WWTBAM Bored

I have been so appreciative of the information I have been able to get from this bored - especially the show transcripts! I thought I'd chime in here about the new host Chris Harrison, having just taped my appearance with him.

I think you're going to like this guy. He comes across as intelligent, charming, and genuinely engages the contestants. If you were a fan of the dancing, jumping, or any of those over the top antics, however you will be disappointed. He was professional and very quick at doing what he needed to (i.e. no "pick ups" or redo's). Lots of smiling and being helpful with the recaps of where I was in reference to levels and lifelines. And two of the bluest eyes ever (sigh...)

On a personal level, he was friendly and encouraging even when the cameras were not rolling. We had a nice conversation about one of my hobbies and how he was friends with one of the best known professionals in my particular hobby. ( I'm being careful here not to mention what the hobby is - but it is mentioned a lot on my episode.)

I will post all the details and my long winded opinions when my appearance airs, for anyone who is interested.

Excellent info - thanks for posting! Retroactive good luck, too!

Thanks! Looking forward to your air date and to your further opinions, which I bet won't be long winded.

Break a retroactive leg!

Thanks

I'm hoping that the new season will be more watchable. I know at least one person has seen a $500K question already.

JulieF wrote:I think you're going to like this guy. He comes across as intelligent, charming, and genuinely engages the contestants. If you were a fan of the dancing, jumping, or any of those over the top antics, however you will be disappointed.

This is good news.

Now for the really big question (one, I admit, that requires TPTB's change of heart and isn't really under his control). Can he do what Regis could do? Can he genuinely engage contestants who haven't specifically been cast for their personality? Contestants who might qualify for the show via an actual test of trivia (e.g. the Phone Game) without having to survive an AP's audition?

Welcome back! Did you in fact tape on Monday as scheduled? --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:Welcome back! Did you in fact tape on Monday as scheduled? --Bob

Nope - on Tuesday 7/7.

I'm glad Chris sounds like an actual game show host instead of a comedian/dancer like the last two were.

Since they picked Leszek (as noted in another thread) maybe they are looking for more trivia-centric people this year instead of all those perky upbeat types who might do better on Price is Right or Let's Make a Deal-two shows where being perky seems to be a prerequisite.

When does the new season start? I can't wait to watch.

Congrats on playing, Julie, and retroactive good luck! We missed each other by one day.

I'll echo what Julie said. Chris is smooth. He reminds me a bit of a young Regis.

An observation on best play (should have put it in its own thread but what the heck, you're talking on it here).


The orig show picked its contestants through a grueling process (that phone game) & then put those contestants through another grueling process (ring of fire; the fastest finger competition, for those new to the board & therefore this term).

Neither process was anything like the actual BAM set of questions to which a lucky few ascended. Phone game was effectively random, though when show went to auditions, the reason, they told us, was that some region in the Atlantic side of the country below NYC was mysteriously being favored, though I don't necessarily believe that; if true, its a bug, much like the recently publicized advantage stock firms have by their literal cable distance from sources, that could be fixed.

Main complaint of show runners, which they also told us at the 1st set of auditions, & which I believe was their real reason for changing "how to get on" was that the contestants didn't "look like America", which translated into "too many MAWGs".

So the show went to auditions, which opened the door to such as me, who had flunked my only phone game 2nd round.

FF supposedly was a fair contest, though some (like me) got consoles that didn't respond as advertised. If it didn't work at all, people have reported they replaced it; if it worked erratically, as mine did when tested by them, we were told to push the buttons more slowly (in order to get them to work at all), not a way to win a speed contest. I also got a mark against me, I'm sure, as "a complainer", which may be why they don't want me back. And I made the fatal flaw of refusing to wear any but the lightest powder, plus lipstick as makeup (I have skin problems that started shortly after I got the call to be on BAM, & though I desperately wanted to play, didn't want my face to be marked for life by an allergic reaction), which also singled me out as uncooperative, I guess. Or else I broke their TV monitors. Everybody else was pancaked to the max, including all the men.

