The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: The Pyramids on May 27, 2012, 03:09:27 PM
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Was anyone here ever attend a 'Pyramid' taping? I was wondering if the show had many stops and starts while in taping. When it was on GSN recently I think I noticed some editing but I could not tell if there were many stop downs.
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Was anyone here ever attend a 'Pyramid' taping? I was wondering if the show had many stops and starts while in taping. When it was on GSN recently I think I noticed some editing but I could not tell if there were many stop downs.
We know at the minimum they stopped down before the Winner's Circles to coach the celebrity if they gave.
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We know at the minimum they stopped down before the Winner's Circles to coach the celebrity if they gave.
They should've coached the judge too IMO. :)
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As someone who was a contestant, I can tell you that the stopdowns were fairly minimal on my episode. There was a technical glitch in my first round (my celeb partner, Picabo Street, couldn't see the words on her monitor), but that was remedied fairly quickly. Don't think there was more than a minute or two to fix that. Could've just been because I was a little nervous when I made it to the Winner's Circle in Round 2, but it seemed like I played a mock version of it for about 10-15 minutes with one of the contestant coordinators before my celeb partner there (Lenny Krayzelburg) was brought out to actually play the game.
Most of the other editing, at least where my episode was concerned, came with the banter between Donny and the contestants and/or celebs.
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before my celeb partner there (Lenny Krayzelburg)
Okay, I'll bite : Who?
This was a GLARING issue with this version. I wasn't expecting A-listers, but the 'celeb's were so random (and the different players every day didn't help), that often it seemed like it would be a better fit for civilian teams of two to play.
The thought of getting one 30 minute chance to get into the tourney, and then getting paired with Jillian Barberie or Costanza's mother, just really sucked the air out of this version....
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before my celeb partner there (Lenny Krayzelburg)
Okay, I'll bite : Who?
Olympic backstroke swimmer. Set three world records in the span of several days in 1999 and a four-time gold medalist at the Sydney and Athens games.
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or Costanza's mother,
But we all love Estelle Harris so darn much!
/seriously, that was the day the show went from merely jumping the shark to outright offensive.
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We were actually shown video on the day of taping of Estelle Harris's episode as an example of how NOT to play the game :-)
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I attended a second-season Pyramid taping in 2003. Celebrities were Leeza Gibbons and Richard Jeni. Things I learned from attending said taping...
-- It takes about 2 hours to complete a three-episode morning taping session of J! (which I attended that morning at the same studio -- Sony). It took 2 1/2 hours to complete the one episode of Pyramid I witnessed
-- I was the only person in the audience for that taping who was not being paid to sit and watch. There was a warm-up guy, and he spent most of the time asking audience members how their commercial auditions went.
As for as stopdowns went, there were several. Among them...
-- After the first round of questions were asked for game one, Donny did his "chat time" with the celebs. What the show did was record two segments with each celeb, with producers deciding later which one was more "air worthy." For Leeza, Donny asked about her website, then recorded another segment on scrapbooking. Richard apparently wanted none of this, going blue during his second segment (Donny chiding him into a stand-up riff on online dating). Tape was stopped, with producers asking Richard to re-do the bit, but to keep the language clean. Richard told the producers, in no kind term, to buzz off. Crew debated for 5-10 minutes on what to do, before opting to move on with the game.
-- For game two, there was a segment during the second season where a home viewer played along with a team to win a prize. Tape was stopped down for 10-15 minutes due to phone connection issues, as well as Donny's inability to pronounce "Boynton Beach."
-- Richard and his civilian partner won the first game, and were escorted to the Winners Circle. Taping stopped, and Richard went to the back (didn't realize until Mr. Lemon mentioned it a few years back that producers prepped Richard and other celebs for the bonus game by giving them the categories ahead of time, as well as 1-2 clues for each category). That took 10-15 minutes. WC starts, and the first category is "British cities." Contestant gets it in about 2-3 seconds but, rather than the "victory bell," the "Family Feud" buzzer goes off. Contestant goes into hysterics, Richard tries to calm her down, and crew members ran around the set, wondering what the heck just happened.
