The world of gaming television has been on a downward spiral pretty much as long as I've been alive. Granted, there are a few game shows that have stood the test of time: Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and perhaps even Who Wants to be a Millionaire (at least, when Regis was there). All other hype aside, these shows require their contestants to know something, and I applaud that.
In the past year, I ran across Deal or No Deal, which I considered to be the all-time low of ridiculously idiotic game shows.
But I was wrong, my friends. Yes, I was wrong. A new low has been achieved in Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Have you guys seen this show? It's unbelievable!
Adult contestants have to answer basic questions from 1st through 5th grade curriculum. They get two "cheats" and one "peak," which, as far as I can tell, allows them to ask the 5th grade panel of kids what the answer is or have their partner kid's answer count for them. AND THEY CAN WIN UP TO ONE MILLION DOLLARS DOING THIS.
By answering such questions as, "If you mix equal amounts of red and yellow paint, what color do you get?" and "How many sides does a trapezoid have?" And the excitement--oh, the excitement, when the contestant gets an answer right! It's unbelievable. Yay for me! I'm an idiot with a moronically low comprehension for basic facts and concepts! But I'm on television winning an outrageous amount of money that people ten millions times smarter than me have no chance of winning because they're too intelligent to be picked as a contestant for this retarded show!
And if the contestant loses or drops out? She keeps her money but has to face the camera and say, "I'm not smarter than a fifth grader."
Am I the only person completely stupified by this insanity?
6 comments:
Now, Jana, I think this show is hilarious! Especially since the first contestant, a history teacher who attended law school, couldn't answer the question of "Who was the first president to be impeached?" I laughed through the whole episode!
You have *got* to be kidding! They show this on t.v.?! And people win *money* for this?!? I knew there was a reason all I watch on t.v. are dvd's, video games and Animal Planet!
My quarrel is different -- These are not questions that measure "smartness," but rather questions that measure basic knowledge. While this is basic knowledge that a school-child may use daily, many adults haven't dug it up in about twenty years. So, really, it's a sort of trivia game -- and whether or not you know who was the first president to be impeached has nothing whatsoever to do with how smart you are.
Hmm, sometimes I don´t miss American culture at all. People here don´t know anything about stuff like that, and they don´t care, and they don´t go on tv to show other people what they don´t know. Then again, no one´s offering them a million dollars, either. I´m sure the ecua-version would include scantily-clad women with implants, though. :)
What I find truly gruesome about this is that really smart people, whose business it is to know about such things, think that enough people will watch this -- dreck? -- that they can give away millions, pay more money in production costs, and sell enough commercials to make it all back and then some.
Some trivia should be common knowledge! Kind of like when someone on the street asks you who the president is, you should know. But, as Jay Leno has proved to us over again (if we should care to watch), a lot of people don't know.
It physically hurts me that it is drivel like this that earns our attention (and thereby, our money). Yes, it's funny--it's hilarious--but it's only funny because it is so unthinkably idiotic.
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