Recap -- 5/10/10

[SteveGavazzi]

or the Power Wheels car was crashed into one of the doors for laughs.

This is surprisingly close for something that's wrong.

[goldroadfanatic]

I don't want to enter a guessing game here, but could the Power Wheels car or the real Mustang been crashed into something for laughs?  Like home base or one of the backdrops.  Heck, it could have been driven into the other prize, damaging it.

[Wayoshi]

Steve, we'd all love to hear what you know about this taping.

[ClockGameJohn]

I can fill you in with what I know...

There was a decision made to swap out one of the prizes in the Showcase after the win in Spelling Bee.  (Budget problems, apparently.)  As the crew is working to get a new prize from the warehouse, they have to rewrite the Showcase prize copy to match the new prizes.

Once this is completed, they are ready to tape, but the first prize in the Showcase was originally staged on the turntable.  Because they stopped down to switch out the prizes, Drew had forgotten about the turntable and was standing on it when the show started.  This caused another stop down because there was a malfunction trying to reset the turntable.

Because of the delays, the crew was trying their best to get to show started back up.  They moved the prize in front of the doors and placed a curtain up to hide the prize.  When the curtain was removed, it hit the doors and broke the light bulbs around the doors.  Then this had to be cleaned up.

Total cost:  A lot of studio time and a few new light bulbs.  That's the word.

[goldroadfanatic]

You'd think that once you have a "script" for a show set in stone, S&P or whomever wouldn't allow any changes unless there was a good enough reason (like a game malfunction, replace it with something like Money Game or Range Game).  The only thing similar to this I can think of was Plinko being played for $50,000 on the Las Vegas special because Triple Play was won (Had it been lost, Plinko would have been played for $100,000).

[mrbrown2195]

You'd think that once you have a "script" for a show set in stone, S&P or whomever wouldn't allow any changes unless there was a good enough reason (like a game malfunction, replace it with something like Money Game or Range Game).

I would think that just about anything could be done on the show provided that it was cleared with S&P prior to actually doing it. There's just so many variables that could go wrong in any television production that the "door" has to be open, or at least available, to the show.

[Roadgeek Adam]

Besides this apparent SC2 problematic day, I think this episode made better from its beginning.

Dice Game: This was the hurt of the day. This screamed Greco, 21134, and that hurt.

1 Right Price: No no no. Cheap designer crap trap.

Check Out: All hail $3.00 Shopping

Spelling Bee: DING DING DING DING YouTube needed. This was almost failure. All hail Card 19

Safe Crackers: Crazy Fingernail Lady plays Safey well.

Freeze Frame: No. The Peanut Gallery is NEVER right

Showcases: Meh.

Best contestant of the day: I give our $3.00 CheckOut player.
Grade for today: B

[GameShowKid]

Great win in Spelling Bee today, and I liked the jib cam shot near the very end where we could see all 5 of the newly reconfigured car backdrops.

[Off_trak]

Spelling Bee: DING DING DING DING YouTube needed. This was almost failure. All hail Card 19

I think it would be better to hail card 14. That first card was the "R", and there are only 6 of them on the board. Once she had that, her odds of winning improved dramatically.

[whinbaby]

The 7,272nd episode (160th for Season 38)

Showcase #1
Tiki Bar - $3,970
Trip to Maui - $6,915
Jet Ski - $9,398

Showcase #2
Power Wheels Mustang - $315
Convertible Pool Table - $6,995
Ford Mustang Convertible - $27,725

Your Modeling Scorecard for May 10, 2010
Rachel Reynolds
Total:  8/$49,753 (6/$38,868, 2/$10,885)
Cars:  1/$27,500 (1/$27,500, 0/$0)
Trips:  1/$6,915 (0/$0, 1/$6,915)

Lanisha Cole
Total:  8/$52,557 (5/$38,676, 3/$13,881)
Cars:  1/$27,725 (1/$27,725, 0/$0)
Trips:  1/$6,915 (0/$0, 1/$6,915)

Manuela Arbelaez
Total:  9/$53,519 (4/$14,590, 5/$38,929)
Cars:  1/$21,134 (0/$0, 1/$21,134)
Trips:  1/$5,322 (0/$0, 1/$5,322)

And for the season
Rachel Reynolds (140 shows)
Total:  1,370/$7,162,300 (786/$2,599,774, 584/$4,562,526)
Cars:  124/$3,089,647 (40/$829,081, 84/$2,260,566)
Trips:  128/$1,084,081 (57/$475,816, 71/$608,265)

Lanisha Cole (114 shows)
Total:  1,029/$5,268,990 (624/$2,146,679, 405/$3,122,311)
Cars:  94/$2,184,642 (32/$748,469, 62/$1,436,173)
Trips:  100/$795,604 (53/$422,664, 47/$372,940)

Manuela Arbelaez (94 shows)
Total:  775/$4,773,032 (486/$2,097,672, 289/$2,675,360)
Cars:  84/$1,916,917 (40/$942,280, 44/$974,637)
Trips:  93/$835,584 (52/$430,026, 41/$405,558)

[Cartboy]

Check Out:  Interesting strategy.  I'm glad to see it worked.
Spelling Bee:  What an awesome win!  Great job with the table, Kitch!

Good start to the week, IMHO.

[brtsimpson142]

In light of John's revelation, I wonder if this mightn't have to do with the dismissal of David Shaw?

[spoon14]

Although the convertible theme ran through the second Showcase, the transitions between prizes seemed a little awkward. I wouldn't have guessed there was so much drama behind it.

Small correction to the recap: It was not Manuela and Rachel that present the dining/pool table, not Lanisha and Rachel.  And that was another strange thing. With both of them standing there, I thought they would open the table fully, pick up a cue and break. But they just sort of stood there.

Sheila's left hand made it difficult for me to concentrate on what was going on. 

[3StrikesFan]

What I don't get is why was that classic car offered if they were afraid it would have been won? Why not play Spelling Bee for a Chevy Cobalt or Hyundai or something? Or at the very least, play Shell Game or Bonus Game for the car instead of Spelling Bee and make the small prizes impossible to win. By playing Spelling Bee, they almost were guaranteeing a win since the contestant could guess any card and could have won by just choosing a "CAR" card. True, she only had 3 cards, but she still won.

This is the time of the year where the budget is usually really tight. No fancy cars, no Triple Play, Golden Road, or 3 Strikes. What happens at the end of the season if the budget isn't balanced or returned to zero (or whatever they do to make it level)?

[SteveGavazzi]

What I don't get is why was that classic car offered if they were afraid it would have been won?

The problem was that even though they knew the car needed to be lost, they weren't afraid.