1 vs. 100: Pop Culture Night

I have to say that I did for the most part enjoy last Friday’s episode of 1 vs. 100. I liked some of the mob members, particularly Oscar the Grouch. And it was cool seeing Jeremy Miller from Growing Pains read a question.

This probably sounds like smack-talk since I’m a big fan of The Simpsons (well, the earlier years anyway), but I cannot believe the first contestant did not know that the show‘s movie debut was in Springfield, Vermont. I don’t know… it just seems to me that even most people who are non-fans of the show know where the series takes place. The name of the show and the setting just click with a lot of people. And the other options didn’t even make sense. There’s also the fact that he wasted the third help. We all knew at that point that “A” (Spider-Man) was wrong and we found out three people said “C.” And he still wanted to say “C!“ If only three mob members picked an answer that early in the game out of many, would think it’s safe to say that that’s not going to be a winning answer. It could have been worse though; he could have said that Kirk Douglas was the older brother on Growing Pains.

I really did not care for the second contestant’s behavior. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m sick of the “animosity” between contestants on game shows nowadays. I mean, I know the contestants aren’t supposed to really get along with the mob members, and I can deal with that, but I hate overly cocky contestants. To me that attitude just makes me want to root for them less.

I enjoy the notion of pop culture-based game shows, however, it seems to me that many of the shows aren’t executed well. For instance, On the Cover was way too cheesy for my tastes, and Starface just came off as too trashy. I mean for goodness sake, one sponsor was The National Enquirer. I gave up on it by that point. Hollywood Showdown however was a favorite of mine. It had the perfect questions, Todd Newton was actually in his element and not a caricature like on Whammy!. And VH-1’s World Series of Pop Culture is a lot of fun to get into. Those were shows that proves the aspect can work if executed properly.

Nice to see that 1 vs. 100 can pull it off decently also.