Special Deal or No Deal 100th Episode!!!!!!!!!!!!one
Mom’s in town. Mom likes Deal or No Deal so I thought I’d take Mom to see a taping.
Before going further, I have to say that tvtix.com sucks. (And no, I’m not linking to those bastards.)
1) The start time they gave was wrong. (It was 9:30am, not 9:00am.)
2) They were supposed to give us a print-out of tickets. They didn’t. (The page was kind enough to take the email confirmation.)
3) They said parking was free & we’d receive a voucher. The page confirmed this wasn’t the case & we would have to pay for it.
4) You have to call the day before to confirm your reservation. The phone number in the email confirmation is wrong.
They suck suck suck. (There. I linked to them. Go see how awful the site is. Notice the year of the copyright in the footer. Extend suckage to general experience.)
There was a special kicker, however. The day before I received an email saying our 10:30am start time was moved to 9am. I found out later the 2:30pm start time was moved to 3:30pm.
Big changes. What caused such a ruckus?
That, my friend, is because our show, the 9am show turned out to be the special 100th episode celebration!!! (Sorry for the multiple exclamation points. The pre-show warm-up, teaching when to clap & cheer, getting the crowed excited, has left me with a pavlovian response to certain phrases. “One Million Dollars!!!”)
So there we sat.
From 9am to 2:30pm.
No breaks.
No water.
No food.
For five and half hours.
The psychology of people in the audience was interesting too. These people are crazy as well. Ranging from emphatic “No deals!”, “Keep it low” chants with the type of vigor generally reserved for European soccer games, to commentary on strategy. My favorite comment, from a nearby audience member, was “What? Why would he choose 12 now? That don’t make sense. That’s just stupid.”
Since a lot of people ask me for lucky numbers, and this is generally regarded as a top pick for numerologists, I thought I’d share some secrets from the Special Deal or No Deal 100th Episode Celebration!!!!! Obviously, spoilers ahead.
- All past winner/contestants are brought back.
- The chick in the front row of former contestants really does dance all the time. That wasn’t just an act for when the cameras where on. She is actually crazy.
- The previous contestant who won $10 (the lowest amount ever won) is given a second shot. He looks a bit like the big, burly, bearded guy from Grizzly Adams, but with a southern accent.
- The zero in $10 is replaced with his face, both on the board and in the case. Is this comedy or what?
- The model with the case containing $10 had to open in 9 times as she kept moving the case. Believe me, the taping of each iteration was even more exciting than the last.
- Grizzly Adams really does suck. He manages to systematically knock out all the high amounts pretty quick.
- Grizzly heads up to stage to hug the model a few times. Each hug went a bit too long. After each, I think we all felt a bit uncomfortable as well as a need to shower.
- Grizzly rushes the little room where the “The Banker” is. That was kinda entertaining. (Well, when it happened it was. The 45 minutes after the show of taping audience reactions over and over and over again was less so.)
- Grizzly likes Ozzy Osbourne so there’s a taped greeting from Ozzy.
- There’s are other taped greetings from Leno, Ceiline Deon, Regis and other people I don’t care about. (All for the special 100th celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
- Grizzly gets it down to $25, $200, $400, and $750. I think he leaves with $400.
- Howie didn’t really spend a lot of time talking to people. Each time there was a break, he was gone. Off the stage. I felt a little bad for Grizzly standing up there alone.
- There’s a big special cake the models get to have. Apparently there is a cake fight. The audience was offered none. This disappointed Mom.
So there you have it.
The magic behind the machine.
Mom loved it (despite not getting any cake), so I’ll consider it a success. But man, this makes up for my the pain of my birth or something.
March 14th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Bill, you are a rather big boy. Large cranium. Are you sure this pays the birthing-pain debt? It might make up for the Joliet childhood, however.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
deal or no deal rocks if you were a contestant you would agree. EVEN if you were in the audience it is the number 1 show now.
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 am
The Deal or No Deal experience leaves me with not wanting to watch the show anymore. To not be generoush to give everyone a candy bar , or a signed autograph or a t shirt. i feel like i worked for nbc for 5 hours for free. we were treated like trained anuimals. our enthusiasm and passion will make millions for them builing thier audience base everyday. no one who worked there was really happy, they tried to look happy, but there was a general sense of meannesn and treating the audience like you are here to be used. the modoels had personality but you could see they couldn’rt give a shit about the studio audience. it’s all about playing for the cameras.also, the seat fillers who wait hours in line to make $10.00 to fill the seats when people go to the bathroom. that’s the pathetic part of la and the acting thing.
over all i felt like the expeirence turned me off to participating in anything like this in the future. sk