American Girl's "Girl of the Year" doll for 2024 made her debut this morning. These are dolls that are only out for a year and usually have stories of a girl juggling changes in her life with her favorite sport or hobby. Lila Monetti is a gymnast from Minnesota who is persuaded to try horseback riding camp and learns that you can be into more than one hobby at the same time. The doll is lovely and her corgi pup Mighty Mae is darling, but both the gymnastics and the horse themes have been done to death in the Girl of the Year series.
(The one interesting thing about Lila is her journal references to an earlier American Girl of the Year gymnast, McKenna Brooks, who is apparently now her coach.)
Went for a walk after I got off the laptop to run a few errands. First stop was the Oaklyn post office two blocks away. Needed to send birthday cards to my good friend Amanda and my baby niece Aurora, and I was almost out of stamps. I dropped the cards in the slot, bought the stamps from a very sweet and pleasant young woman, and headed out.
Headed a block down to Dollar General next. Doing the summer sheets and quilt used up the last of my laundry detergent. I picked up the smaller yellow Tide bottle. Needed new hair bands, too. I hadn't replaced them since May. Used up the parchment paper making roasted Brussels sprouts, so I bought more of that, along with an Ultimate Coke Zero.
The main reason I wanted to run errands was it was just too nice to sit inside the entire morning. It was warm and sunny, with a sky clear as a pale blue glass. It was probably a bit too warm for October, and maybe a tad humid, but we're also not going to get too many more days like this. It's supposed to drop into the 60's by next week.
Had lunch, then worked on writing for a while. Joyce and Charles oil up the rusted woodsman. He explains he'd been chopping wood several months ago when he was caught in a storm without his oil can and rusted.
Broke to head off to work. It started well. I spent the first hour or so sweeping and pushing carts. The trouble began when I had to put back a pile of cold items someone didn't want and couldn't afford. That made me late with sweeping, which made me late for break. And of course, they threw me into a register for the last hour. I don't know why. They're still pulling my till to check it, even months after I got into trouble. Good thing it slowed down by the time I left. I hurried out in frustration.
Went straight into Match Game '79 when I got home. Robert Walden, Audrey Landers, and Bert Convy made the second week of 1979 extremely pleasant to look at. Gene tried to calm a nervous young Air Force officer by holding his hands, then brought the young woman contestant next to them in on it, too.
Finished the night on YouTube with game shows from the 2000's. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire exploded in a big way as the decade began. Almost every show on the four major networks and many cable channels imitated its dark neon set, lifelines, gradual advancement from big jackpot to bigger jackpot, and tense game play. Many of these shows came from England like Millionaire or other European countries, or even Japan. Not only did the networks become saturated with them, but ABC burned out its golden goose by expanding it to five nights a week. The original Millionaire was gone by 2002.
(The show would later prove more viable as a syndicated series, which ran off and on from 2002 to 2021. Meredith Viera was the first host, but she'd be replaced by many others as the series went on, including Cedric the Entertainer around 2014.)
NBC didn't have much better luck with its Millionaire imitation. The Weakest Link also came from England, complete with unsmiling and tough host Anne Robinson. Eight audience members work together to answer a chain of questions. Correct answers continue the chain. Incorrect answers or banking the money breaks it. At the end of each round, the members of the team vote for whom they want eliminated. The person with the most votes is off the team. The last two members go back and forth for the final round. The winner either answered all the questions correctly or got the bigger lead.
Despite the popularity of Robinson's catchphrase "You are the weakest link, good bye!" the original show got mired in silly celebrity episodes and barely lasted a year. The 2002 syndicated run also bottomed out after a year. It would do much better back on NBC starting in 2020 with the equally tough Jane Lynch hosting.
NBC finally got its Millionaire hit in 2005 with the Dutch-born Deal or No Deal. They choose six boxes to eliminate right away. The unseen "Banker" tells Mandel to make a deal for a big prize or other cash amount. They can take the deal, or eliminate one fewer box in the next round. Howie Mandel may have seemed like a strange choice for the host, but he got so into dealing with the contestants, he's still associated with the show in the US to this day. I can see why this was a four-year hit for NBC and has been briefly revived twice. It's heart-stopping but very addictive to count down those boxes being picked!
Even Password got hit with the Millionaire bug when CBS debuted Million Dollar Password in 2008. Basically, it was retooled as Millionaire with people guessing words instead of trivia questions. Password probably does better when the contestants and celebrities are less tense, but this one certainly had its moments. Neil Patrick Harris proved to be as good at describing words as he is at sitcoms and Broadway musicals in the first episode. Regis Philbin hosting brought it even closer to Millionaire. Too bad it was pulled after a year when, despite good ratings, CBS decided it wasn't bringing in the demographics it wanted.
Family Feud was revived in syndication in 2000. Though they had their fans, neither Louie Anderson nor Richard Karn were that well-received as hosts. Although the show continued in 2006 with a rather ugly neon set, older and more formal John O'Hurley was a slight improvement over his predecessors. The show returned to its original format, with three strikes, four rounds, and the Fast Money game.
Feud wasn't the only older format to see a hit revival in the 2000's. The original Lingo only lasted a year in 1987, but Game Show Network thought it had potential and brought it back in 2002. This time, it was a smash hit that ran for five years with Chuck Woolery hosting. Two teams guess words on a bingo board with letters covered. They're giving the letter and have to attempt to spell out the mystery word. If they correctly guess a word, they can draw two Lingo balls. If they don't, control passes to the other team.
This is a fun and addicting game with a fairly colorful set that's a breath of fresh air among the many Millionaire clones of the time. It's popular enough to have been revived twice, briefly in 2011 on Game Show Network, and currently on CBS with RuPaul in a version that began earlier this year.
Hollywood Squares was revived in syndication in 1998 with Whoopi Goldberg as the center square and Tom Bergenon as the host. The game play largely remained the same as the original NBC run. Goldberg left in 2002 and was replaced by a revolving door of celebrities. Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphies) is in the center square in this episode, joined by Donnie Osmond, Coolio, Naomi Judd, Gilbert Godfried, and Phyllis Diller, among others. I used to flip back and forth between this and fellow syndicated hit Jeopardy! when I was in college.
Game shows flourished in syndication, on cable, and on prime time throughout the decade. Daytime was a different matter. With the exception of The Price Is Right, by 2000, they'd been chased off the air by talk shows. CBS finally gave Price a morning companion when they revived Let's Make a Deal in 2009. Wayne Brady is the supremely goofy host for the shopping show that has people in wacky costumes trading up or down to see if they can win prizes and avoid those infamous Zonks. It went over so well, it's been running before Price in most markets ever since.
See how Millionaire and other neon delights changed how game shows are played and presented in the first decade of the 21st century...and that's my final answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment