DoItYourselfGameShow

Working title:

Everyone's a Winner! (with your host, Buddy Pinche' (Moe Nichols?))

Winners never quit, but even quitters win on Everyone's a Winner!

Premise:

Send-up of classic game shows with all the goofiness of real contestants, celebrity guest, bizarre games, cheesy hosts, backstage corruption, overwrought sponsorships, and really, really cheap prizes.

Play:

• Bring out audience contestants, treat them well

Roles:

• Host
• Celebrity judges
• Announcer
• Prize girl
• 'ringer' contestants

Front Action (the public face)

• Celebrity guests hit on the contestants, are drunk or generally obnoxious
• Contestants get called up, play games, get eliminated and get prizes
• Host makes cheesy, smarmy, 'witty' banter

Back Action (the seemy underside)

• Obvious payola and rigging (ringers always get booted)
• Buzzers are rigged or don't work
• Prize Girl hates the Host and keeps threatening to quit
• Announcer has 'issues', perhaps a Ph.D

Inspirations

• Match Game with Gene Rayburn
• The Price is Right
• Jeopardy
• Password
• Let's Make A Deal
• Wheel of Fortune

Games

• Match Game ("Creepy Carl was surfing for porn at work but all he could find were pictures of BLANK")
• Mountain Climber game (players guess the cost of five stupid items, each player has 100 cents of slack that they lose if they are over or under the cost of the prize. If they exceed $1, their little mountain climber guy walks off the cliff and they lose)
• Password (celebrity guest has a minute to get the player to say 5 words without using those words)
• Raid the Trivial Pursuit card sets
• Wheel of Fish!

Props

• Scoreboard
• Podium
• Cheap-ass game flats
• Lots of whiteboards
• Markers and 4x6 notecards

Potential Sponsors and Prizes

• The Hideout (!) - A free coffee beverage of any size
• Dragon's Lair/Cheapass Games - A free Cheapass Game (under $10)
• Various - A free sandwich or taco
• Amy's - A small cone
• Dart Bowl, Showplace, Highland Lanes, etc. - Two free games of bowling
• Vulcan, I-Broken-Heart-Video, Encore - free video rental
• Various - A $5 gift certificate (Cheapo, Half-Price books, Terra Toys, Toy Joy)
• Rice-A-Roni, Turtle Wax, a six-pack of Canfield or HEB soda (on principle)
• A copy of The Home Game

Plan of Attack

Okay, assuming we are going to do more than write about this, here's how we could bring it about:

1. Workshop it at the pickup game.
2. Attempt it at No Shame.
3. Throw a game show piece into Micetro!!!
4. Do it as a real, bona fide Lab Show

Original Messsage

Hi,

Backstory: I was peeling carrots to make soup and was thinking about Match Game 77 (http://www.matchgame.org/, http://www.grudge-match.com/History/matchgame.shtml) and The Big, Big Talk Show and suddenly it struck me.

We do an improv game show and give away really, really, really cheap prizes.

Take care of audience members, change the game show formats, have fake celebrity guests, give away really goofy and cheap prizes from local businesses. Pitch the idea to Sean, run it late nights on Fridays or Saturdays in the cabaret maybe twice a month.

Of course, we'll need to make up a copy of the Home Game.

I need to write this up and think it through.

-- Bob "Sponsored by Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat"

(Bob Apthorpe's wardrobe provided by Savers {or some other local thrift store...})