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Studio 46 - Non-TPiR Discussion => Out In Left Field => Topic started by: ooboh on November 04, 2019, 12:13:42 PM
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… Greed, one of the many Millionaire copycats that aired around the turn of the century, premiered on FOX. It was hosted by game show legend Chuck Woolery and labeled itself "The Richest, Most Dangerous Game In America". In its short time on the air, it produced many memorable moments, such as Curtis Warren winning $1.41 million and (for a brief period) becoming the biggest winner in the history of game shows. There was also Dan Avila, who to this day, is known for getting the most valuable question ($2.2 million) ever seen on a game show wrong.
What were your thoughts on this short-lived, underrated gem?
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ENOUGH with the clickbait thread titles already. :roll:
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Greed was how you say very interesting. I try to play along with this show anytime it was on.
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Getting back on topic, I always considered Greed the best non-WWTBAM show of the million-dollar craze. It's also pretty much the only good game show FOX has put on. It should've last longer than 44 episodes.
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Greed is up there in the top three in my list of the million-dollar shows that were on during the craze following the success of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in the late 90s/early 2000s. And could have gone on for at another year or two had it not been based on that rumor the Fox network president not liking game shows.
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Greed is up there in the top three in my list of the million-dollar shows that were on during the craze following the success of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in the late 90s/early 2000s. And could have gone on for at another year or two had it not been based on that rumor the Fox network president not liking game shows.
What's the 3rd on that list? Or 2nd and 3rd if Millionaire isn't there.
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What's the 3rd on that list? Or 2nd and 3rd if Millionaire isn't there.
This is getting off-topic, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is second and The Weakest Link is the third pricefan18. And to steer this back on topic, would Greed have lasted another year or even two had circumstances been different, or would it have been one season and done?
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This is getting off-topic, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is second and The Weakest Link is the third pricefan18. And to steer this back on topic, would Greed have lasted another year or even two had circumstances been different, or would it have been one season and done?
Apparently, Greed was renewed for a second season but FOX executives pulled the cord abruptly.
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Apparently, Greed was renewed for a second season but FOX executives pulled the cord abruptly.
If memory serves, when "It's Your Chance of a Lifetime" tanked, Greed got pulled alongside it.
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If memory serves, when "It's Your Chance of a Lifetime" tanked, Greed got pulled alongside it.
Why they did that I have no idea. Only thing I can think of is that they figured Greed would have the same fate. But why not wait until the ratings went south, instead of cancelling in advance?
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My favorite moment on that show, and I think one of my all-time favorite game show moments, was on the 3/3/00 episode where the team got the first question wrong. I don't know how many times that happened in the history of the show, but what makes this particular one special is that a) the question was about Chuck Woolery, and b) the contestant said he'd been following Chuck's career so he was confident in his answer.
Greed - 3/3/00 (Chuck Woolery question) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZZJbnOsuQ)
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Got around to watching the pilot episode, and I must say, I'm impressed. The whole "kill or be killed" idea is phenomenal and it never gets boring. Chuck was a great choice, as he knows exactly when to joke around and when to be dead serious. I'm especially fond of the Terminator, as the chance for a player to directly challenge the leader layers on a whole new level of excitement.
In sum, great show. If it's revived well, I'd gladly watch.
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Got around to watching the pilot episode
Where was this?
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Not the pilot episode, the premiere (https://youtu.be/cZvZGUNGKQ4). Sorry for the mix up.
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Greed was, for lack of a better word, good. Not outstanding, and it did have flaws, but with enough good qualities to be worth watching. It probably would have worn thin after too long, but I would have liked to see it get more of a chance to try to evolve.
Chuck was great. The Terminator was cutthroat (Bob Boden later pointed to it as the start of “meanness” in primetime games), but it was dang cool. They handled the spectacle of it without becoming a parody, the big cash prize felt earned, and it was suspenseful enough without being too slow or resorting to overly cheap tricks.
I wish they'd let players confer a bit more. The Captain having to make blind decisions without knowing the expertises of their players never sat well with me.
Millionaire is great cause you have a constant window into the contestant's thought process. On Greed contestants were not allowed to say what they knew and did not know, they were only allowed to say something like "I'm very confident it's Michael Douglas" on their turn, and then play passed to the next player. Why not let them say "I am 99% Michael Douglas won Best Actor for Wall Street"? When Chuck asks the captain "The next category is 'History', will you play for $500,000 or will you stop?", the audience all shouts for them to either go or stop, but the contestants can only stand there awkwardly in their split-screen trying not to react too strongly. What's the point of showing them on-camera if they're not allowed to react to it? It'd be much more interesting to show them trying to persuade the captain to go or bail.
Also, wasn’t a fan of the survey-based questions they relied on towards the end. Questions like "According to this one study, which four are the mostest..." aren't really fair questions in a game where you need to have all players "know" the answer or go home with nothing. No amount of knowledge can help in that situation; nobody can possibly "know" that for sure.
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Also, wasn’t a fan of the survey-based questions they relied on towards the end. Questions like "According to this one study, which four are the mostest..." aren't really fair questions in a game where you need to have all players "know" the answer or go home with nothing. No amount of knowledge can help in that situation; nobody can possibly "know" that for sure.
I think that was precisely why they used them... the more obscure the subject, the less likely a correct answer would be, and thus the less likely a 7-figure payout would be. Yes, I admit it's dirty pool, but I can understand why they did it (and why Millionaire eventually went to that same well, with the "celebrity trivia" garbage questions, in the Shuffle and Chris Harrison eras).
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The Terminator was cutthroat (Bob Boden later pointed to it as the start of “meanness” in primetime games)
The eliminator question was pretty mean, too. Six contestants get on stage and right away one of them is sent back to the contestant pool. Has to be demoralizing for the one who lost, even though he's still eligible to be picked again. (In fact, that happened at least once. The one I saw, the guy also got eliminated the second time.)
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Every Millionaire clone back then had to have some sort of qualifier round. Twenty-One had the audience vote for the contestant they wanted to see play next. Winning Lines had 49 people, 43 of which would be eliminated right off the bat. Even on Millionaire, 6-8 of the 10 contestants would leave with nothing but a few seconds of screen time and a free trip to New York.
The qualifier eventually fell out of fashion, but a 5/6 chance of getting on stage once you were cast was pretty generous, all things considered. The Terminator was on a whole 'nother level--a guaranteed $10,000 on a show where nothing is guaranteed, plus the chance at doubling your winnings? That's far too good an offer to pass up. IIRC only like 5 or 6 players ever opted not to use the Terminator. And to underline that cutthroat aspect, the show went out of their way to always refer to the contestants as a "team" working together, even though they were really all individuals technically out for themselves, and odds were very good that they would eventually eliminate each other.
That's another reason I think Greed, even it had been renewed, wouldn't have lasted too long--immediately after 9/11, there wasn't much of a public appetite for TV that was "cutthroat" or "vindictive". Weakest Link's ratings were in the toilet, The Mole and Survivor were postponed, and shows like "Temptation Island" and "The Runner" were dead on arrival. People were looking for feel-good escapism, and Greed wouldn't have fit.
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IIRC only like 5 or 6 players ever opted not to use the Terminator.
And even those, only came on either question 6 or 7, when they knew that every (surviving) team member counted, if they wanted a semi-realistic chance of progressing further into the game.