The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: chris319 on October 09, 2025, 02:23:51 PM
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Which type of show do you prefer to watch: one where the contestants are hyperactive or one where the contestants are not.
Example of the former category: the current implementation of LMAD. Example of the latter category: Concentration, LMAD 1975.
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I like shows where reactions are natural and done in one take. So it depends on the show.
You bring up LMAD: Monty vs. Wayne. There were naturally hyperactive traders along with more subdued traders back then. On the current version (as well as TPIR), it seems like most traders not only need to be hyperactive, but something else they must demonstrate (singing, dancing on LMAD -- Somersaults or T-Shirts that you wouldn't wear anytime else, except the day of the taping on TPIR)
Another either-or was Dawson's Feud: Early or Later Families. Not neccessarily the level of hyperness, but by the end of the original and network runs, when every family had a "gift" or municipal proclamation to give Richard was a bit too much.
I don't know if the production company's contestant coordinators kept a shorter leash on contestants in New York vs. LA, but New York game shows seemed to always have more natural contestants than the Califonia-based shows.
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I don’t mind hyperactive, and those types existed back in the day. I mind when they’re over-the-top and look like aspiring actors, or the producers coach the contestants to be on 11 at all times. Not everything has to be tailor-made for YouTube content (looking at you, GSN).
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I can't take contestants, usually women, who shriek/screech/whoop at the tippy-top of their lungs. There are many of them on TPIR.
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Before this goes too far into old men grumbling at clouds, I think today's audiences have a wider spectrum of hyperactivity. In previous generations, a good chunk of your hyperactivity would come from people who would've rarely have left their town, let alone fly on a plane and go out of state to a place they've never really seen before and taking in everything is A Lot but now they're on a game show and winning a prize worth a lot of money. You still have similar situations now, but more of the audience is a bit more savvy both to the concept of California and being on a game show; their hyperactivity could be more along the lines of people who get hyped for sporting events or concerts, which is a different type of hyperactivity than the homebody who may as well have been transported to another planet.
(I'm also thinking coordinators are a little less likely to cast people who would be truly out of their depth, but that's a different conversation.)
One more relevant anecdote: I do Name That Tune at conventions, my version being three qualifiers via audience participation and the winners of each play off in the final, and each round has further audience participation whenever contestants deadball a tune. In the first qualifier I get someone who's more excitable than normal--she has a way too-early buzz-in and doesn't do much after that, but nothing else too noteworthy and the game goes on as normal. During the final, however, this person starts going wild whenever one specific finalist named Addison (possibly from the excitable lady's heat?) gets a tune right. Addison ends up running away with the game, so our excitable lady has plenty of opportunities to be excited, and I find each successive instance to be increasingly funny. I make a couple jokes and try other ways to not corpse as I try to play the final round out. About three tunes from the end there's a deadball and our excitable lady gets a chance to jump in; she gets it and I reply with the most excited "YES!" I might have ever exclaimed. Once the game is over and credits roll, I go over to personally thank this lady for coming because she was delightful and made the entire show for me.
tl;dr I'm not sure how I feel about watching hyperactive contestants, but I absolutely love hosting hyperactive contestants.
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I can't take contestants, usually women, who shriek/screech/whoop at the tippy-top of their lungs. There are many of them on TPIR.
I agree - it's gone way overboard.
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I enjoy seeing excitable contestants on shows that are normally staid, like Jeopardy. I also like seeing calmer contestants on shows that are usually high-energy, like Price or LMAD.
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I enjoy seeing excitable contestants on shows that are normally staid, like Jeopardy. I also like seeing calmer contestants on shows that are usually high-energy, like Price or LMAD.
Thing is, LMAD does re-shoots if they are not satisfied with the contestants reaction to winning, losing, or proclaiming they're "going for the Big Deal". It's why Wayne will almost always say "say it loud and proud" when he asks at the end. Drew makes the contestants on TPIR to stand in the front of their prize when they win, even if it's a trip.
Like Brandon, I don't mind hyperactivity (I'm a long term PYL fan, in fact), but there's a LOT of forced excitement on these shows that makes them come across as phony.
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What annoys me are people who dance their way down to contestants' row on TPiR. It's okay to be excited but it feels like dancing down just wastes time.
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I'm not a fan of today's contestants; they all look like out-of-work actors who were coached on how to be overly caffeinated game show contestants. It just makes the show feel fake.
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What annoys me are people who dance their way down to contestants' row on TPiR. It's okay to be excited but it feels like dancing down just wastes time.
I feel the same way about people who high-five everyone on their way down to the stage. I also have a dislike for really "over-the-top" contestants and really long sob stories. It's why I stopped watching DOND and The Wall.
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What annoys me are people who dance their way down to contestants' row on TPiR. It's okay to be excited but it feels like dancing down just wastes time.
