wrong with them or the games, either

Which makes me not understand why Donnymid felt they had to trim :10 from each round. Even with 20-22 minutes, less than half of your show consists of actual gameplay. Even with constant celebrity plugs and mechanics explanation, you could fit in a standard game.

Well, not less than. More like exactly. (A little more when there's a tie to break.) But the point is taken, and it's something that always amazed me about Pyramid.

And I sure as hell don't want them playing the million dollar round in a single minute. Just seems odd that the endgame is potentially so much longer than the front game. The key word is, of course, potentially. I'm betting we hardly ever see that sucker go the full nine minutes.

You're right about the tiebreaker, of course, but my "less than" was based on the fact that the final team to go usually wins before their thirty seconds are up, and of course anybody who climbs the Pyramid successfully has, by definition, done it in less than sixty seconds.

*Bows to your superior math skillz.*

Wanna help with my taxes?

Sure. You're a musician, how hard can it be?

\...says the small-town television personality.

Regis announced on his yakfest this morning that taping had wrapped (not sure if he meant on all of the episodes, but still) and the last two guests were Neil Patrick Harris and Rachael Ray.

Ryan.

IIRC, she was on Pyramid a few years back and played pretty well. Besides, even if she's 86, I'd put my money on Betty over most of the half-witted celebrities that have been recruited for games shows in the '00s.

To me, the Password Puzzle/Super Password was the perfect example of how you can take a simple game and make it more fun. It kinda shocked me that it wasn't included in the revival. I'm not crazy over the Lightning Roundesque front game- not only because it seems too much like Pyramid, but I think the Puzzle has more of a play along factor.

I'll watch with an open mind.