March 5, 2005

Chico Alexander: RESPECT! Heh. I'm Chico Alexander, and from somewhere in America... uh, LINE!
Travis Eberle: It's SATURDAY MORNING!
Mike Klauss: Do you know where your game show fans are?
Ryan Vickers: Yes. Locked up in a room.
Gordon Pepper: A bunch of them are right here. And the line is, ahem, "From somewhere in America... WLTI is on!" This is Gordon Pepper, and....let's do roll call, asking everyone - are you missing hockey?
James Dinan: James Dinan... nah.
Mike: What's this hockey you speak of?
Chico: Pond soccer, Mike.
Joe Van Ginkel: I'm "Game Show Man" Joe Van Ginkel, and I say Hockey-shmockey.
Gordon: As long as they replace it with game shows and celebrity bowling, the NHL can stay on strike - FOREVER!
Rob Seidelman: Trading in Hockey for Schwab and I'd Do Anything, Robert W. Seidelman says smartest decision ever for ESPN.
Mike: and I'm still Mike Klauss, who knows nothing about ponds or soccer.
Ryan: I'm Ryan Vickers, and as the token Canadian, no I'm not! Although in my world the Senators have won the cup.
Gordon: Go Senators!
Chico: ESPN NHL 2K5?
Ryan: With special new lockout features! be the owners OR the players!
Joe: lol
Travis: Push down on your lockout and the whole season gets cancelled.
Chico: Well, hockey was last week. This week? Boxing :-)
Gordon: What a delightful segue way.
Joe: EA Fight Night Round 2! WHOO! Oh we're starting.
Chico: Thank you kindly. BUT FIRST! It's the every three months-or-so sweeps sweep.
Gordon: Too bad David Ruprecht isn't on the air right now. I miss Supermarket Sweep more than the NHL.
Ryan: What? Where's Mr. Ruprecht?
Chico: Time to round up the good, the bad, and the ugly of the past month or so... First, obviously, last week's Idol results. Last week, we had an hour
long overbloated... thing. This week? Ryan delivers the results with the gusto of someone who took away his product. What gives? Is it the fans or the network?
Gordon: I'll go for C. Feburary Sweeps are over.
Travis: <chime>
Chico: Going off the board?
Joe: Then it would be both.
Travis: That, or the audience figured out that they don't have to watch the whole hour in order to see who lost. It's silly to program a half hour no one will watch.
Gordon: I also think the 20,000 phone complaints to FOX, may have also had something to so with the last second schedule tinkering.
James: February sweeps are done, Fox needs to prop up Simple Life, and they're making room for Pam Anderson's new sitcom. Three reasons right there.
Ryan: Interesting use of "prop up" with "Simple Life" and "Pamela Anderson"...
Travis: Uf. I'd rather watch TWO hours of Idol results.
Chico: Harsh.
Rob: I'll take the Anderson sitcom.
Gordon: I don't mind either show - as long as I put them on mute =)
Travis: Can I vote for FOX to put on a test pattern instead?
Chico: Yeah, but it would have to have the phrase "The World's Blankiest
Blank" on it
Joe: What about new episodes of Greed instead?
Ryan: Or how about that MG revival we heard about?
Travis: I would take Greed or "Gordon Elliott's WWTBAM" actually...
Rob: I wouldn't mind Murder in Small Town X.
Travis: If they actually did a murder mystery that would be fine.
Gordon: It beats Love Cruise.
Chico: Next up, we had a lot of theme weeks in the dailies. Let's see, Family Feud had Stars on Ice and Surv... err, CASTAWAYS!... I still can't get over that.
Travis: Yeah, can't say, The Name of That Show.
Joe: Sheesh.
Chico: And to this day, no one knows why. Not like Mark Burnett's mad or
anything, right? Not like if I say Survivor, I'm going to be hit with a class
action or anything, so what gives?
Ryan: Sorta like how we can't say the name of that Shakespearian play...
Chico: Twelfth Night?
Travis: Note that the Weakest Link special had similar constraints.