I could never, with any console, have beaten my 1st round's winner, who turned out, I only found out years later when he reappeared on J!'s "Battle of the Decades", to have been a multiple J! champ, once as winner of TOC. (He didn't tell the rest of the ROF this, & didn't have to. He had to have told the show, as "other shows you've been on" is & was a query on the form. I certainly don't hold his not telling us against him; other people active on this board at the time would have told their ROF that to put fear into them.) The question he went out on, a census Q, nobody but a googler (or some kind of census geek), which neither he nor I had lined up, could have got.

But the 2nd round winner; oh, his questions were all in my wheelhouses. He was so young, though, with reflexes to match, that I probably couldn't have beaten him either. Even with more-fair buttons. As it was, I came a distant 3rd out of the 3 who got the FF right.

These days its all casting. We've had so many lame contestants in recent years that I (& others) wonder if they even really passed the written quiz at all.

But this year, it sounds like they're finally casting for good play. Even if they once again chose not to cast me. They have to know leszekmp is a multiple J! winner, among other shows. Sounds like this time around they're going for "will give us a good show trivia-wise" instead of antic-wise. They occasionally got that in past with contestants like Ogi, but it appears he got past them by youth rather than his obvious smarts.

They can cast for good play & still get "looks like America", for pity's sake. As long as the players don't have to do jumping jacks, or collect tarantulas.

But please remember, even in the old gloried days of original recipe BAM, not everyone won a million. They just were better players, most of them, on their way up the stacks.

I wish them all best luck.

And no fancy dance moves if they don't have to.

Or tarantulas.

Another thumbs up for Chris. Smooth, professional, friendly. He stands an excellent chance of bringing up the ratings this season.

Watched some tapings today and really liked Chris. No theatrics, just a nice guy hosting a show. Also liked several throwbacks to the old days, such as the lights down after every question (starting in the middle tier), the continuous music in the first tier, and the fact that the host once again says "Let's play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!" (not heard since the Regis days!).

Didn't realize how much better the questions increasing in difficulty is than the shuffle format until I saw it again today.

FlameMoth wrote:Watched some tapings today and really liked Chris. No theatrics, just a nice guy hosting a show. Also liked several throwbacks to the old days, such as the lights down after every question (starting in the middle tier), the continuous music in the first tier, and the fact that the host once again says "Let's play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!" (not heard since the Regis days!).

Didn't realize how much better the questions increasing in difficulty is than the shuffle format until I saw it again today.

I'm glad to hear this. I sure won't miss the phony excitement of revealing the random question values.

Sounds like the show might be fun to watch next year. Any word on when they plan to bring back the Phone Game? --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:Sounds like the show might be fun to watch next year. Any word on when they plan to bring back the Phone Game? --Bob

I'm guessing you mean the phone in auditions like in the Regis days. The answer would be probably never. Producers fully believe in casting these days and the random pick of contestants on a phone in audition does not allow them to do that. The only way I could see that coming back is in making a desperate budget move because it would be cheaper to audition the contestants that way.

If you happen to be talking about phone a friend, that would be a definite never gonna happen. Cell phones will never give the quality audio necessary for that to happen again, and considering all the googling that happens it would be an easy free pass for the contestant.

triviawayne wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:Sounds like the show might be fun to watch next year. Any word on when they plan to bring back the Phone Game? --Bob

I'm guessing you mean the phone in auditions like in the Regis days. The answer would be probably never. Producers fully believe in casting these days and the random pick of contestants on a phone in audition does not allow them to do that. The only way I could see that coming back is in making a desperate budget move because it would be cheaper to audition the contestants that way.

If you happen to be talking about phone a friend, that would be a definite never gonna happen. Cell phones will never give the quality audio necessary for that to happen again, and considering all the googling that happens it would be an easy free pass for the contestant.

You must be new around here!

TheConfessor wrote:

triviawayne wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:Sounds like the show might be fun to watch next year. Any word on when they plan to bring back the Phone Game? --Bob

I'm guessing you mean the phone in auditions like in the Regis days. The answer would be probably never. Producers fully believe in casting these days and the random pick of contestants on a phone in audition does not allow them to do that. The only way I could see that coming back is in making a desperate budget move because it would be cheaper to audition the contestants that way.

