Here’s another sneak peek review of a game show pilot from HOLLYWOOD JUNKET host, Charity (she was there!) -
Written by: Charity C.
Let me entertain you! YES LETS! I was so thrilled to watch such a great TV pilot that’s called, “Let Me Entertain You!” Me, being a Filipino, is a statement we live by!
This new show is just like “America’s Got Talent” but the twist is that the audience is the judge! This show is perfect with somebody that has Attention Deficit Disorder. As soon as fifty percent of the audience clicks their little remote controls in their hands, the performer stops performing, and the show moves on to the next act. Each performer has to beat the previous act in performance time. The ultimate prize is $10,000 dollars!
The performances include variety acts such as: magicians;singers, dancers and basically anything that is entertaining and weird at the same time.
For example, some of the acts were - some Asian guys that did sword stunts and they even broke a stick on his private area and he didn’t even say ouch! These guys were like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” without the computer graphics! There was also a nine-year-old kid that could play the drums like he was a professional rock star drummer! The audience gave him a standing ovation! Also on the show, was an exotic belly dancer that could move her body like a snake. But, I noticed that most of the audience was NOT impressed! It was too weird for people. I actually liked another act with two guys that played instruments with a balloon by stretching and pulling it and using their feet to strum a guitar and play a drumbeat. Pretty cool!
At the beginning of the show, the producers asked members in the audience with a lot of energy to come onto stage. Of course I jumped at the chance. I knew that I could offer that. Myself and four other people went on stage and did an audition to see who could host the beginning of two of the shows. Each of us on stage had to say our name, where we were from, and that we were there “to be entertained.” By audience applause, a girl named Candice and I got picked to host one show each. I think they liked me cause people were laughing, but then again were they laughing at me or with me? HMMMM? I don’t know? Candice hosted the first show and I hosted the second one. It was pretty fun! The host of the show is Rossi Morreale. He was on Temptation Island in 2001. More recent, he is the current host of game show, “Temptation”. I got to play along with Rossi a little bit! I told him I wanted to have his babies cause he was hot! No I did not say that on the show!
Yeah well, who knows? Will this show make it? Will this show entertain you? We will have to keep our eyes and ears peeled to find out more!
GSN started back filming its interactive show, BINGO AMERICA Wednesday, August 20th. This new season will introduce a new way for studio audiences to play along, as well as a new host!
New host of BINGO, Richard Karn.
After a reportedly (by a Hollywood Junket host) slew of rough tapings last season, Patrick Duffy as the BINGO AMERICA host is out, and Richard Karn, best known for “Home Improvement”, and one of many hosts of “Family Feud”, is in as the new host of BINGO AMERICA. He is accompanied by an attractive brunette host, Diane.
Karn proves to be friendly, warm, and witty. He approached the front row of the audience and chatted with them. He made light of the slow pace of the show taping and cracked a few jokes one of which was, “they are actually making this into a claymation” as an explanation for the repeated “holds” on set that paused production time after time. During another game with a marathon runner contestant, Karn made another comment that she was doing well because she was in a “marathon” of a show. It was hard for the show to pick-up momentum on-set which I suspect resulted in the overall low energy of both hosts and studio audience.
Studio audiences are given T-Shirts to wear that display letters and numbers. Each T-Shirt is accompanied by two baseball caps, one red and one blue. When the ball is dropped out of the machine, the audience member wearing that correlating letter and numbered T-Shirt stands-up. Whichever contestant answers the trivia question correct, that audience member places the color that the contestant represents of the baseball cap on his/her head and becomes part of the “red” or “blue” team whichever one it may be. If the contestant answers the question wrong, then the audience participate sits down. The best part for the audience is once they become part of a team, if that particular contestant wins his/her game, then each member on that contestant’s team wins $25 cash! Two audience members were lucky enough to win two games ($50), and another one won three ($75)!
Audiences are also made to stand-up in groups at the beginning of each show taping to spell-out B-I-N-G-O.