Rob: No, it's Mac...
Ryan: AHHHH!
Travis: Thank you for ruining the joke, Rob.
Joe: ROFL
Chico: It's not just Fox, though. This is a syndicated series, bound by the
same constraints that bound Weakest Link, but not Hollywood Squares.
Gordon: Copyright, copyright, copyrights.
Travis: Maybe it's a trademark or a brand name, or something. Or maybe he has a raging case of rectal itch.
Chico: I'm guessing CBS is involved somehow.
James: Has to be a trademark issue.
Travis: That's right...H2 taped at 33.
Gordon: In a few months, we'll be getting the Castaways Vs. The Singers who get voted to stardom by America. Your thoughts?
Travis: Anything to see more of the AI womens...
Ryan: Playing for themselves or charity?
James: At least the AI people HAVE Family Feud experience...if the Old Navy ads hold up
Joe: WHOO AMANDA AVILA!
Chico: Unfortunately, Amanda isn't one of them.
Joe: Awwwwwwww.
Chico: Matt Rogers of season 3 - does have some Feuding background.
Travis: Oh, man. You were serious. <faints>
Rob: The Louie Anderson version, I believe.
Gordon: Yep.
Ryan: So we'll probably get to see the clips then?
Gordon: Yes, we get to see clips.
Joe: Ack!
James: NO CLIPS! I don't want to see Louie anymore!
Chico: Then, of course, there's the J! Ultimate Tourney. So far, we had two upsets and one first... and this is only in the past six days.
Travis: Raise your hand if you laughed all the way through Jeff Richmond's
solo FJ.
James: (Hand raised)
Chico: *raises hand*
Travis: *hand*
Gordon: (Raises hand and Roger Dobkowitz raises two fingers)
Joe: ROFLMAO
Ryan: lol Gordon!
Joe: Gordon wins.
Travis: The writers dropped a train on 'em that day.
James: I told a friend after that match...I thought this was the tournament
of CHAMPIONS.
Mike: With all due respect, that episode had some ridiculously difficult
clues.
Chico: Yeah, and Final Jeopardy! wasn't a walk in the park either.
James: I don't know about that...one of the "red contestants" (Billy Baxter)
seemed lost the entire show...it's as if he didn't study ahead of the taping.
Mike: At least the recent youth winners are gone. Kermin and this year's teen champ are gone. There's no reason a 17-year-old should play someone who might've been on the show before she was born.
Chico: Speaking of which, one of the youth was a killer in yesterday's show. Keith Williams almost had the game wrapped up, except for the Final.
James: Patented second-half collapse. Grace had a KJ-style flourish at the
end of the second half.
Travis: Grace came out of NOWHERE... That raises an interesting question...Do some of these people just sit there and study, praying that J! will invite them back to play again?
James: I know some people who would do that, yes.
Travis: I'd want to get back to regular life. I wonder how much time they got between invite and taping.
Gordon: Speaking of studying - according to Dan Avila, who was on an earlier show, Leszek Pawlowicz was studying for the show - and made a prompt exit in round one, easily the biggest upset in this round. What happened?
Travis: Leszek had a costly mistake, and Tad gave the right FJ. Not hard.
Ryan: A brain fart for Leszek, unfortunate.
Chico: And on the penultimate clue, no less.
Rob: Sad moment.
Chico: The look on his face that said "I think I just bought it."
Gordon: I'm sure he'll be singing Oklahoma songs in his head from now on. He bowed his head down, like he was waiting for a samurai to lop it off - and Tad did just that to him.
Travis: Oh, wah. So he lost. Welcome to the realm of mortals. Yeesh.
James: Two painful moments for me this week... 1. Bernard going thru that Oscar quote category. 2. The Egyptian visual category
Travis: The really painful thing is that B just kept going back to it, and
back to it. That is the kind of category you leave to rot.
Ryan: Uma, Oprah. Oprah, Uma.
Gordon: Ouchie.
Rob: Letterman's not so golden moment.
