And the Winners Were…
So here’s how my picks for the Game Show Awards matched up with the real winners. Prepare to be entertained. Or shocked. Or bored.
I’m a little of both: there are some major bonehead decisions here, including the first two winners. But I’ll keep score and see how right I was:
BEST GAME SHOW:
My pick: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Winner: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
What? Seriously? A show hosted by Jeff “You Might be a Redneck” Foxworthy wins Best Game Show? I am now actually glad Comcast moved GSN to a more expensive tier of channels. I would not have wanted to see this actually happen. I’m already done with this. But I’ll keep going. Under protest.
BEST GAME SHOW HOST:
My pick: Meredith Vieira, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Winner: Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal
One of the most annoying hosts wins. Nice.
BEST REALITY COMPETITION SHOW:
My pick: Survivor
Winner: Dancing With the Stars
I wouldn’t watch either one, frankly.
FAVORITE CLASSIC GAME SHOW:
My pick: Match Game
Winner: Match Game
This was the ultimate no-brainer. Despite GSN’s attempts to come up with a bunch of interactive home games and lots of poker and blackjack crap, this goofy show from 30 years ago remains its most popular show. You’d think that would tell them something.
FAVORITE DATING OR RELATIONSHIP SHOW:
My pick: The Newlywed Game
Winner: The Newlywed Game
GSN has run this into the ground. It makes sense.
FAVORITE CELEBRITY PLAYER:
My pick: Neil Patrick Harris, Million Dollar Password
Winner: Betty White, Million Dollar Password
I’m actually glad Betty won, but I just didn’t think it would happen.
FAVORITE CELEBRITY TEAM:
My pick: The Brady Kids, Trivial Pursuit: America Plays
Winner: The Brady Kids, Trivial Pursuit: America Plays
How’d I know? Simple: they just never go away.
BEST ANNOUNCER:
My pick: Charlie O’Donnell, Wheel of Fortune
Winner: Rich Fields, The Price is Right
It’s a shame. Fields comes off sounding so fake in much of his announcing. He puts too much emphasis on things that just don’t deserve it. He has a lot of potential, but he needs to back off. It’s a shame they couldn’t give a nod to one of the older veterans.
FAVORITE GAME SHOW MODELS:
My pick: The Price is Right Models
Winner: The Briefcase Models, Deal or No Deal
Two words: “Ladies? Please.”
SMARTEST GAME SHOW CONTESTANT:
My pick: Dan Pawson, Jeopardy!
Winner: Kathy Cox, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
So she gets the win because she won more than Pawson. But Pawson won Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions. All Cox had to do was be smarter than a 12-year-old.
FAVORITE GAME SHOW CATCH PHRASE:
My pick: “Come on down!” The Price is Right
Winner: “Come on down!” The Price is Right
If this one hadn’t won, I literally would have stopped this post in mid-sentence.
FAVORITE PRICE IS RIGHT PRICING GAME:
My pick: “Punch a Bunch”
Winner: “Plinko”
I did note that “Plinko” would get the nod. Pachinko machines have never been so popular.
FAVORITE GAME SHOW SOUND EFFECT:
My pick: “Losing Horns,” The Price is Right
Winner: “New Puzzle”, Wheel of Fortune
Their choice deserves a playing of “Losing Horns.”
MOST OUTRAGEOUS GAME SHOW CONTESTANT:
My pick: Contestant wins, goes berserk, and lifts up host, Treasure Hunt
Winner: Excited contestant dances a jig, The Price is Right
I was disadvantaged on this one by not being able to see the clips. So I don’t know how truly outrageous her jig really was.
FUNNIEST GAME SHOW MOMENT:
My pick: Contestant has a wardrobe malfunction, The Price is Right
Winner: Unknown?
This category suddenly doesn’t appear on the page.
FAVORITE GAME SHOW THEME SONG:
My pick: Match Game
Winner: Jeopardy
Shocker! The winner is a theme that sounds like it was written by a four-year-old.
FAVORITE PRIZE:
My pick: Cash Jackpot
Winner: A New Car
Yeah, whatever. Wait’ll they get that tax bill…they’ll wish they had the cash.
FAVORITE PARTING GIFT:
My pick: Home version of the game.
Winner: Turtle Wax
Hey, it’s a consolation prize. It’s clearly not worth worrying about.
FAVORITE BOARD/BOX GAME TURNED GAME SHOW:
My pick: Taboo
Winner: Trivial Pursuit: America Plays
Haven’t seen it…so I’ll take their word for it.
FAVORITE ONLINE GAME:
My pick: Bejeweled
Winner: Bejeweled
Maybe it was the only game on the list that the judges had heard of as well.
FAVORITE INTERACTIVE DVD VERSION OF GAME SHOW:
My pick: Deal or No Deal
Winner: Deal or No Deal
I knew it.
So my result was 30%. I certainly wouldn’t be a Double Showcase Winner on this one!
Welcome to Patrick’s Place, home of the Saturday Six, the Sunday Seven and Monday’s Morals. Patrick is a television producer, writer, Mac lover, and Christian, though not necessarily in that order. He has a natural dislike of double standards and poor grammar.
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i like Jeff Foxworthy, though I’ve only watched this particular part of his career once. My beef with ‘modern’ game shows is that they completely overplay the suspense card. Just give over the prize and move on for heaven’s sake!! So, I don’t watch ‘em.
Also under the “catchphrase” category, you’ve transposed a “one” with the “won” you meant, I think.
I did, indeed. Thanks for the catch, Cat.
[...] and so the 2009 Game Show Awards themselves were truly existential and absurdist and tragicomic and this was partially or mostly because in a very meta gesture, the ceremony was composed of a string of miniature game shows, which was maybe a clever premise except the problem was that all the people who produce successful game shows were in the audience instead of actually running the show, so that the ceremony was really like one big technical difficulty, it made the minor glitches at the Tonys seem insignificant, the decapitation of Bret Michaels notwithstanding, and the games themselves were simply ridiculous, like to give one example (as seen above) there was a game in which famous (?) Jeopardy contestant Ken Jennings had a trivia contest with Charo in which all the questions were very specific details about Charo’s life but Charo still didn’t know some of the answers to the questions or couldn’t express them in something approaching the English language and that was one of the more normal games really, I wish I had a clip to show you of the most tragic part, a game called “Name It and Claim It” in which Howie Mandel, amid myriad technical difficulties, spent like literally 5 minutes trying to get a pair of brain-dead contestants to spell out the words “Motor Scooter,” but I don’t have a clip because nobody really covered or clipped the show or seemingly even watched it besides me and this guy, [...]
Your comments are really funny.