If you happen to be talking about phone a friend, that would be a definite never gonna happen. Cell phones will never give the quality audio necessary for that to happen again, and considering all the googling that happens it would be an easy free pass for the contestant.

You must be new around here!

Considering my 16 posts to your 6111...care to clue me in on what I'm missing here?

triviawayne wrote: Considering my 16 posts to your 6111...care to clue me in on what I'm missing here?

We've beaten a lot of dead horses around here in the past 15+ years, and "Bring back the phone game" is one of our favorites, regardless of the odds against it returning. But I like your enthusiastic focus on the game, which is rare in this once vibrant community that has mostly abandoned hope and left, or has nothing left to talk about but the same old tired political talking points.

It's true that the producers think they can cast more desirable contestants than the ones who used to select themselves through the phone game, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. That's just one of the many abandoned elements that used to make the show a phenomenon and now causes the show to limp along with 5% to 10% of its original viewing audience size. And when the PAF lifeline was introduced in 1999, it's true that cell phones were not as good as they are now, so I don't think that's a big issue today. The PAF lifeline was sponsored by AT&T, and they wanted to avoid potential PR nightmares by banning cell phones. In later seasons, the show relied on Skype video, which resulted in lots of low-res video being used on the air. Google and other search engines existed back then, too. It was always a part of the game, and the original producers were on the record as accepting that.

TheConfessor wrote:

triviawayne wrote: Considering my 16 posts to your 6111...care to clue me in on what I'm missing here?

We've beaten a lot of dead horses around here in the past 15+ years, and "Bring back the phone game" is one of our favorites, regardless of the odds against it returning. But I like your enthusiastic focus on the game, which is rare in this once vibrant community that has mostly abandoned hope and left, or has nothing left to talk about but the same old tired political talking points.

It's true that the producers think they can cast more desirable contestants than the ones who used to select themselves through the phone game, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. That's just one of the many abandoned elements that used to make the show a phenomenon and now causes the show to limp along with 5% to 10% of its original viewing audience size. And when the PAF lifeline was introduced in 1999, it's true that cell phones were not as good as they are now, so I don't think that's a big issue today. The PAF lifeline was sponsored by AT&T, and they wanted to avoid potential PR nightmares by banning cell phones. In later seasons, the show relied on Skype video, which resulted in lots of low-res video being used on the air. Google and other search engines existed back then, too. It was always a part of the game, and the original producers were on the record as accepting that.

OK, get the dead horse beating thing now, but it did make me think more about the phone game. For those that never did it, you would call the 800 number (originally a 900 number) and there would be four fastest finger style questions. If you got through all four, you were put in a random drawing. You were allowed to try either once or twice per day. There were several sets of questions so if you called twice, you wouldn't get the same game. However, I have realized that people would simply call and use fake information to go through all the questions before using their real information to get in the drawing...so even though it would be cheaper for the show to use the phone game for contestant searching, it would be ineffective.

AT&T sponsorship had nothing to do with the no cell phone rules, AT&T was simply providing the long distance service to the show for making those calls from the studio; potential PAF's could've been on Conair phones with Sprint service and nobody would ever know. Back then, there wasn't unlimited calling, and there was a per minute rate for long distance calls. Even today, call quality is not where it would need to be for recording for television. How many people would be on crappy headsets where they sound like a drive thru speaker, or "sorry, going through a tunnel now..."? Many reasons for not allowing cell phones.

PAF's would actually be on the phone for a long period of time as well. They weren't called mid-game as the show made it look like. They were called as soon as the contestant made it to the hot seat, or possibly at the beginning of the taping session. Each contestant could have up to five PAF's. With dropped calls, and the possibility of the PAF being on hold waiting to be asked a question for a long period of time, well that's another reason for the no cell phone rule--calls drop all the time. There was one guy that spent over two hours to answer one question...imagine if his five PAF's were all on hold at that time!

Skype is much better these days, but still would take extra time/money to do, so that won't come back either.