James: Same thing with the Egypt category. It was the first category picked in DJ, and Diane (I believe) kept picking it, even though she had no clue. Defensive strategies don't work on J!
Travis: Not during a TOC, anyway.
Chico: I concur.
Mike: James hit it. You have to be aggressive. Being defensive or passive
doesn't work. See Bob Harris. He made some very bold moves and he won.
Gordon: You play to win the game!
Travis: It is time to kick ass and take names.
Chico: Especially in this tournament where you have to win or else.
Mike: Does that mean we should be seeing more "I'll make it a true daily
double" lines?
Chico: I wouldn't be surprised.
Rob: Especially later into the tourney.
Ryan: Could you imagine if they had built in Wild Cards? "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I had $23,051 in Day 32..."
Gordon: Using another sports cliche - when you are playing this sort of tournament, you have to play to win - not play to not lose, we've seen contestants do that and costing them dearly.
Travis: Being bold and being a flaming dumbass are apart and separate.
James: You have to know your limitations, especially in Ultimate TOC.
Mike: If they threw in the Karl Coryat and Myron Meyer wild cards, I'd be in
heaven.
Travis: And I'd turn 30 the day they crowned a champion.
Mike: Why does everybody mention that number?!
Chico: Heh.
Mike: Sorry, a tad apprehensive about the aging process.
Travis: Oh, wait, just the two big winners who got smacked down.
James: Hey...I'm 31, and I'm surviving!
Gordon: Moving on - we go to our favorite show that hasn't hit the air yet -
the Contender. According to Police Reports, Najai 'Nitro' Turpin's suicide was considered relationship related, and not show related. Does this change your mind about the show?
James: No...I'm still not watching it.
Rob: Nope, and I will watch it.
Travis: No, and I'll still give it a try.
Chico: Nope. Still don't care either way.
Mike: I had no plans to watch The Contender. Now I might catch one show. I'm not a boxing fan. I'll leave this one to Senor Van Ginkel.
Ryan: We'll have to work in AJJ for him :-)
Gordon: Your opinion, Senor Van Ginkel?
Mike: Foxy boxing?
Travis: I for one, would like to see a boxing contest that scores by amateur rules, and not just beating the snot out of the other guy.
Rob: Vickers with a low blow.
Ryan: I was trying to be supportive actually... :-)
Rob: Ah.
Travis: Have Amy Jo be the ring card gal.
Ryan: Excellent idea Travis!
Gordon: Back to the Contender - the police have ruled that the suicide is not show related. Does this change your opinion of the show and will you watch it?
Joe: No. I still probably won't watch. Remind me what day it airs?
Chico: Starts out on Monday. Then it airs on Thursday. Then its regular time on Sunday.
Gordon: The boxing people still aren't going to watch the show - could this
be trouble?
Travis: So, the suicide hasn't changed the opinion of anyone.
Joe: Nope.
Travis: Oh, good. Do what killed "Twenty-one". [sigh]
Joe: Sunday. I'll probably be watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
Chico: Simpsons.
Gordon: Celebrity Poker Showdown - and The Starlet, which I have to recap. Yeccch.
Joe: Am I mad or is Constance Ramos hot?
Travis: I'll be flipping between Simpsons and Ty Pennington.
Rob: Extreme Dodgeball reruns.
James: Gotta go with Simpsons.
Joe: And does Ty Pennington need that megaphone rammed up his nose?
Chico: Yes. Yes he does.
Joe: I mean I like the guy, but seriously...
Ryan: I'll agree for the square, Peter.
Gordon: Ty Pennington - the Jimmy Hart of our era.
Ryan: At least he has a job... unlike Paige Davis....
Rob: Well, maybe TLC will dump their home makeover shows.
Joe: Davis is cute, but it was only a matter of time before the public got sick of her.
Mike: Joe's in shock, thinking about AJJ boxing ;-)
Chico: Well, as we think about Paige Davis, we think about about Street Smarts, which had so many theme shows that I can't possibly remember them all. Wait. thought of one. Home Improvement Smarts. I'm opening it for a Big Board. Actually, there is the one boxing-themed Revenge Week.
