MINUTE TO WIN IT: Food and Fieri!

Studio City, CA- Filming started yesterday for a new NBC game show called, “Minute to Win It”, originally tilted “Perfect Ten” with host Guy Fieri (“Road Show”, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”) from Food Network.

Food Network’s celebrity chef Guy Fieri hosts “Minute to Win It”.

“Minute to Win It”, a British import of “The Cube” challenges its contestants to various stunts that involve household items. The show relates its content to their popular food host Fieri by putting food into the stunts. Some food items on yesterday’s show included: M&Ms candy and cookies. A wrap-around screen behind the audience seating area projects various displays of cookies and M&Ms floating through the air. I thought I was watching “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” again!

Contestants are given two “life-lines”, so to speak that give them two chances to complete a stunt. These are called “lives”. The “lives” are represented as the contestants’ clones of themselves on a large screen on stage.

Each challenge is presented to the player via a female announcer with a British accent as the “blue-print” of the stunt is shown to them as an electronic diagram on the digital screen. This is in place of “The Body” on the British version. The player is then sent off by Fieri to attempt the stunt on the stage platform.

Two model-type young girls are the resident “game agents” who insure each contestant is set-up in their challenge properly. The entire game consists of ten separate challenges. Each contestant has only sixty-seconds to complete each task. Once they reach the $50,000 level they get to keep that money if they should loose the following challenge. If a contestant completes all ten tasks, they win $1 million.

I have to admit that I went into watching “Minute to Win It” with a fresh canvas, having never seeing “The Cube” until today. All the while, while I was witnessing the events on stage of what the production was calling a “game show” I kept feeling that there was something missing. After watching “The Cube” today, I now know what that is. It’s organization, intrigue, and brains. There is none of that in “Minute to Win It”!

I’m predicting that this show is sure to be the record-holder of the cheapest “game show” ever produced! The host is from a cable network (score!), the props are all cheap household items, and there is no contraption build on the stage (like say a big rectangular glass room). All games are played on the stage itself!

Now that NBC has to pay “The Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien a reported whopping $30 million to buy him out of his contract, I’ll also bet that the network will be happy that they saved so much money on this show!

Check-back for an exclusive sneak-peek!