Also, in 1999, most people had dial up, so Google was not a big issue in the early days. I was one of the rare people with a cable modem, and since there were so few cable internet users out there, the cable companies didn't choke the line to 5 megs. I had a 100 meg connection...faster than some websites were running at the time. Yeah, my roommate was going to be my PAF! While they conceded to the fact Google was being used, it was also mostly a flop as most contestants didn't shorten the question for the person typing and the person typing wasn't really fast at using it. Personally, I think it might be fun to see a contestant have a Google it lifeline where they get 30 seconds to do it themselves.

triviawayne wrote:PAF's would actually be on the phone for a long period of time as well. They weren't called mid-game as the show made it look like. They were called as soon as the contestant made it to the hot seat, or possibly at the beginning of the taping session. Each contestant could have up to five PAF's. With dropped calls, and the possibility of the PAF being on hold waiting to be asked a question for a long period of time, well that's another reason for the no cell phone rule--calls drop all the time. There was one guy that spent over two hours to answer one question...imagine if his five PAF's were all on hold at that time!

As someone who served as a PAF 25 times (including 5 times on the air), I can assure you that you're mistaken about this. We were called at the beginning of the tape day to give permission to be recorded, and when our contestant reached the Hot Seat to alert us to that fact, but we were not kept on hold for either call. The on-air portion of the call was, in fact, exactly as you saw it on television. My phone rang, I picked up on the fourth ring (as instructed), and it was Meredith (or Regis) on the other end of the line. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

triviawayne wrote:PAF's would actually be on the phone for a long period of time as well. They weren't called mid-game as the show made it look like. They were called as soon as the contestant made it to the hot seat, or possibly at the beginning of the taping session. Each contestant could have up to five PAF's. With dropped calls, and the possibility of the PAF being on hold waiting to be asked a question for a long period of time, well that's another reason for the no cell phone rule--calls drop all the time. There was one guy that spent over two hours to answer one question...imagine if his five PAF's were all on hold at that time!

As someone who served as a PAF 25 times (including 5 times on the air), I can assure you that you're mistaken about this. We were called at the beginning of the tape day to give permission to be recorded, and when our contestant reached the Hot Seat to alert us to that fact, but we were not kept on hold for either call. The on-air portion of the call was, in fact, exactly as you saw it on television. My phone rang, I picked up on the fourth ring (as instructed), and it was Meredith (or Regis) on the other end of the line. --Bob

Wow. Considering the warning call, maybe I misread or misunderstood what I read elsewhere years ago regarding the process.

25 times????? I don't even know 25 people who have every been on any game show, let alone a single show! With those 5 uses, how many of 5 were you in the questions?

triviawayne wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

triviawayne wrote:PAF's would actually be on the phone for a long period of time as well. They weren't called mid-game as the show made it look like. They were called as soon as the contestant made it to the hot seat, or possibly at the beginning of the taping session. Each contestant could have up to five PAF's. With dropped calls, and the possibility of the PAF being on hold waiting to be asked a question for a long period of time, well that's another reason for the no cell phone rule--calls drop all the time. There was one guy that spent over two hours to answer one question...imagine if his five PAF's were all on hold at that time!

As someone who served as a PAF 25 times (including 5 times on the air), I can assure you that you're mistaken about this. We were called at the beginning of the tape day to give permission to be recorded, and when our contestant reached the Hot Seat to alert us to that fact, but we were not kept on hold for either call. The on-air portion of the call was, in fact, exactly as you saw it on television. My phone rang, I picked up on the fourth ring (as instructed), and it was Meredith (or Regis) on the other end of the line. --Bob

Wow. Considering the warning call, maybe I misread or misunderstood what I read elsewhere years ago regarding the process.

25 times????? I don't even know 25 people who have every been on any game show, let alone a single show! With those 5 uses, how many of 5 were you in the questions?

Didn't know the answer once, was able to rule out two choices for a $250,000 question once (and the contestant still had her double dip lifeline, and used it successfully), and knew the answer cold the other three times. --Bob

Brianne Sherman, I take it?