‘Deal or No Deal’ plays the celebrity card
EPY QUIZON is a lively treat on the game show.
MANILA, Philippines—The return of “Deal or No Deal” adds the “celebrity card” to the game show’s plus factors, by replacing the production’s bevy of lissome, attaché-case bearing women with 20 stars and starlets, each of whom could also become a player in the course of a telecasting month.
Seems to work
We caught the first few telecasts of the refurbished show, and can report that the new viewing gambit appears to work, especially when some of the featured celebrities are lively and colorful. That’s definitely more interesting than just watching a generic platoon of pretty girls behaving like obedient clones, or peas in a pod.
However, the new formula also exposes the show and its viewers to the tiresome antics of celebrities who hang on to the bitter end despite their failing fortunes, just to squeeze all of the on-cam time they can get, to bolster their less-than eventful careers.
Well, all we can do on such dogged and churlish occasions is to hope that the next featured celeb will be a livelier treat like Epy Quizon and Melanie Marquez in the current batch promise to be.
While the show’s new edition is a better “Deal” than its previous incarnation, we still can’t help observing that its format is basically a formula for diminishing returns in terms of genuine interest value and excitement.
That’s because, after all of the players’ pleas and prayers for low scores that will make the show’s resident Banker offer really big financial enticements, it’s really all a matter of luck, pure and simple.
Yes, a player can “entertainingly” agonize and prattle on and on, but there’s little he can do to change the outcome of his game.
Key factor
That’s why even really smart players have ended up, not as millionaires, but as “Piso-naryos,” “winning” only a peso or a little more for their pains, to their (happily temporary) ignominy!
As we keep watching “Deal,” this limitation becomes increasingly obvious, so the game show’s new celebrity factor is bound to be a plus, but only when the day’s celebrity player knows how to delight and involve viewers.
This makes the choice of the right kind of star or starlet a key factor in the latest edition’s hopes for success.
Surveying the current crop of 20, we can sense that only about half of them will be truly effective in the “delight and involvement” task at hand, while the rest will be more sluggish and erratic, and call too much attention to themselves, for sheer attention’s sake.
Cynical sort
All the more reason, therefore, for the production’s talent casters to do a better job in choosing the right celebrity players.
When it comes to delighting viewers, it doesn’t necessarily follow that comedians can be relied on to keep the giggles and laughs coming, since some of our so-called comics are of the off-putting sour and cynical sort.
“Slapstick” comedians are also to be avoided, since they rely too much on physical humor, which becomes really old after the third push, slap or mugging reaction.
What about sexy starlets? They’re good eye candy, but in many cases, their abundant physical charms soon turn—redundant.
Instead, the show should go for feisty stars with strong opinions and the ability to “colorfully” express them. “Reliable” stars who come to mind include Nikki Valdez, Edu Manzano, Jericho Rosales, Janice de Belen, Rico J. Puno, Tirso Cruz III, Regine Velasquez, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Mitch Valdes, Nikki Ross, Mel Villena and Arnell Ignacio.
To be sure, game show host Luis Manzano can be relied on to mitigate the damage done even by the worst and most self-centered player, but the best guests would definitely help—a lot!
