Playmania: The Surreal Game Show
Recently, Kathy has turned me on to the horror and humor that is Playmania.
Playmania is a two-hour show on the Game Show Network (a cable channel) that airs from 9-11 p.m. Pacific time, six days a week. It is a take off on Quiznation from the UK. A hot female host walks back and forth on a small set while posing games that people can call in to play. If people get a right answer, they usually win money in the range of $50-$600 (usually $200). You can get more information on the Playmania games from Wikipedia, but suffice to say that most are easy.
Part of the charm and attraction for me is that the show looks like a cable access show. You know, limited set, kind of goofy sound effects, accompanied by all the bizarreness that you get from small-time live television. The host has to keep talking for two hours, no matter how boring things get or how dumb the callers are. Sometimes a host will run into something on set or accidentally give away the answer. And, seriously, most callers who get through appear to be very dumb! The hosts often look tired by 11 pm; I don't blame them.
Here's an example of the dumb caller syndrome. One of the games involves a visual representation of a phrase or term. The player has to guess what it stands for. For this one, this is what players saw on screen:
CA SE
CASE
Kathy and I figured it out pretty quickly. The host, while stalling to get more callers to call in (people who phone in or text message for a chance to play pay $.99 per call, so that's their revenue), chatted it up with one of the crew about what he thought it was. He accidentally spilled the beans and revealed that the answer is "open and shut case."
Shocked, the host looked at the camera with big eyes, barely managing to avoid cracking up. I mean, he just gave it away - what are you going to do? She said, "Did you hear that? You need to get involved NOW." Yes indeed, that was the time to call.
But that's not the best part. Here's what the next THREE CALLERS guessed:
- Broken Case
- Space Case
- Split Case
That's right, not one of them guessed the answer that was GIVEN to them on the air!
What the heck? I was away from the TV for a few minutes so there may have been another wrong answer; these are just the ones I heard. Finally, after 10 or 15 minutes, someone called in and guessed "open and shut case." Sheesh!
You see the appeal, don't you? The show is like watching an intellectual train wreck. You know you should look away, but somehow you can't.
Kathy says, "Playmania just proves that you should always count the change you get back." No kidding!
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