The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: whewfan on March 31, 2024, 04:58:51 AM
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I haven't seen much of the current run lately, but I've noticed that the contestants are now given hand mikes, and that disturbs me. Has Wayne Brady gotten too lazy to use his own mike to talk to the contestants? Is it some stupid covid thing? For me, it takes away the legitimacy of the contestants. I suppose by holding a hand mike, it would restrict a very excitable contestant from getting too close to Wayne.
However, there's also a chance of injury to the host, if anyone ever saw that episode of Family Challenge where Ray Combs lets a little girl hold his hand mike. She had to figure out a puzzle, and she got so excited, she threw back the microphone, hitting Ray right in the forehead. Ray shows his bleeding forehead to the cameras, and later quips he should've listened to Bob Barker's advice to NEVER let the contestant have the microphone.
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Has Wayne Brady gotten too lazy to use his own mike to talk to the contestants?
SMDH.
Why would that be your first thought?
I don't give a rat arse what you think about the current LMAD, "lazy" is a word I would never apply to Wayne Brady.
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I mean this observation has to be the hotest of hot takes.
and that disturbs me.
Disturbance noted. I would recommend stepping away from the keyboard and getting some sunshine.
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I mean this entire diatribe has to be the hotest of hot takes.
But how else is he supposed to segue into some arcane trivia about a completely unrelated show?
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I mean this entire diatribe has to be the hotest of hot takes.
But how else is he supposed to segue into some arcane trivia about a completely unrelated show?
Full disclosure - I toned down from 'diatribe' as it was unfair to true diatribes
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I haven't seen much of the current run lately, but I've noticed that the contestants are now given hand mikes, and that disturbs me. Has Wayne Brady gotten too lazy to use his own mike to talk to the contestants? Is it some stupid covid thing? For me, it takes away the legitimacy of the contestants.
Why? What is less legitimate about contestants if Wayne uses a clip mike instead of some other kind?
I suppose by holding a hand mike, it would restrict a very excitable contestant from getting too close to Wayne.
Why? How?
However, there's also a chance of injury to the host, if anyone ever saw that episode of Family Challenge where Ray Combs lets a little girl hold his hand mike. She had to figure out a puzzle, and she got so excited, she threw back the microphone, hitting Ray right in the forehead. Ray shows his bleeding forehead to the cameras, and later quips he should've listened to Bob Barker's advice to NEVER let the contestant have the microphone.
What does this have to do with anything?
Matt, do you understand that this sort of thing makes you sound unhinged or a complete nimrod? Why a certain host uses a particular microphone might be as easy as "that's what he prefers" or "it is the best one for the task". The fact that you're impugning Wayne as a host puts you in a bad light. (As much as I don't like what the show has become with Wayne at the helm. I can respect the fact that he has had the job that long, and is an accomplished performer elsewhere.)
Is there a voice somewhere inside saying "this might go badly for me?" because you have an innate ability to step after rake after rake around these parts and never take the step back to understand why things play out the same way over and ofver.
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Clearly it’s because LMAD is a talk show.
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Just in time for the Elite Eight, I am making a bracket so people can vote for their favorite Matt Kaiser GSF post.
/The winner, however, won’t be one shining moment.
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Just in time for the Elite Eight, I am making a bracket so people can vote for their favorite Matt Kaiser GSF post.
Actually, it would be the Delete Eight.
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/The winner, however, won’t be one shining moment.
The mouse is clicked
And there you are
You're typing for your life
You're a forum star
And all the years
No one knows
Just how bad you look
But now it shows...
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I know I’m kicking a hornets nest here, but how does a contestant getting their own mic hurt the legitimacy? I will admit the social distancing looks a bit odd in 2024 but maybe the crew decided the average viewer wouldn’t notice or care because it’s not a big deal (no pun intended).
Giving each contestant a lav mic would be time consuming because of all the stopdowns necessary. Mic’g them in advance kills any spontaneity, so just do what they’re doing now.
I mean this with all sincerity, Matt. Where do you get these ideas? Something like this would cross my mind for about three seconds and then I move on with my life.