Ryan: Valentine's Day proposals.
Rob: Co-Hosts week.
Gordon: Underwater Smarts, Reality Week and of course, the Revenge Weeks.
Travis: The "Smartsy Awards".
Rob: Just when is the $100,000 tourney going to happen.
Gordon: Let's flip to another show that has us scratching our head. Wickedly Perfect. It's ending this weekend - with almost zero fanfare. What happened?
Joe: Simple. It sucked.
Rob: The time change.
Ryan: Umm... it's in a Saturday death slot?
Chico: And it was just bad?
James: A little bit of A and a little bit of B
James: ABC tried this last year with that one-time Adam Carolla special, and it bombed. CBS should have known better, and the audience is programmed to know that any non-Fox series that airs a fresh episode on Saturday is either (A) bad and/or (B) being burned off.
James: Clubhouse, The Will, Race to the Altar, The XFL :-)
Gordon: The repeats of The Apprentice and The Amazing Race were scoring equivalent numbers.
Ryan: And to think they were going to put Amazing Race on Saturdays.
Chico: That would've been a disaster. Heh. Well, there's a bright side. At least it isn't American Dream Derby...That one ended with zero fanfare AND was dumped the day afterwards.
James: I was a bit surprised to see highlights of the final Derby race on the likes of ESPN and CNN-International.
Gordon: (shudder)
Rob: Isn't the only two shows that don't fail in that Saturday time slot the PIR Million Dollar Specials and Big Brother?
Chico: About that, yeah.
James: For the most part. The networks (outside Fox) just gave up programming on Saturdays.
Joe: Easy to see why.
Rob: Hard to beat Cops and America's Most Wanted.
Gordon: You know it's a slow TV night if COPS and America's Most Wanted are your highest watched programs.
Chico: Heh. Or you're just holding out to MadTV.
Gordon: That too - It's better than SNL.
Mike: I must be the only person in this room who watches and enjoys keeping the TV on FOX every Saturday night.
James: You and my father.
Mike: If it wasn't for AMW, the BTK killer would still be out there. And we'd
probably be looking for a person who went after fast food employees--the BK killer.
Gordon: Maybe that is a good use for Saturday nights after all. We got one
more thing before going to break. Last Monday was Bachelor night - in a good way, as Ryan Sutter (accompanied by Trista Rehn) wins Reality Contestant Fear Factor....
Rob: Worth it to see Omarosa squirm.
James: Will this mean we'll never see Trista and Ryan again? :-P
Gordon: ...And also...in a bad way, as for the first time in the Bachelor era, someone spurns the person of their choosing, as Jen says "I don't" to 2 people. This was a very accurate posting of the history of The Bachelor - is this show on its way out?
James: Will someone please take the Bachelor/ette behind the stable and shoot it out of its misery?
Joe: Can we please have this show killed? They've already announced Jerry O'Connell's brother as the next Bachelor.
Rob: Is it too late to say that Bachelor(ette) will have one more show and
then go bye bye?
Gordon: Do we send the Bachelorette out on the Dream Derby horse?
Joe: I'll bet Mark L. Walberg is glad he jumped ship from this one.
Ryan: Surely ABC can dump it now that they've got those other shows?
James: Reportedly, ABC is contracted to air 2 more Bachelors, but I can see the Alphabet buying out the last one after Jerry's brother's shows end, or farm it out to ABC Family.
Rob: Won't happen.
Joe: If they're smart, they'll buy it out. KILL BACHELOR NOW!
Gordon: Chico - your thoughts on The Bachelor series - is it time for it to
ride off on a Dream Derby horse?
Chico: Too lame. It needs to be shot.
Gordon: And with that, we ride off in the sunset to break, where we debut a new game and get a jury going.
James: Yay!
Chico: Angry men and a few good reasons... after the break.

(Today's Big Board has been brought to you by FlashGames. Check out the new Tic-Tac Dough game over at flashgameshows.com... wait, an actual sponsor? =p)

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