TheEnforcer
12-19-2005, 01:10 PM
I've been seeing the commercials for this show for a while now and it has intruiged me and thought I might check the show out. After reading this I know I will watch it. Read it and let me know if it peaks your interest?
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|99002|1|,00.html
Mandel Says 'Deal or No Deal'
By Kate O'Hare
Sunday, December 18, 2005
12:00 AM PT
Somewhere in the misty depths of human history, a caveman may have been standing with an armload of ostrich eggs when suddenly he spied a tasty rabbit munching on a nearby berry bush.
As the rabbit threatened to hop away, this early human was faced with a decision -- drop the eggs, grab the slingshot tucked in the back of his loincloth and maybe wind up with roasted rabbit for dinner, or let the rabbit go and have a guaranteed, if less juicy and succulent, omelet.
Several thousand years of human civilization later, very little has changed.
This is evident Monday, Dec. 19, when NBC premieres a five-night run of "Deal or No Deal," the hourlong U.S. version of Endemol USA's ("Fear Factor") worldwide sensation, already a huge hit in around 40 countries, including Australia, the U.K., Italy, Thailand and Argentina. Howie Mandel, seen most recently in the Bravo series "Hidden Howie: The Private Life of a Public Nuisance," is host.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, describes "Deal or No Deal" as "an exercise in game theory, where a player has to determine whether he values having one amount of money more or less than possible future winnings."
Presented with 26 sealed briefcases containing monetary amounts between a penny and $1 million, the contestant chooses one. As the rest of the briefcases are systematically opened, revealing which dollar amounts the contestant doesn't get, an unseen "banker" offers her or him a guaranteed cash amount to abandon the original briefcase and quit the game.
At any point, both the "banker" and the contestant are looking at the as-yet-hidden amounts to determine just how likely it is that the largest available amount is in that first briefcase. If the available amounts start to get smaller and smaller, so do the "banker's" offers. And to make things more fun, the contestant receives advice from family members seated nearby.
An actor and comedian, Mandel has never been the host of a game show, but that changed after one night in a Jerry's Deli in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, on the invitation of a producer of the show.
"So I go to this restaurant," Mandel says, "and he deals out these cards. They're sitting face down and he says, 'Pick a card, but you can't see what the card is, and all these cards have amounts of money.' He starts playing the game with me at the table, but he doesn't tell me this is the pitch. I don't know what he's doing.
"I play the game, and he starts making me offers. 'If I gave you $20,000 instead of that amount on that card there, the one that you chose ... .' I really started getting into the game. It's an amazing game. There's never been anything on TV that depicts the purest form of human instinct."
Asked if that instinct is just greed, Mandel says, "Not only greed. Yes, we all want more, and there isn't anyone alive that doesn't want more. But I'm not quizzing anybody. There are no stunts. There's no nothing. It's just that human condition, and the human condition is so fascinating."
Mandel compares the emotions on "Deal or No Deal" with what happens to people inside a casino.
"There are two elements playing in human nature," he says. "Most people don't see the opportunity come around, so they say, 'This is an opportunity. I'm going to go for it. When am I going to get another shot to maybe go for it, even though this money is right in front of me?'
"When I talk to a lot of contestants afterward, I would ask them, 'Why did you give up on that money you were offered? [The other element is], I don't think that people look at winnings or offerings as theirs. Say, play is really hot one night, and you win 10 or 20 grand in Vegas. Personally, I'm not a gambler, so I would probably pull it off the table and go home before I lose it.
"What a lot of people do, and what those buildings are built on, is they put it back on the table and then go, 'Well, I'm down five grand. I was up 20 grand, now I'm down five grand.' I go, 'You were up 20 grand and now you're down five grand?' They go, 'Ah, I was playing with their money.'
"I get turning down $40,000 when you've only opened four cases and there are still seven giant amounts on the board, but when the odds start turning, when you get to the end of the game ... watch how people react."
And like any popular game show, from "The $64,000 Question" to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," the audience must and does get involved.
"They tell me they've been testing it in focus groups," Mandel says, "and people are on the edge, yelling. That's why NBC has something here."
Apparently, the show got to Mandel as well. "It was the most exciting thing I've ever been a part of. I was right there. It feels like an event, a real study of human nature. I'm probably making more of it than it is.
"If I wasn't hosting it, I swear to you, I'd be watching it."
But shooting the five episodes of the show also posed a personal challenge for Mandel. As fans of his Bravo series know, he has a strong aversion to shaking hands.
"I still don't shake hands," he says. "I'm all right with the hugging, it's just the hands I have a problem with. It's the petri dish that we carry.