Above photo: “Bingo America” hats provided to the audience by the show.
After two games, the winner of the most letters, goes onto the “Bonus Bingo Round”. If a tie occurs between the two players, then the game goes into a five question tie-breaker. Each category answer starts with the same letter to spell-out B-I-N-G-O. Example questions: “This ‘B’ was a favorite family dog” (Answer: “Benji”), “This ‘I’ is a great cold snack” (Answer: “ice cream”). Winner must answer three correct.
In the “Bonus Bingo Round”, the winning contestant plays a bingo board (not visible from the audience perspective) for $100,000. Each letter is worth different amounts of money, if they manage to avoid the “wrecking balls” in which twenty are hidden throughout the board. The number of wrecking balls increase per column as the contestant plays each “B-I-N-G-O” letter. If the contestant manages to get through the whole board without getting a wrecking ball, they win $100,000. If they get one wrecking ball, it wipes out everything they earned during that bonus round. But, they still get to keep the amount that they won in previous rounds.
Home viewers can play the “Bonus Bingo Round” at home as bonus numbers. Audiences at home can still download and print Bingo cards and play along throughout the rest of the game. Every Wednesday, TV viewers have the chance to win $250.
HOLLYWOOD JUNKET host, Charity, attended a new game show pilot yesterday called “20 Q”. Here’s her review of the show:
Humans Vs. Machine, what do you think about that for a show? That’s right people!
There’s a new game show tv pilot that was just shot yesterday and I love the concept of the game.
It’s three contestants that get to compete with a computer screen! The cutest thing about the show is that the computer screen named “Debra-Q” or called “Q”, has the human qualities of a sexy woman robot voice with an attitude!
This show has charming and talented Joey Lawrence as the host and 74-time winning Jeopardy Champion, Ken Jennings as the so called “residential expert”. Jennings gets to pick out the categories of a person, place, or thing that the contestants have to guess. For example, Jennings may pick a celebrity category and give you clues of what celebrity it could be.
Ken Jennings is the “residential expert” on new TV pilot, “20 Q”.
The audience uses a little hand-held computer to enter-in their answers to whom they think the celebrity is. Whomever buzzes-in to submit their answer gets to run-in on stage and tell Jennings their answer. If that person is correct, than they get to be a contestant on the show and play against “Debra-Q”!
Jennings then tells the audience two more categories and then two more random contestants get on stage and play against “Debra-Q”! Each player that gets to play against “Q” get $1000 dollars!
In next round, Jennings recites a category and gives 6 clues on the screen and each contestant gets to ask one of 3 questions that are given. The contestants can ask up to 20 questions to figure out the answer. Whomever gets the right answer before “Q” or the Machine, that contestant goes-on to the next round and wins $20,000 dollars.
Each contestant has a computerized scribble pad that shows the audience the answers they think the person, place, or object could be! The contestants would then buzz-in with their final answer. Just because we see what they are guessing doesn’t mean that it’s the contestants final answer. The contestant that gets to go to the next round and plays for $500,000.
Another interesting thing that “Q” does to scare the contestants is that she tells the contestants how many words she is narrowing down her answer to. Obviously, the lower the number she shows on her screen, the more the contestant gets nervous and feels that they are under pressure.
So, in the last round that contestant picks out of 25 balls that are in 3 different colors that are labeled with covered numbers to reveal how many more times the contestant gets to raise their winnings with. For example, a contestant may pick a blue ball and if they have just won $20,000 and if they guess the correct answer for the category that Jennings gives the contestant then they get to uncover the hidden number on his ball to find out how many times they win on top of the $20,000! If they pick the number 6 ball, then the contestant would win $120,000.
The most money a contestant can win is $500,000. Good luck to anyone who dares to play against the MACHINE!
Don’t miss this sneak-peek at the new game show based on a board game, “Trivial Pursuit”. HOLLYWOOD JUNKET stopped-by the set for the show run-through on Monday to talk to some audiences about what they thought of the show.