-- This took about 40 minutes to resolve, as crew members argued in the control room over "who hit the wrong button," Richard argued with the producers on set over leaving an upset contestant (Richard adamantly told the producers that he would not go to the back until he was sure that the contestant was calm and OK), and producers debated what to do. Finally, they opted to throw out the WC questions stack, prep Richard with a fresh stack and play the new stack. Contestant ended up winning $10,000 with Richard and another $15,000 with Leeza.
-- Time was also wasted on a filming a brief (15-second) commercial with Donny, Leeza and Richard in the Winners Circle promoting the episode to affiliates. Took 5-6 takes to do that, as Leeza flubbed her lines several times, and one of them corrected a grammatical error in the script.
JD
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Richard apparently wanted none of this, going blue during his second segment (Donny chiding him into a stand-up riff on online dating). Tape was stopped, with producers asking Richard to re-do the bit, but to keep the language clean. Richard told the producers, in no kind term, to buzz off.
Richard argued with the producers on set over leaving an upset contestant (Richard adamantly told the producers that he would not go to the back until he was sure that the contestant was calm and OK), and producers debated what to do.
What does it say about the production that I'm torn between thinking Richard Jeni is a complete dick and a complete hero?
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What does it say about the production that I'm torn between thinking Richard Jeni is a complete dick and a complete hero?
Why can't he be both? :)
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I attended a second-season Pyramid taping in 2003. Celebrities were Leeza Gibbons and Richard Jeni. Things I learned from attending said taping...
-- It takes about 2 hours to complete a three-episode morning taping session of J! (which I attended that morning at the same studio -- Sony). It took 2 1/2 hours to complete the one episode of Pyramid I witnessed.
By another contrast, when I saw three-episode sessions of the Dick Clark "Pyramid" being taped on back-to-back days, there was one tape stop each day. One was a judgment call which required them to listen to the tape in the booth, and one was an audience member talking too loud, who Dick Clark asked (politely, I might add) to please not talk during the taping. Each was resolved in less than five minutes, if I remember correctly. The other four episodes took exactly 30 minutes apiece to tape -- and that's with guide dogs for the blind contestants being present for the second day. Counting the 15-20 minutes between shows as the celebs changed clothes, from the time the first show started taping till the third show wrapped, the session took between 2 and 2.5 hours.
Brendan
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Richard apparently wanted none of this, going blue during his second segment (Donny chiding him into a stand-up riff on online dating). Tape was stopped, with producers asking Richard to re-do the bit, but to keep the language clean. Richard told the producers, in no kind term, to buzz off.
Richard argued with the producers on set over leaving an upset contestant (Richard adamantly told the producers that he would not go to the back until he was sure that the contestant was calm and OK), and producers debated what to do.
What does it say about the production that I'm torn between thinking Richard Jeni is a complete dick and a complete hero?
I thought the same thing.
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Richard apparently wanted none of this, going blue during his second segment (Donny chiding him into a stand-up riff on online dating). Tape was stopped, with producers asking Richard to re-do the bit, but to keep the language clean. Richard told the producers, in no kind term, to buzz off.
Richard argued with the producers on set over leaving an upset contestant (Richard adamantly told the producers that he would not go to the back until he was sure that the contestant was calm and OK), and producers debated what to do.
What does it say about the production that I'm torn between thinking Richard Jeni is a complete dick and a complete hero?
I thought the same thing.
Same here. I'm guessing his dickishness was already strike one, and his heroism (although commendable) was just icing on the cake.
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Richard apparently wanted none of this, going blue during his second segment (Donny chiding him into a stand-up riff on online dating). Tape was stopped, with producers asking Richard to re-do the bit, but to keep the language clean. Richard told the producers, in no kind term, to buzz off.
Richard argued with the producers on set over leaving an upset contestant (Richard adamantly told the producers that he would not go to the back until he was sure that the contestant was calm and OK), and producers debated what to do.
What does it say about the production that I'm torn between thinking Richard Jeni is a complete dick and a complete hero?
I thought the same thing.
Same here. I'm guessing his dickishness was already strike one, and his heroism (although commendable) was just icing on the cake.
Given what we've learned about Richard Jeni's mental health after his suicide (his family said he was schizophrenic), I've always wondered if what I witnessed that day was one of his "mental health moments". To be fair to him, he was friendly with the contestants.
JD