"But the producers said, 'We don't want to deal with that. We don't want to talk about your O.C.D. on this show.' I don't think it was obvious that I didn't shake one contestant's hand. I hug, put my arm around, but I can't shake hands. It's just me."
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|99002|1|,00.html
Mandel Says 'Deal or No Deal'
By Kate O'Hare
Sunday, December 18, 2005
12:00 AM PT
Somewhere in the misty depths of human history, a caveman may have been standing with an armload of ostrich eggs when suddenly he spied a tasty rabbit munching on a nearby berry bush.
As the rabbit threatened to hop away, this early human was faced with a decision -- drop the eggs, grab the slingshot tucked in the back of his loincloth and maybe wind up with roasted rabbit for dinner, or let the rabbit go and have a guaranteed, if less juicy and succulent, omelet.
Several thousand years of human civilization later, very little has changed.
This is evident Monday, Dec. 19, when NBC premieres a five-night run of "Deal or No Deal," the hourlong U.S. version of Endemol USA's ("Fear Factor") worldwide sensation, already a huge hit in around 40 countries, including Australia, the U.K., Italy, Thailand and Argentina. Howie Mandel, seen most recently in the Bravo series "Hidden Howie: The Private Life of a Public Nuisance," is host.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, describes "Deal or No Deal" as "an exercise in game theory, where a player has to determine whether he values having one amount of money more or less than possible future winnings."
Presented with 26 sealed briefcases containing monetary amounts between a penny and $1 million, the contestant chooses one. As the rest of the briefcases are systematically opened, revealing which dollar amounts the contestant doesn't get, an unseen "banker" offers her or him a guaranteed cash amount to abandon the original briefcase and quit the game.
At any point, both the "banker" and the contestant are looking at the as-yet-hidden amounts to determine just how likely it is that the largest available amount is in that first briefcase. If the available amounts start to get smaller and smaller, so do the "banker's" offers. And to make things more fun, the contestant receives advice from family members seated nearby.
An actor and comedian, Mandel has never been the host of a game show, but that changed after one night in a Jerry's Deli in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, on the invitation of a producer of the show.
"So I go to this restaurant," Mandel says, "and he deals out these cards. They're sitting face down and he says, 'Pick a card, but you can't see what the card is, and all these cards have amounts of money.' He starts playing the game with me at the table, but he doesn't tell me this is the pitch. I don't know what he's doing.
"I play the game, and he starts making me offers. 'If I gave you $20,000 instead of that amount on that card there, the one that you chose ... .' I really started getting into the game. It's an amazing game. There's never been anything on TV that depicts the purest form of human instinct."
Asked if that instinct is just greed, Mandel says, "Not only greed. Yes, we all want more, and there isn't anyone alive that doesn't want more. But I'm not quizzing anybody. There are no stunts. There's no nothing. It's just that human condition, and the human condition is so fascinating."
Mandel compares the emotions on "Deal or No Deal" with what happens to people inside a casino.
"There are two elements playing in human nature," he says. "Most people don't see the opportunity come around, so they say, 'This is an opportunity. I'm going to go for it. When am I going to get another shot to maybe go for it, even though this money is right in front of me?'
"When I talk to a lot of contestants afterward, I would ask them, 'Why did you give up on that money you were offered? [The other element is], I don't think that people look at winnings or offerings as theirs. Say, play is really hot one night, and you win 10 or 20 grand in Vegas. Personally, I'm not a gambler, so I would probably pull it off the table and go home before I lose it.
"What a lot of people do, and what those buildings are built on, is they put it back on the table and then go, 'Well, I'm down five grand. I was up 20 grand, now I'm down five grand.' I go, 'You were up 20 grand and now you're down five grand?' They go, 'Ah, I was playing with their money.'
"I get turning down $40,000 when you've only opened four cases and there are still seven giant amounts on the board, but when the odds start turning, when you get to the end of the game ... watch how people react."
And like any popular game show, from "The $64,000 Question" to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," the audience must and does get involved.
"They tell me they've been testing it in focus groups," Mandel says, "and people are on the edge, yelling. That's why NBC has something here."
Apparently, the show got to Mandel as well. "It was the most exciting thing I've ever been a part of. I was right there. It feels like an event, a real study of human nature. I'm probably making more of it than it is.
"If I wasn't hosting it, I swear to you, I'd be watching it."
But shooting the five episodes of the show also posed a personal challenge for Mandel. As fans of his Bravo series know, he has a strong aversion to shaking hands.
"I still don't shake hands," he says. "I'm all right with the hugging, it's just the hands I have a problem with. It's the petri dish that we carry.
"But the producers said, 'We don't want to deal with that. We don't want to talk about your O.C.D. on this show.' I don't think it was obvious that I didn't shake one contestant's hand. I hug, put my arm around, but I can't shake hands. It's just me."