MINUTE TO WIN IT: or Two…or Three!

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Studio City, CA – Filming for the NBC import of “The Cube”, called “Minute to Win It” with host from Food Network fame, Guy Fieri began on Friday in Studio City.

NBC introduces food host Guy Fieri to the masses. Possibly another show debacle for the network.

The show introduced a set of challenges for it’s contestants that involve using everyday household objects and making complicated stunts with them. It’s almost like Nickelodeon’s “Double Dare” but without the extreme messiness!

The obvious advantage of using everyday items is the show saves tons in production costs especially when the game play takes place directly on the stage with very few props.

Each contestant must complete a series of ten tasks to be completed in one minute or less to win the grand money prize of $1 million. In pursuant of that, the lower money levels that can be obtained are: $1,000; $2.500; $5,000; $10,000; $50,000; $75,000; $125,000; $250,000; $500,000. If $50,000 is won, the contestant keeps that if they fail at tasks after that. If they lose before earning $50,000, they walk away with nothing.

Some tasks that were given to game competitors on Friday’s show included the following: Pulling tissues out of a box with one hand; hitting three soda cans off of another one with a ball of yarn; sucking M&Ms candy up with a drinking straw and placing them atop other straws; riding a bath rug around an obstacle of bath instruments one of which was a toilette plunger; pulling-up M&Ms candy placed on top of a pencil with two strings; and one contestant’s feat was to move cookies into her mouth using only her face muscles.

Rules of challenges are not clearly stated by Fieri, or the announcer. There is a chance the show will add some narration in post production later.

Players get multiple chances if they fail a task. But, only two and they’re called “lives” which represent doppelgangers of there own selves. An exception was made when one contestant could not complete the first task. After missing it the first time, the director of the show stated that they were going to give her a “mulligan” due to nerves. When the contestant failed it a second time. Guess what? Production stopped the show, cleared the stage. Then re-started the whole show over again from the very beginning with a new first task for the player. Really? Did executive producer Mark Burnett leave the set of “Our Little Genius” and go straight onto this one? No game show Standards & Practices in sight, and a “game show” lets a contestant re-start their game.

“Minute to Win It” openly states that every contestant on the show is given the challenges ahead of time and are allowed to practice them at home. I really lost interest at that point. It’s not fun watching contestants re-do something that they’ve already done a number of times at home, even if they still fail the task on-stage.

During day one of filming, there was no explanation given to why contestants practice at home. One possibility might be due to the fact that contestants are given only two lives compared to nine lives given on “The Cube”. Then, why not just add more lives?

With the NBC Pubic Relations Department on a walk-out due to the Conan O’Brien upheaval, NBC really can’t afford another show controversy.

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!

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