If you haven’t watched Hollywood Game Night yet, catch it while you can. After watching the first three episodes,?I like the show, but it’s clearly doomed unless they make some big-time changes. Lucky for the producers, I have some ideas.
The show itself was inspired by actual game nights hosted by Just Jack from Will & Grace. At those parties, tons of famous people would hang out, play games, drink heavily, and probably end the night?in a huge orgy … as most game nights do in my experience of them. (Which is nil, by the way.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTf4BmyxFJQ
This show has enormous potential, and I don’t want it to disappear. So here are my observations about the show itself and its participants to this point, in no particular order:
1. First and foremost, no one on earth has better hair than Valerie Bertenelli. So bouncy and shiny, it brings tears to my eyes.
2. The show should be turned?into an occasional special instead of a weekly thing, like Circus of the Stars. It can’t last in its current form because they can’t possibly continue to pull together?celebrities of the caliber that they’ve had so far?on a weekly basis. Soon, they will run out of?actual stars who are willing to risk looking like asses and it will be reduced to Penn Gillette and Flo from the insurance commercials. And it’s not like Dancing With The Stars or?Celebrity Apprentice?that only need to collect a few stars a season … this is a fresh crop every week.
So what they need to do is make it a wait-for-it special and get crazy big-leaguers. George Clooney would be perfect. Ellen DeGeneres. Justin Timberlake. (But a hard and fast rule outlawing reality stars.) Or pit casts against each other, like Game of Thrones versus?Arrested Development. Who wouldn’t watch that?
3. Overall, I’m a big fan of Jane Lynch, but she's?surprisingly annoying as a host. Her tele-prompted lines have the lame carriage of awards show presenters (much of that blame can fall on?the writers, but she isn’t completely faultless), and honestly I was ready to kill her by the tenth time she casually called Matthew Morrison Matty Fresh.?On the other hand, Jane isn't shy about telling the teams when they suck and that's pretty funny. I think the key is not to script her, but just let her be herself and eventually she’ll hit a stride.
4. The SNL crew was golden, as expected, because they have personality and no fear. The best was Jason Sudeikis who?is all-around adorable and gave the best line of all three episodes so far. (“If it was game night at Sean’s, yoooou might be a redneck.” ? it doesn’t read funny, but trust me.)
5. Also, when the show came back from a commercial just before the final round of the third episode, Amy Poehler was doing Maya Rudolf?s hair and it was disarmingly sweet. Real life friendsies.
6. Martin Short totally fucked the contestant he was playing for because he was trying too hard to be super-hilarious. There’s actual money on the line … $25,000 to be exact, which is a lot for us regular people?…?and a few times, when it was his turn,?Martin chose to make?jokes instead of play to win. Not cool.
7. Friends Shmends. The mini-reunion with Lisa Kudrow?and Matthew Perry sucked because they didn’t even seem interested in each other. Lisa was blah and Mathew was a crank. However,?if they could score an all-6 cast reunion, it would?make most of the TVs?in the world explode. Imagine a Baywatch cast reunion! ER! Even really old shows like Happy Days!
8. I only remember Sarah Chalke as the second Becky from Rosanne, but apparently she’s still relevant and?can do a respectable booty-action robot. And Kristen Bell has?an impressive knowledge of snack foods (as well as?being a very good sport for appearing on the show so soon after?having a baby).
So there you have it, Hollywood Game Night.?Hire me as a consultant and you could rule the airwaves.
leraspberrie says
This just sounds like an irrelevant Tabletop. Unlike Geek & Sundry, however, they use celebrities who have no business anywhere near a gaming table. I agree with your problems, it’s time for indie.
Mitch says
I like and agree with your suggestions ! :)