Game show ideas.

May 29, 2005 11:30 AM

Imagine a game show involving two beautiful female hosts. One is the "nice girl" and the other the "bad girl". This is a goofy show like Distraction or Bonzai. Random contests, which are meant to be titillating to the viewer. Can you think up some contest ideas for such a show?

Part of the idea is that the "nice girl" gives out rewards and the "bad girl" gives out punishments. I need some ideas for the actual contests though. The format is somewhat up in the air.

This is just some mindless show people will watch when they're bored. Filler Television. You don't need to worry about any network standards.

Also, if you seen some crazy game show stuff on TV feel free to mention it, or if you know of some internet site that discusses this type of thing that'd be excellent.

posted by delmoi to society & culture (13 comments total)

Part of the idea is that the "nice girl" gives out rewards and the "bad girl" gives out punishments.

This is very different from my real life experience.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:58 AM on May 29, 2005

It sounds like the contests are just an excuse for the good part - the giving out of rewards and punishments. If so, why not go with the lowest common denominator of contests - trivia?

When I lived briefly in Italy in the early 90's, a friend and I used to watch this show called "Il Coppo Grosso" It was a quiz show basically but also, so much more than that. If you missed an answer you had to take off your clothes and there were also girls from the audience who came up and stripped and I think if you lost completely you had to do a nude striptease and, anyways, the show was completely wild. I don't think many people paid attention to what the actual contest was.
posted by vacapinta at 12:05 PM on May 29, 2005

Since no one wants to see rewards if they can see semi-prurient punishments, the contests should be fairly impossible to complete: peeling and eating bananas without using your hands, trombone playing, cracking eggs with body parts, etc. Spin a giant wheel that has stupid things to do attached on it and make the contestants do that. Like vapa said, it's not the contest that's the payoff. (And if the bad girl looks like the love child of Betty Page and a SuicideGirl, I will watch without even Tivoing the commercials.)
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 12:28 PM on May 29, 2005

Since no one wants to see rewards if they can see semi-prurient punishments,

Well, the idea is to have the rewards be semi-prurient as well :)
posted by delmoi at 12:46 PM on May 29, 2005

If you have ideas for rewards and punishmets, that would be helpfull as well.
posted by delmoi at 12:47 PM on May 29, 2005

Well, if I learned anything from watching Dog Eat Dog (and it certainly wasn't the answers to the dead easy trivia questions), it's that everythings more fun in a bikini.

And possibly also that you should make it rain on people as much as possible. But I might have already know that from Fear Factor.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:32 PM on May 29, 2005

How about something like this: Two contestants are pitted against each other in an inane contest (like matching cleavages or hairlines to wildly famous television starlets). They are seated over large vats of squid guts. At the bottom of each LVOSG is a key which unlocks the pair of fuzzy handcuffs that bind either the naughty girl who looks like Sasquatch or the hot girl who doesn't. The winner of the inane contest gets to wear goggles while he/she is searching for the handcuffs. Whoever finds the keys first gets jolly spankings by the unlocked girl and the loser just smells like squid.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 1:43 PM on May 29, 2005

OOO OOO!!! Combine Jacquilynn's idea with squid guts! Every contestant, including men, have to wear bikinis and then they answer questions. Whenever they get one wrong, the bad girl dumps squid guts down the front of their suits and when they get one right, they get one step closer to the grand prize: a new bathing suit. Or something. Definitely go for the ick factor though.

I find it deeply satisfying to discover the other person who admits watching Dog Eat Dog (RIP) by the way...
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 1:48 PM on May 29, 2005

You could probably work up something around the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues. I like the idea of an "Envy" round where a player tries to win stuff from another player that has been awarded in a previous round. And I like the idea of giving the player the chance of choosing whether to be "virtuous" or "sinful" with different consequences, e.g. failing in a virtuous task gives you a humiliating forfeit whereas failing in a sinful task costs you prizes. Maybe a bit too blasphemous for the US?
posted by teleskiving at 3:13 PM on May 29, 2005

You could also set up some challenges based on the "prisoners dillema" principle, especially if you have more than two contestants. If you haven't heard of it, it's a game where you are prisoners with an escape plan, and have to decide whether to betray the others by telling the guards or stick with the plan. The catch is the pay-offs. If someone narks, they get a small payoff, and everyone else who didn't nark gets a large punishment. If no-one narks, then everyone gets a massive reward (freedom). Clearly the winning strategy is for no-one to nark, but that's taking a risk if you don't trust the others. If you nark, you are guarenteed to avoid punishment, but you are also guarenteed to not get the massive payoff. I think in a semi-pruient setting like this, a game based on the same risks/rules (though a more fitting scenario) would be awesome :)
posted by -harlequin- at 6:53 PM on May 29, 2005

-harlequin-, I believe that concept has been used already in the final round of the show Friend or Foe. Usually both people end up screwing themselves out of the money, and I laugh and laugh, especially since they get a short length of time before making their decision in which to persuade each other they are entirely trustworthy.

To answer the posted question, I really like what teleskiving came up with; you may have a randomly selected virtue and its corresponding vice, and the contestant would get to pick which one would guide the round. I doubt that Temperance would get much play, though, unless it was made a very attractive proposition somehow. Maybe it could guarantee a large prize at the end of the show if the contestant avoided winning more than a certain amount each round. Damn, I really want to work this all out now.
posted by jenovus at 10:13 PM on May 29, 2005

Pride/Humility: For Humility, undergo a degrading forfeit in exchange for a prize/reward; alternately, for Pride, force the other person to perform the forfeit, although the second person then gets the prize.

Wrath/Meekness: For Meekness, withstand some form of abuse/irritation for a set length of time, win prize(s). For Wrath, perform some form of irritation/abuse on the other contestant; if the victim cracks, the abuser gets the prize, otherwise the victim wins. Could be, um, difficult to regulate.

Charity/Envy: Some sort of Pascal's Wager problem, as posed above, because those are always fun to watch. The idea is mutual benefit vs. dicking the other person over. Or maybe a shifting of wealth, in the hopes that the other contestant will not be able to maintain it (harsher penalties for higher-scoring contestants)?

Chastity/Lust: No network standards, eh? Then I doubt you'd need my help on this one. (Forfeit prize money to buy an, ahem, date with attractive host/model/stand-in? Or maybe just a dirty make-out on TV.)

Temperance/Gluttony: Along the lines of what I said above; for Gluttony, maybe a chance to win a lot of small prizes at once, but the contestant has to win them all or gets nothing; for Temperance, a guaranteed bonus if the contestant avoids winning over a certain amount (combined with a retooled Charity round, could be a deadly combination!).

Zeal/Sloth: Contestant has option to perform some difficult and arduous task (has to be pretty damn tough and/or tiring). Forfeit some prize(s) to avoid doing so, or attempt the task for a reward.

Generosity/Greed: Difficult to differentiate from Envy. Either give away a large portion of one's accumulated winnings, or be forced to risk it all for a certain percentage more?

I'm afraid I'm pretty well tapped at this point, so if you can get anything from all this, great. If not, sorry to waste space. : P
posted by jenovus at 10:44 PM on May 29, 2005

Wow, jenovus - that's a game show!
posted by teleskiving at 1:08 AM on May 30, 2005