Game Show Marathon: Let's Make a Deal

'I'm looking for a banana'? I don't believe Monty ever actually asked questions like that to the audience.

He did, in fact. Not to pick contestants though, I believe. He would ask questions like that at the end of the show to hand out cash. "I'm looking for someone with fingernail clippers. I've got $100 for the first person that can produce fingernail clippers."

But yeah, the show stinks, and I think Rikki is partially to blaim.

You're way off base. First, Ricki IS a big part of the problem. She is absolutely terrible. If I were in her position I would have spent at least a couple of months studying the actions of the original hosts. She obviously did NOT do that. She is not going to be BETTER than the original hosts, so she should have tried to emulate them to some point of familiarity. She is just bad. Does she thinks she is funny when she puts her face up next to the products? She's not.
The only bright points were Paige Davis and Gilbert Gottfried. Gilbert should have been the host. Paige should have been the Gilbert Beauty, and the audience members should be going after the prizes.
As far as the "stars", if Leslie can't hear, then don't put him in this situation.. It's like Dick Clark doing New Year's Eve. When A Major League Baseball Player can't play anymore, he packs it in. When the President is incapacitated, the Vice President takes over. Sometimes it's just time to hang it up. Who's the next contestant? Michael J. Fox?

Did anyone see the very odd pan of the audience where Adam Carolla (who will be a celeb panelist on Match Game) had a scowl and got up and left mid-pan?
If that spoke for his enthusiasm, it's a bad sign for Match Game. By contast, Betty White was genuinely enthused to be there...I'd rather have seen her as a celebrity contestant because she is such a good game-player.


But it was unfair, and strange, that Kathy Najimy had no chance to play LMAD. The idea of GSMarathon is that each celebrity plays each game and has a chance to win the day and make it to finalist's row, and the others return for the next game. That didn't happen here. They could easily have allowed two celebs to play the Tim Meadows deal and included Kathy and one audience member.

Leslie Nielsen appeared spaced out (though the earlier posting suggests, sadly, why), and Tim Meadows did not seem to be enjoying herself at all. Lance and Paige were just great to watch.

The key to this is getting good game players. Anyone who has seen Najimy on Celebrity Poker Showdown knows she wants to win. She was just clueless in her Showcase. Watch out for her and Paige Davis; I am betting they will be in the semifinals.

Rikki has said publicly (see Steve Beverly's tvgameshows.net interview) that PYL was just crazy and the most exciting of the episodes, so here's hoping...

All I want to say is Paige Davis was so dang cute dressed as Lil Bo Peep. The rest of the show however, I've pretty much forgotten.

I want to like Game Show Marathon, I really do. But after two episodes I'm not so sure. I really, REALLY hope Press Your Luck will be a hit when that episode comes up, but these celebrities are definitely not into it. Kathy Najimy--thankfully she wasn't called up during Let's Make a Deal. I was extremely upset at the way she played TPIR, especially the showcase. It's as if she wanted to lose. I know the celebs are playing it safe, but whatever...Lance Bass is into the spirit a little bit with the College shirt on TPIR and the banana costume in LMAD. Beat The Clock should be better suited for those remaining. PYL will make or break it for me though---but give the producers credit for getting the sets down to the originals. You cannot beat that...ESPECIALLY if PYL's is what I hope it will be.

My apologies if that's why Leslie seemed 'off'... didn't know he had hearing problems...

I'm not 'waiting' for PYL, I'm just hoping the ratings stay up enough to make it to that episode at least. The premiere pulled a 5.5/10 losing to Dateline's 5.8/10, and beating everything else by two points, so I guess it's not doing too bad.

Ricki was better, but I agree that a lot had to do with the fact that on TPiR she just isn't Bob Barker... he IS TPiR. When he quits/retires/dies they may as well cancel the show... it's going to be really hard to find a new Bob.

At least Lance seemed to be having fun, Tim seemed to always look like he was just desperate for exposure so people would remember who he was. Paige wasn't too bad, and had fun milking the crowd as well. And Leslie Nielsen seemed to have either sobered up or come out of whatever fog he was in on TPiR... but still seemed like he was completely lost.

And just to be picky, they did the Big Deal wrong. The original LMaD always showed all three, lowest value to highest, they just did two last night. Hopefully from this point on they'll be games that work better with the celebrity-implanted format.

I didn't like the 'regular people' planted with the four celebrities that everyone in the room knew were going to play... and the fact that this time, while two 'regulars' did get to play... they were excluded from the rest of the game.

BtC should be better, assuming that whomever's playing isn't afraid to make a fool of themselves.

And for as much as my wife and I both hate him, Gilbert Gottfried was one of the brighter moments of last night's show.

Leslie Nielsen has a hearing problem, that's why this is a bad venue for him. I have a similar problem, and I'm telling you you can't understand zilch with a lot of background noise like a crowd shouting, even with a hearing aid, which I understand he wears.

If Monty Hall had hosted this show, he'd walk right off the set! No talking to reporters, media--he would walk away, because this show was a little embarrassing to watch on TV!

I can't BELIEVE that Paige didn't take one of the doors that had cars! There was one that had a CADILLAC! Cars that were $19,000, $22,000 and $35,000 that she passed on for some stupid pack of mints and $3500! There might have been NOTHING in it for all I care. They could have pulled that move on her! Back to the warehouse with the cars! She really thought that there was a zonk or some adult in some high chair wearing kids' clothes behind those doors. Even Tim Meadows flopped. Those two wanted to play conservative with their choices. I'd go for a bigger prize than that. Fortunately, Lance Bass played it smart and kept his SUV instead of such outlandish moves like the other two. If that was me as in the case of Paige and Tim, I'd be embarrassed! Seriously! They should have gotten regular people to compete instead of celebrities. They get more excited; celebrities don't seem all that excited. Lance was far better than the two fiascos I watched last night. He came to win--those others just wanted to look good in front of the camera. And I can't believe that they missed on the Big Deal of $87,000. That Dodge Viper was HOT ($85,000 of that $87,000 deal) and they passed on it! Wednesday's Price Is Right was better than Let's Make a Deal on Thursday. They should have replaced this show with some old moldy little watched '80s movie for that 2-hour block on CBS!