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I know I’m kicking a hornets nest here, but how does a contestant getting their own mic hurt the legitimacy? I will admit the social distancing looks a bit odd in 2024 but maybe the crew decided the average viewer wouldn’t notice or care because it’s not a big deal (no pun intended).
I had commented about it at the start of the season (https://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,35135.msg407663.html#msg407663) and mostly chalked it up to there being more people. It's one thing to wire up a couple dozen people (as we've seen in various DOND permutations), it's another to do it for 100+.
This was likely the most efficient solution, especially since Chris Ahearn was doing already doing admin on the floor as it was.
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Okay, let me try to explain things... apparently some on here are misinterpreting what I am trying to say...
There was NOTHING wrong with Wayne using his mike to talk to the contestants. Why change that?! Is Wayne more afraid of being hurt? Is it a covid thing? The hand mike is a shield. As long as the contestant's hands are on the mike, they cannot be waving around or acting crazy if they feel they need to, and they cannot hurt Wayne. (Unless they accidentally throw the mike out of their hands in excitement, which was my poorly stated point recalling what happened to Ray Combs on Family Challenge.)
To me, it looks like the contestants act more like performers with the hand mikes. That's what I meant by legitimacy. Call me old fashioned... (everyone in this group says in unison "You're OLD FASHIONED!") but I want contestants that are real people, and not ones that look too comfortable holding a hand mike.
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Okay, let me try to explain things... apparently some on here are misinterpreting what I am trying to say...
I'll be charitable and take one on the chin here. The best thing you could do to excise yourself from this position is...
and that disturbs me.
Explain why you feel this way
Has Wayne Brady gotten too lazy to use his own mike to talk to the contestants? Is it some stupid covid thing? For me, it takes away the legitimacy of the contestants.
Explain why you feel this way
If you go through this exercise, I hope you'll see why you're getting the reaction to your posts that you're getting. Or maybe help us understand where you're coming from and build some support for your positioning. Blaming your readers for being frustrated with unsupported and quite inflamatory statements is not helping your cause.
BTW - the response you gave was semi-rational, but it didn't address either of the two statements above that folks are reacting to
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Okay, let me try to explain things... apparently some on here are misinterpreting what I am trying to say...
There was NOTHING wrong with Wayne using his mike to talk to the contestants. Why change that?! Is Wayne more afraid of being hurt? Is it a covid thing? The hand mike is a shield. As long as the contestant's hands are on the mike, they cannot be waving around or acting crazy if they feel they need to, and they cannot hurt Wayne. (Unless they accidentally throw the mike out of their hands in excitement, which was my poorly stated point recalling what happened to Ray Combs on Family Challenge.)
To me, it looks like the contestants act more like performers with the hand mikes. That's what I meant by legitimacy. Call me old fashioned... (everyone in this group says in unison "You're OLD FASHIONED!") but I want contestants that are real people, and not ones that look too comfortable holding a hand mike.
I went through a couple clips earlier to see how much interaction happens. I was kinda surprised that no one hugged or dapped up Wayne after winning, but I figured it’s just ingrained in our heads to have minimal contact. The new normal. Me personally, my brain still does a quick hesitation when I decide whether to shake someone’s hand or fist bump. I don’t think contestants look artificial or anything, and in all fairness you have to have a little personality to be on these shows so that might explain why they look so comfortable. I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.
I’ll admit it threw me for a loop to see J! contestants hug and/or shake hands after recent matches.
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There's actually a discussion to be had here, but it's being clouded by jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions (which is what's prompting the backlash).
The surface-level answer of "Why are the contestants being given hand microphones?" is "Because of the staging." In about 90% of the deals, the contestants are standing on their own ovals while Wayne is standing on the logo at center stage with a shin-high wall separating him from the traders. He is out of arm's length of the contestants. He can't reach them with his microphone without some awkward stretching. (The remainder of the time -- in deals with three contestants and the Big Deal at the end -- Wayne shares the center-stage space with a contestant, but they always stand in separate halves of the big oval, still more than arm's length away.)
