RSS

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Wanna Bet?

You know it's one of those wacky days when you see the craziest game show that is even crazier than a Japanese Game Show...

It was my dad who stumbled across the show at first. (My mum wasn't too interested when I was telling her about it...oh well...not her cup of tea. At least Big Brother has a plot...I think.) I stood there entranced by the guy that was trying to hit the bell that was attached to his boxing helmet as many times as he could within 1 minute with his foot. He jumped up and down several times hitting that bell with all his might, with yes, his foot, an astounding 50 times! Yes, 50 times! Okay, out of trance.

I couldn't resist as I went to my bedroom and turned on the television to the station that was carrying this game show that was wackier than a Japanese game show. I'm a sucker for wacky game shows and for the weird and the strange. I found out it was called "Wanna Bet?" I'm not sure what station was carrying, but I know it was an American station as they had American celebrities on it. Of course, if they are hard up for work, who knows, maybe they would appear on a Japanese game show?!

Anyway, the premise of the show is, the "contestants"/celebrities start off with a certain amount of money. They proceed to "bet" a certain amount of money based on what "stunt" someone can do. The contestants base that bet on whether the "stunt person" will "succeed" or "fail" or on how many times they will preform that stunt. If they are right, the amount of money that they bet is added to their total dollar amount. If they are wrong, that money is taken out of their total dollar amount that they already have. The money that they earn at the end, goes to a charity of their choice. So a lot is on the line as to how much will go to charity, and of course the dignity of the person preforming the stunts.

In case you were wondering, yes, I watched the next wacked-out stunt that wasn't as weird as a guy kicking himself in the head. It involved at piece of uncooked spaghetti and two trackers. The idea was for the trackers to have the uncooked spaghetti delicately placed in between the two trackers and have the trackers, one going forward and one going backwards, proceed towards a hot, bubbling pot of tomato sauce that was 10 feet away and drop the spaghetti in it. They had to do this under 2 and a half minutes. I should say that they had someone who was "coaching" them the whole way and who would place the spaghetti between the trackers on a platform then take the platform away when the spaghetti was in place. Okay, run on sentence! They could go back and get another piece as long as it was still under the time allotted.

Anyway, here is the play by play. Yes, I took notes. I knew I wanted to blog this, because well, that's just me! All of the constants thought that the drivers could do the the "stunt" and bet the dollar amount they thought was appropriate. Well, here's what happened the first piece of spaghetti, they made it to the pot, but dropped it beside the pot. The second was bending when they started to move towards the pot and of course snapped. The third broke with one minute left. The forth broke. The fifth dropped before they got past a foot. The sixth dropped. With 15 seconds left the seventh one was put in place. With ten seconds left the spaghetti dropped. With 2 seconds left, the tractor drivers made a valiant effort back to get another piece of the spaghetti, but it was all over! No pasta today! The pasta stops here, in broken dreams, crushed beneath the tracker tires of defeat.

Needless to say, all of the contestants lost money in their naive and wishful thinking. I'll admit, I thought they could do it as well. But, I didn't have money on the line, just my dignity of thinking a piece of skinny, flexible pasta could be held between two trackers 10 feet away and dropped into a hot, bubbling pot of tomato sauce. Silly me!

Well, I changed the channel after that stunt. I couldn't take the wackiness any more. It was too much for my little brain to take. I think I lost a couple of IQ points watching. Okay, y'all know I'm going to find out when it's on again! Maybe next time they will see how many brain cells the viewers lose watching the show. I bet all of them! Do you think I'll succeed or fail?! Wanna Bet?!

EDIT: Here's the link to the show at the TV station's website. It's ABC that is carrying it. You can watch clips at this link to see the wackiness I was talking about. Looks like full episodes, too! And a count down clock when the next one airs! Aren't we special?! I think it will be a hit because it is so out there and you don't see many game shows like it in North America. http://abc.go.com/primetime/wannabet/index?pn=index

No comments:

You are visitor #