From his Food Network fame, celebrity chef Guy Fieri is best known for seeking out those hidden diamonds that are good-eating restaurants in obscure locations. During his conference phone call this past Wednesday, Fieri was located at Santa Rosa for his “Diners, Drive-in and Dives” show. A location that the show has never visited in its four year run.

Fieri’s second job is an unconventional one for a chef. He also serves as ringleader/host on an NBC game show called “Minute to Win It” where contestants are forced to beat challenges involving food and household items. When asked by pop culture passionistas if game show hosting was something he always wanted to do, Fieri responded by noting the irony of the holiday episodes of “Minute to Win It” that were filmed at the same studio as “The Gong Show”. The show had been a favorite of his. He stated as well as “The Family Feud”. He mentioned his favorite game show hosts as Chuck Barris, Richard Dawson and Wink Martindale. “It was too coincidental that I would be at the same stage as the Gong Show”, said Fieri.

As for the holiday-themed episodes, Fieri stated that when he returned to the set he thought “just when I think they’ve gone the gambit of new games, they come up with more. There are some old favorites, but there are definitely some new ones”.

Our HOLLYWOOD JUNKET reporter was on the set for two of the holiday “Minute to Win It” episodes. Here’s a first look at some of the holiday games that will need to be conquered by “Minute to Win It” contestants:

HOLIDAY GAMES:
Snowball Fight, Holiday Hustle, Holiday Kiss, Face the Gingerbread Man (Same as Face the Cookie), Jingle Bells, Deck the Balls, Lolly Pop, Christmas in the Balance.

More games include: Wreath Madness – players have to place a wreath on the top of their head and walk with it;
Caddystack– must stack three golf balls on top of each other; Merry Fishmas– players have to use candy canes as fishing hooks and hook four candy canes on top of each other; Jingle Box – similar to Junk in the Trunk. A player must shake all ping pong balls out of a tissue box that is strapped to the back of their waist. Deer Nose Dive – similar to Nose Dive. Players must stick ping-pong balls to nose with Vaseline. One $50,000 holiday challenge was Christmas Nutstacker.

Our reporter’s favorite new game was called Christmas Jingle. In this game, contestants have to arrange eight drinking glasses filled at different levels of water inside the glass in an order that plays the notes of the song “Jingle Bells” when tapping on the glass with a spoon.

The special themed holiday shows will also have bonuses for players to help their games. They are: one extra life, ten extra seconds, and $3 million as the top prize instead of $1 million. The show is also offering a flat screen television.

We asked Fieri if he has any ideas for changes in the game play that would increase contestants’ chances of obtaining the show’s regular top prize of $1 million. Fieri stated that he’d like to allow contestants to see their blueprint (of the next challenge) BEFORE they choose to continue in the game or not, or allowing them to throw-out a blue print if they didn’t like it. Fieri also joked that it would be fun to be able to pull someone out of the audience to let him or her play a challenge for the contestant.

The holiday games began Tuesday, December 7th, at 8/7 c and more episodes on December 14th and 21st on NBC.
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“Minute to Win It” open call auditions will be held December 4th in Detroit, and December 11th in New York and Miami. For more information visit: nbc.com/casting/#minute.