HOLLYWOOD JUNKET is currently on the NBC/DEAL OR NO DEAL web site. We visited the set last season to interview
models and various staff on set, including, Nick The Model PA.
“The Moment of Truth” is technically in it’s Sophomore year, the second season, though other sources have stated the show already airing a second season during it’s last round of episodes in May.
One significant change in the game is, now, unlike the first season, contestants who make it past the $25,000 pyramid of questions but fail a question after that, leave with $25,000. In the first season, contestants with a false answer at any point in the game, left with zero.
One of the goals the show had been working on was to bring-in a well-known figure to play the game. Well, they achieved that this season. The show had special guest, AL MVP former baseball player, Jose Canseco.
For fans who’ve followed Canseco’s career and personal turmoil will appreciate the importance of having him sit in the show’s “hot seat”. After writing about his steroid usage while playing in Major League Baseball in his tell-all book, “Juiced”, he was called to a Congressional hearing along with other players whom he called-out in his book.
Conseco’s guests on “The Moment of Truth” were, his girlfriend; twin brother Ozzy (who played in the Major and Minor Leagues), and his friend Andrew.
(Above photo) Former Oakland A’s baseball player, Jose Canseco on stage surrounded by friends and family before the taping of his episode.
While in the “hot seat”, Conseco’s demeanor was very relaxed, confident, and straight-forward. When the episode airs, viewers will also get an in-depth interview by host, Mark Walberg, along with the questions for the game. Conseco did not hesitate on the majority of his answers while playing the game. He did, however, take much hesitation on one particular question that Walberg asked during his interview. That was, if he intends to marry his current girlfriend.
Fans will also get a lot of burning questions answered, and some speculations about the famous baseball player cleared-up. For example, he answers questions involving former team mates, Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a., A. Rod), Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, as well as ex-wives Ester, and Jessica. Canseco made some candid, voluntary negative remarks about some of his past team mates during his time on-stage. We’ll see if those make it into the final edit of the show.
Other guests so far this season include: a former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader who’s now a dancer in the Las Vegas show, “Fantasy” at the Luxor, a transvestite, an Alien UFO abductee, a married couple take the hot seat together, a struggling Entrepreneur, and special guest to an MAA fighter contestant, writer, and ex-fighter Baz Luhrmann.
Check back later this week for a final wrap-up on this season of “The Moment of Truth” and audience interviews.
“The Moment of Truth” returned to filming yesterday, July 27th, for its second season on FOX, at the CBS studios in Studio City.
After sitting in this show for the fist time, I have to report back that, host, Mark Walberg is truly an exceptional host. I have never encountered a host like him. It is apparent that he enjoys his job and loves what he does. Walberg carries himself as a traditional and ordinary family man. In-between his takes, he talked about his thirteen-year-old daughter being at summer camp. A regular family guy, who also happens to host one of the most controversial and top rated shows on FOX. Walberg also revealed that one of his past jobs in the business was as an audience warm-up host. Yesterday, he was repeatedly seen coming off of the stage in-between takes and joining the live audience to converse with them.
A little tidbit: The very top row of the balcony, contains life-sized blow-up dummies in place of live audience.
Prior to the game, contestants are hooked-up to a polygraph exam to answer 50-75 questions about their personal history. Twenty-one of those questions are chosen to be asked again of them during the live taping. Here’s where it becomes sticky for the contestants. The results from the test are not shown to them. So, even if they lied about some of their answers, they must reveal the true answer during the live game, or else it will result in a “false” verdict. That causes them to either lose the money that they have won ($10,000 or $25,000) , or drop back down to $25,000 if they have gone past the $25,000 mark.
Also, the show does not reveal the length of time that goes-by from when the initial lie-detector test takes place, to when the contestant appears on stage for the taping of the show. This noted simply for the fact that if any substantial amount of time goes by (at least one month) would be long enough to make the game tougher on the contestants.