I feel the same way about people who high-five everyone on their way down to the stage. I also have a dislike for really "over-the-top" contestants and really long sob stories. It's why I stopped watching DOND and The Wall.
Same goes for the paid audiences, who hoot, chant and holler and do standing ovations for every little thing. Yes, they are, in a sense, doing "stupid human tricks" to earn their reward (aka their daily stipend).
For shows that overdo audience shots, or include them on the set, I'd much rather watch a show shot without an audience and have someone who knows how to use canned audience reactions...and when.
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For shows that overdo audience shots, or include them on the set, I'd much rather watch a show shot without an audience and have someone who knows how to use canned audience reactions...and when.
Same. The one thing I liked about the “Covid season” of shows was how relatively quiet they were. You had canned applause but the shows didn’t miss a beat. I don’t understand some producers’ obsession with trying to make the audience another member of the show. It doesn’t add anything IMO and just feels forced. Name That Tune and to an extent Password are damn near unwatchable for me.
EDIT: changed a few words.
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Watching Price just now, a contestant called on down took her sweet slow time--dancing, stopping, dancing more, stopping, a high five or two, then what appeared to be a brief chat with an audience member, before finishing her shimmy/dance to Contestant's Row. 34 seconds later, Drew tosses to George for the next IUFB.
This may not be what contestant coordinators on these shows want to hear, but as I tell my students, most of whom are on one of the best HS football teams in Ohio (truth, not biased exaggeration), pretend like you have done this before. Don't be a spectacle.
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Watching Price just now, a contestant called on down took her sweet slow time--dancing, stopping, dancing more, stopping, a high five or two, then what appeared to be a brief chat with an audience member, before finishing her shimmy/dance to Contestant's Row. 34 seconds later, Drew tosses to George for the next IUFB.
This may not be what contestant coordinators on these shows want to hear, but as I tell my students, most of whom are on one of the best HS football teams in Ohio (truth, not biased exaggeration), pretend like you have done this before. Don't be a spectacle.
Having attended multiple Price tapings recently, the producers encourage said wacky come on downs.
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Watching Price just now, a contestant called on down took her sweet slow time--dancing, stopping, dancing more, stopping, a high five or two, then what appeared to be a brief chat with an audience member, before finishing her shimmy/dance to Contestant's Row. 34 seconds later, Drew tosses to George for the next IUFB.
This may not be what contestant coordinators on these shows want to hear, but as I tell my students, most of whom are on one of the best HS football teams in Ohio (truth, not biased exaggeration), pretend like you have done this before. Don't be a spectacle.
Having attended multiple Price tapings recently, the producers encourage said wacky come on downs.
One wonders if this will change under John Quinn.
I doubt it will.
Why wasn't the 34-second COD edited out?
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This season's new pre-taping routine, a mix of video and chat from the contestant producers, specifically encourages people to "do whatever you want" as opposed to last year's video with George Gray sarcastically requesting decorum followed by a montage of particularly energetic CODs.
How much time they let people have for CODs depends on how much time they have for the rest of the show. I was at a show last season that had a very long one that was edited down to about 10-15 seconds. On some episodes it kind of feels like people reach the aisle and then suddenly appear in Contestants' Row.
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What do we mean by hyperactive? A show like The New Treasure Hunt doesn't work without hyperactive contestants, but those contestants' hyperactivity was usually genuine.
In the banner year of The Price Is Right that was 1978, there were many hyperactive women contestants who went hysterical the moment their names were called but still could hold it together enough to place a One Bid in two seconds and smart enough to know 45 packages of Certs would win you the Grocery Game instantly. I like that kind of genuine hyperactivity. I don't want it in all Price contestants, but in some it can be entertaining. Now that they're handing out the soda pop and snacks before the tapings to get peoples' sugar levels up and encouraging them to be a wacky as can be, it's not genuine (or entertaining).
Coming on nearly 70 years after the quiz show scandals, I think we're circling back to the same problem: Producers want to engineer the excitement. Since the games cannot be fixed, they're trying to fix the contestants to produce a certain type of personality. If it doesn't show in the first take, then do all the pick-ups you want; and this is problematic. I would argue a significant element in what makes a game show great is the same way watching any competition can be engaging: the human element. If it's fake, then it's not enjoyable.
I'm sure there are several here who will quickly point out that, fake excitement or not, the product is selling and the people continue to consume it. I'm not about to say that's a good thing.
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How about Jim Tracy, the contestant in the pilot for Bill Cullen's short-lived Blankety Blanks? He can also be seen (back to camera) in the original $25,000 Pyramid sales-pitch film. He played all five days of that week with June Lockhart and William Shatner. Though he never won in the Winner's Circle, perhaps he accrued more than $1,000 for the number of games he advanced to WC.