More ISIHAC, And More About The Wilson Family Than You Ever Wanted To Know

Two unrelated game show things today. First, here's my recap of the ISIHAC episode broadcast December 14, 2009.

Opening: “We present I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, the antidote to panel games. At the piano is Colin Sell, and your chairman is Jack Dee.”

Recorded At: Futurist Theater, Scarborough

Panelists: On Jack’s left, Barry Cryer and Jeremy Hardy. On Jack’s right, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Jo Brand.

Scorer: “And ever hopeful for a good score this evening, please welcome the delightful Samantha.”

Game One: Chat-up Lines And How To Turn Them Down
Jack: “I have only three months to live.”Barry: “I’ll wait.”

Game Two: One Song To The Tune Of Another
Now here’s something “funny” – Jo suddenly swears in the middle of singing the words of I Will Survive to the tune of My Favorite Things. It’s bleeped out, but the commotion isn’t, and ultimately we hear the voice of the producer (Jon Naismith) telling Jack she gets another chance. No convoluted explanation either.

Game Three: As in episode three, one pair of panelists must outline their unusual medical condition (displayed to the audience via the laser display screen) to the other two, who have to figure out what it is.

Game Four: Another repeat from episode three – the panelists have to play announcers introducing radio and TV shows chosen purely on the basis on a catchy title.

Game Five: Karaoke Cokey
The title of a song is shown on the laser display board, and the audience must hum that song until the panelists guess it. It works about as well as you’d expect, certainly after an audience member blurts out the title!

Game Six: Motor Mechanic’s Film Club
Including, “in Graeme’s honor,” Bring Me The Head Gasket Of Alfredo Garcia…and way, way too many Herbie jokes.

Closing: “Barry Cryer, Jeremy Hardy, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Jo Brand were being given silly things to do by Jack Dee, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music. The program consultant was Iain Pattinson, and the producer was Jon Naismith.”

That's episode five! Now, on a completely different note, I've never been a major fan of The Newlywed Game. Yes, I realize it's an iconic game show, and it serves its purpose just fine, but the way I see it, it's only a short jump from The Newlywed Game to such horrific exercises as Three's A Crowd, the game show that purported to find out who knows a man better - his wife or his secretary?

It was every bit as scary as that makes it sound.

So I've never really liked The Newlywed Game, but someone out there must, because a new revival of it started on Game Show Network in April 2009, with new host Carnie Wilson. The game thankfully didn't change too much, and Carnie turned out to be pretty darn good, so if you like this sort of thing, by all means, watch. I myself watched today, for a specific reason. Today's episode was a celebrity edition, featuring the Wilson family - including Carnie herself and her husband. So who guest hosted? You guessed it...Bob Eubanks.

Bob is far from the only person to have hosted The Newlywed Game, but it seems like every time someone else tries, the results are so bad they have to bring Bob back to save the show. He's just that good, and that inseparable from this format - and sure enough, he hosted the show today as if he had never left. Carnie was playing against her sister and their mother (really!) for $10,000 for their charities. Let's just say I got a little too much information about this family. Quite frankly, none of the couples seemed really interested in winning the game, but it didn't matter too much since, it eventually came out, all three couples were playing for the Carl Wilson Foundation. Where's the fun in that, and why didn't Bob get this job?

Two more questions we'll never know the answer to.

Last ISIHAC of the season next week,

Aaron