The first contestant up of the day was a Los Angeles Police Lieutenant in the Narcotics Department. His guests consisted of a co-worker, his wife, and his mother.
Many controversial questions were asked of this contestant. Some lighter questions included: Have you ever pulled-over a female because she is good-looking? Did you flirt with a female while you were away on a trip? Some of the tougher questions included: Have you ever knowingly put another officer in danger? Have you ever tried an illegal drug in order not to blow your cover? Do you believe there is a lot of corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department?
Another contestant will raise some eyebrows, and become what she predicted, “the contestant you’ll love to hate.” Her guests were her husband, mother-in-law, and her best friend. Walberg opened her game by announcing he always gets asked, where do they find the contestants, and why do people want to go on the show? Well, this particular contestant sent-in an audition tape. Producers showed the part of her tape where she explained why so would be good for the show. She stated that she would go all of the way, and has no inhibitions. Once on-stage, she informed Walberg that her desire to be on the show was to “let go of the past” in order for her to move on, and to accomplish some dreams for herself and her three children.
She comes from a sordid past, with many skeletons in the closet, along with a rocky relationship with her husband. All this makes for “The Moment of Truth” great television. Most questions were in reference to her relationship with her husband, (he sure did take a beating) and built-up to an ultimate doozy of a question in which, after a long pause by host, Mark Walberg who said to the contestant “I’m not quite sure if I’m ready for this one” in response to the contestant who stated that she was ready for her next question.
Her questions included: Do you consider sexual relations with your husband a chore? Do you genuinely enjoy spending time with your mother-in-law? Some tougher questions were: Have you ever fantasied about other men? Have you ever given your phone number to another man while you were married? Have you ever slept with one of your husband’s friends without him knowing about it?
Contestants have to complete a number of pyramid questions in order to earn money. During the first pyramid, contestants must answer six questions. Once completed they earn $10,000. The second is five questions worth $25,000. Then, four questions for $100,000. Three questions to get $200,000. Two questions for $350,000, and finally, one last question to win the jackpot of $500,000. If at any time their question results in a “that answer is false”, they drop back down to $25,000 which they walk away with.
Both contestants went for the $200,000 questions. One of the things that “The Moment of Truth” is known for is the game’s tricky questions. Contestants were stumped by: “Do you think you are a good wife?” And, “Have you ever witnessed another officer abusing the law, and not reported it?” Why these questions were considered tricky to these contestants? Viewers will have to tune in and find out when “The Moment of Truth” returns to television August 28th.
From the same producers that have brought us “American Idol”, and “America’s Got Talent”, comes a new physical game show taken from a segment from a Japanese game show, HOLE IN THE WALL. The show wrapped filming today at CBS studios in Studio City. It’s official, the U.S. will now join all other countries currently running the show. It was stated on set that the only other country not airing the show is the United Kingdom.
THE HOSTS:
Brooke Burns , who is beautiful, smart, and bubbly, (fans will remember her from “Dog Eat Dog”) is the interviewer host who stands on the stage floor, and Mark Thompson (Fox Los Angeles Weather anchor) is the commentator host standing on his own small platform above the stage. Also very charismatic and likable in-person. These two hosts are great selections for their roles on the show. Burns has the game show fan base already from “Dog Eat Dog” as well as the experience, and Thompson is naturally talented as a commentator from his anchor and voice-over work. Both Thompson, and the audience warm-up host, expressed much appreciation of the presence of Brooke Burns on stage. Especially since wardrobe department outfitted her in short dresses and short shorts for all episodes. After years of watching Burns on television and finally seeing her in-person for the first time. She actually looks better in person (yes, it is possible). Another note on both hosts, Burns’ hosting and interviewing style appears to be mostly improv. She takes-in some notes from producers via her ear piece and is seen studying her script off stage, while Thompson works with a teleprompter.
