Ok, here's my review...

3 players, 3 rounds

Round 1- Fast Food- Think "Hitman". A documentary is shown on a food subject, and then contestants had to remember the information.

Round 2- Jambalaya- Apparently, a different sort of game is played each show, but today, it was "Cast from the Past", where four commercials featuring then unknown stars are shown, and the players have to identify them.

Round 3- Today's Special round- 9 categories, with food puns (naturally), 3 questions per category. A contestant picks a category, question is asked, points are won, then another question is picked. Round is played until time is up. The winner gets to pick a prize from the refrigerator/ freezer.

Final round- Desserts- A wheel is spun, with 3 categories, and 3 special wedges. The player must answer 10 questions in 60 seconds (That's right, same ol' same ol) but one twist is that one special wedge says "Just 8" and that means 8 questions in 60 seconds.

Overall- The most intriguing aspect of the game is round 2, because different things will be featured. Trivia Unwrapped shows promise with very interesting food trivia and pop culture. However, several points taken away for yet ANOTHER 10 questions in 60 seconds bonus game.

The parent show "Unwrapped" is fun to watch. It reminds me of a short-lived NBC show on Saturday mornings in 1970-71 called "Hot Dog" which also took us into factories to show us how things were made (not just food items). But to stretch the format into a game show may be going a bit too far. Winning $300 worth of Yoo-Hoo plus a trip to New Orleans is akin to picking one of the doors on LMAD that doesn't have the Big Deal, but people have probably come to expect better payoffs from games since.

QUOTE (DjohnsonCB @ Aug 26 2003, 08:25 AM)

Winning $300 worth of Yoo-Hoo plus a trip to New Orleans is akin to picking one of the doors on LMAD that doesn't have the Big Deal, but people have probably come to expect better payoffs from games since.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable grand prize for the first legitimate game show on a cable cooking channel.

QUOTE (DjohnsonCB @ Aug 26 2003, 10:25 AM)

Winning $300 worth of Yoo-Hoo plus a trip to New Orleans is akin to picking one of the doors on LMAD that doesn't have the Big Deal, but people have probably come to expect better payoffs from games since.

Funny, when I first read about the $300 in Yoo-Hoo, I immediately thought of the $200 in pizza they used to give away on WinTuition. The trip to New Orleans isn't bad at all though, given the spicy foods they're known for (I'd take that trip during Mardi Gras. ;-) )

QUOTE (clemon79 @ Aug 26 2003, 10:48 AM)

QUOTE (DjohnsonCB @ Aug 26 2003, 08:25 AM) Winning $300 worth of Yoo-Hoo plus a trip to New Orleans is akin to picking one of the doors on LMAD that doesn't have the Big Deal, but people have probably come to expect better payoffs from games since. I think that's a perfectly reasonable grand prize for the first legitimate game show on a cable cooking channel.

I'll leave "Ready...Set...Cook!" out of this, but it's understandable if you forgot the short-lived "Pressure Cooker" and its reworked version, "Taste Test," which was equally short-lived.

I forgot who hosted "Pressure Cooker"--"Taste Test" was hosted by David Rosengarden, who has hosted "Taste" for Food Network from its beginning.

QUOTE (fostergray82 @ Aug 26 2003, 12:36 PM)

Funny, when I first read about the $300 in Yoo-Hoo, I immediately thought of the $200 in pizza they used to give away on WinTuition.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. I missed the show, but in an ad I saw the three-contestant setup and was curious as to whether it would be "WinTuition: Food Edition". It looks like they've taken elements of WinTuition, HitMan, and Unwrapped, and mixed it all into a show. Any encores coming up?

I like Unwrapped, and I liked this spin-off. It sticks to the food trivia theme so much that it makes sense, and the show is a lot of fun.

Even the set looks good with its 1950s diner decor and the old food advertisements/pictures on the walls. But I wondered why they used an actual board with flipping panels for the Today's Specials round instead of using the giant TV monitor.

However, like WinTution, there's not a lot of substance to it.

The Fast Food round works because those video clips are the basis of the original show. Some people may complain that the round is a ripoff of Hitman, but I think it works fine when you consider the format of Unwrapped.

The Jambalaya round with rotating games should help the show out as time goes by. I'm curious about what other rounds there are....

My biggest gripe is with the Today's Specials round (Round 3). First you have categories and questions that were probably written by the unemployed writers of Win Ben Stein's Money. Also, the "white chalk script" font, while nice and sticking with the blackboard theme, was hard to read. My biggest complaint was the amount of time that they had to play. There are a total of 27 questions available, yet I think they made it through about six or seven questions. When time ran out, I said, "That's it?!?"

I like the bonus wheel gimmick where you could spin the "Lucky 8" or "Who Wants Seconds?" wedges/"slices" where it changes the standard "10 questions in 60 seconds" format. Now that I think about it, maybe they could have made it eight slices instead of six. But then, they probably want a bunch of winners.

Again, I liked it, and I will watch it again.



Dean Scungio
dscungio@worldnet.att.net
AIM & Y!: dascungio (Note the "a"!)

"It's not how much we give away,
it's the way we do it." -Monty Hall

The show is pretty good, it could be a little better, but its still good. I agree with all gripes said here, and all plusses mentioned. Unwrapped is still far better though, Marc Summers does an equally awsome job of hosting on both. i will watch it again, I was hoping this would cancel Top 5 though, since Bobby Rivers is incredibly annoying and that makes the show sort of unwatchable.

QUOTE (JayC @ Sep 6 2003, 08:34 PM)

The show is pretty good, it could be a little better, but its still good. I agree with all gripes said here, and all plusses mentioned. Unwrapped is still far better though, Marc Summers does an equally awsome job of hosting on both. i will watch it again, I was hoping this would cancel Top 5 though, since Bobby Rivers is incredibly annoying and that makes the show sort of unwatchable.

Is that Bobby Rivers the same guy who was a VJ in the early days of VH1 and later hosted the 1992 relationship gamer Bedroom Buddies(which had an "after they were stars" contestant: 70s singer/songwriter Andrew Gold, performer/writer of "Lonely Boy" and "Thank you for Being a Friend" and sessionman on many 70s pop/rock albums)

QUOTE (zachhoran @ Sep 6 2003, 06:37 PM)

Is that Bobby Rivers the same guy who was a VJ in the early days of VH1

The very same.