Why are the contestants now being given hand microphones this season when in prior seasons with the same staging, they wore lavalier microphones? Because this season, more people were added to the audience, and it's no longer practical to place lavalier microphones on all of the potential traders.*
The question becomes why, even though more people have been added to the audience, the show is still implementing staging procedures inspired by the prior seasons' COVID restrictions. (You'll note that contestants still aren't handed money and that Jonathan is still using the reacher/grabber to return dice to the contestant in dice-rolling games.) The best that fans can do for that question is speculate.
*Last season demonstrated the limit of how many lavalier microphones the show was willing to use. You could see that in each "pod," usually only one of the audience members was wearing a microphone -- the audience member who had a chance of being selected as a contestant. The other person(s) in the pod was/were effectively there for support. Once in a while, Wayne would invite the other person down to join the contestant, at which point they would be given a hand microphone so they could be heard.
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Do they have boom mics?
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The question becomes why, even though more people have been added to the audience, the show is still implementing staging procedures inspired by the prior seasons' COVID restrictions. (You'll note that contestants still aren't handed money and that Jonathan is still using the reacher/grabber to return dice to the contestant in dice-rolling games.) The best that fans can do for that question is speculate.
My guess is inertia. They've more or less shot the show this way for 3 years and have the "playbook" ingrained. It makes little sense to overhaul how the show is made just because there were more people, especially if extra time and attention needed to be spent during the off-season on getting Price to Glendale.
How many design choices throughout history have been based on "this was what we did before, so this is what we're doing now?"
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I'm going to try to steer this convo to a legit q....and heaven forbid - have the same curiousity as Matt.
I have the show in the background while i'm still on TV (4-11am, fox61.com . do join us!), and the look does not look right. Why can't the contesti be next to Wayne, and have him hold a hand mic? The distance is ....odd. You may as well put the contesti behind a podium with a mic attached to it.
Is there a reason? Or just because it just is?
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Matt, do you understand that this sort of thing makes you sound unhinged or a complete nimrod?
Porque no los dos?
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The question becomes why, even though more people have been added to the audience, the show is still implementing staging procedures inspired by the prior seasons' COVID restrictions. (You'll note that contestants still aren't handed money and that Jonathan is still using the reacher/grabber to return dice to the contestant in dice-rolling games.) The best that fans can do for that question is speculate.
My guess is inertia. They've more or less shot the show this way for 3 years and have the "playbook" ingrained. It makes little sense to overhaul how the show is made just because there were more people, especially if extra time and attention needed to be spent during the off-season on getting Price to Glendale.
How many design choices throughout history have been based on "this was what we did before, so this is what we're doing now?"
Also...COVID converted a lot of people into germophobes. I know some people who still, to this day, carry santiizer, don masks and the like.
At the end of the day, if these procedures keep your talent comfortable and healthy enough to mitigate stopdowns, by all means, keep the playbook as is.
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Also...COVID converted a lot of people into germophobes.
A disease that a significant portion of the country still refuses to acknowledge the impact of that also carries the risk of semi-permanent side effects? Can't imagine why.
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Also...COVID converted a lot of people into germophobes.
A disease that a significant portion of the country still refuses to acknowledge the impact of that also carries the risk of semi-permanent side effects? Can't imagine why.
I was waiting for someone else to say it. The pandemic isn't over.
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Hollywood's COVID protocols ended in early May 2023, IIRC, and I believe LMaD started taping around that time or slightly beforehand. It was probably easier for them to choose this setup as a solution and stick with it for continuity purposes for the entire season.
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Also...COVID converted a lot of people into germophobes.
A disease that a significant portion of the country still refuses to acknowledge the impact of that also carries the risk of semi-permanent side effects? Can't imagine why.
I was waiting for someone else to say it. The pandemic isn't over.
Oh let me be clear- I'm in full agreement with you both. The germophobe comment was meant as fact, not as an insult towards people who choose to maintain their vigilance.
Even past COVID, I'm sure people in the crowd sometimes do things during tape breaks that would make me not want to handle any money I've already handed them.