CONTESTANTS
Sorry to say, the title of the show is exactly what viewers will get. Mark Thompson said it best: “Make the shape, get through the hole, and get points”. It’s a big traveling Styrofoam wall moving straight toward contestants on a track. Contestants are in two teams of three players. The teams sexes are varied: women vs. women, men vs. men, and women vs men. One Blue Team and one Red Team. Each team name themselves. Some examples: “Hometown Hotties”, “Spicy New York Meatballs”, “Super Jocks”, and “Greek Goddesses”. They each are given timed seconds to see the wall as it quickly approaches them. Contestants must stand in a narrow “Play Area” which sits in front of a neon green pool. Each player must figure out how to shape their bodies in order to get through the hole without falling into the pool located directly behind them, or breaking a chunk of the wall off. The holes vary in size and shape. If players think that the objective is simply to form his/her body to the exact shape of the hole, then they will fail miserably. One hole was in the shape of an arrow. Can we just say, the contestant had some trouble. No points are given to contestants who are knocked into the pool by the wall, or if they succeed to get through the hole in the wall without falling into the pool, but cause the wall to break.
Contestants are helped out of the water by real life guards, one male and one female who are in the wings off-stage. They came in very handy during one show that had a team of competitors who could not swim. One member from the team was visibly distraught and had to take a moment to recompose after being rescued out of the pool by a life guard. Not because the water is deep. Another contestant was seen standing-up in the pool.
Life guard awaits off-stage.
RULES:
Rules of the game tended to change throughout days of taping. This caused frustration and confusion by audience members. During one game, a contestant was not allowed to score points by getting through the wall while lying-down, thus, resulting in their body being outside of the “play area”. Then in another game, a player did the same thing on the “three-person wall” round, and was awarded points. During the last week of filming, the rule was clearly stated as: “Players must start in the hole within the Play Area, but can finish outside of the play area”.
The show has a real sports event feel and look. Audience members are given “bangers” (balloon clappers), flags and pom, poms in red and blue colors. The mock stadium is divided into a blue section and a red section.
GAME ROUNDS:
The game is broken-up into rounds of five. After Thompson introduces each wall challenge with: “It’s time to face the wall”, audiences count down, “3″, “2″, “1″. The wall is revealed once the large screen is lifted. Each time a contestant makes it through the hole in the wall successfully, they earn one point. The first round, (One Person Wall) one person per team competes; second round (Two Person Wall), two members must get through either one hole or two individual holes.; third round (Three Person Wall) three members must get through either one or three holes. The fourth round is called the “Speed Round” (a.k.a. “Speed Wall”). In this round, the wall moves at double the speed. Team members earn double the points (2 points per person getting through the hole instead of 1). All three players must get through the holes in the wall successfully in order to win $25,000 plus $5,000 bonus. If only two people get through the wall, the team wins $25,000. If one person out of the three gets through the hole, the team earns 2 points. At one time in the show, it was stated by hosts that one person getting through the hole during this round resulting in $5,000 going to the losing team. But, this may have been one of the rules that was changed because hosts were not heard saying that again. The last round is called the “Blind Wall”. This round is played by the winning team. During this round, they play for $100,000. If the two teams have tied by the end of the fourth round (”double speed round”), then each team plays for $50,000. This round is called the “Blind Wall” because one player from the winning team (or tied teams) is blindfolded and told by other team members how to shape their body in order to fit through the hole in the wall where they can win the grand prize of $100,000 (or $50,000 if tied). Amazingly enough, teams who did not earn a point during the whole game, scored the big money at the end while their team mate played wearing the “black-out goggles” that served at the blind folds.
All players are dressed in silver tight moon looking suits with the appropriate red or blue knee and arm pads. Hoodies are also attached to the suites which never seem to be used by contestants. All contestants are in their blue or red helmets.
In some instances, the holes in the wall that appeared to be too small for some of the overweight contestants, surprisingly, some of these contestants managed to get through. Audiences also witnessed some smaller sized contestants not able to get through the holes. The game is largely based on strategy. But, also, it was noted that sometimes, some holes appeared to be impossible for a small number of the obese players which seemed to be a decision made by producers based on entertainment purposes. One especially obese contestant received “oohs and Ahhs” from the audience, as well as some opinionated comments by the shows warm-up host who also works the show in England. He stated over the microphone to the pool’s under-water cameraman, “I hope you’ve written your will”, and “ready to make history. I have to tell England as soon as I get back”.
ON-SET ACTION:
During the second day of filming, many mishaps occurred. In the first game of the day one team was not given any points for one of their rounds because one of the players succeeded to get through the hole, but was not in the “play area” at the time. That was correct because that is one of the stated rules of the game. However, during the second game of the day, a tie occurred between the two teams. This resulted in the final team playing for $50,000 instead of the $100,000. In the winning team’s final round, the player that was blind folded also succeeded at getting through the hole outside of the “play area”. A few moments after their celebration, Burns showed the team the replay footage on the big screen that the contestant indeed was outside of the “play area”. The production crew took a few minutes of time-out. Then, Mark Thompson announced that “the judges decision has been reversed”. The team was awarded the $50,000. Many audience members were upset by the outcome. The overall verdict was: If the show is going to have rules, they should always be upheld, not just sometimes.
During some technical difficulty,while the wall was coming out, the track that transports the wall, got stuck, resulting in the contestant viewing the wall longer than the alloted seconds. The show was stopped again. Producers threw that wall out, obviously in order to keep the game fair. One of the producers announced to the audience that the wall would be used in a future show. It was also noted that the walls are transported-in from downtown Los Angeles. Once the track was fixed, the crew loaded a new wall and proceeded with the rest of the game.
During the second to the last day of filming, twice, contestants managed to dismantle the entire wall off of the contraption that was holding it. And, during another game, the wall almost crashed into the audience that is seated behind it. In both instances, luckily no audience members were hurt. After the last incident, some time was taken out and the wall was put through several tests without that first row of audience present.
Wall almost crashes into audience behind it.
Crew members carry off the broken pieces of the wall after it was knocked off of it’s metal frame.
For such a simple seeming idea of a game, there was much difficulty and complications during taping. Most occurred out of how the rulings of the games were called by the judges, and the rules of the game. In one circumstance, during what I thought was a “three-person wall” round, the contestants were not awarded points after they successfully cleared the wall. One of their team mates knocked-out a small chunk off of the wall. This was such a close-call. Much time was taken-out by show producers to discuss the ruling. In the end, the team was not awarded any points.
After some conversation was seen taken place with producers and contestants, the show picked-up filming again with the round being shot as the fourth, “speed wall” round. Re-shoots were done of the hosts accordingly to the “speed wall” round, and the team walked away with $25,000 for the two teammates that got through the holes.
On another note, replay footage shown to the studio audience does not include the angle which shows the contestants expressions of them reacted to seeing their holes for the first time. Can’t wait to see the final edited episodes.
Also, FOX may decide to air some back-to-back episodes of the show once it hits.
Spoiler Alert! This just in from the set of DEAL’.
Filming just wrapped about an hour ago on their first day back of filming, prime time version of “Deal or No Deal”, now in season four. A Hollywood Junket host reported back that the game finally had it’s first million dollar winner!
Yes, that’s right! It happened during the second half of taping on the first day back from hiatus.
After the contestant opened the million dollar case, confetti fell down, along with fake Howie Mandel $100 bills. All of the DEAL’ models joined them on stage as publicity photos were shot along with an interview of the winner. When Howie asked the contestant, what they are going to do with the money they said one of the things on the list is to buy a second-hand car. Howie reacted in surprise.
See VIDEO INTERVIEW with DEAL’ Model, Marisa Petroro (#18) backstage last season! Go to:www.HollywoodJunket.com
