MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 4, 2021 20:26:33 GMT -5
Current headlines suggest that Mike Richards is going to be the next permanent host of Jeopardy!, just one season after he replaced Harry Friedman as executive producer on both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
Most of us know that Wheel wasn't exactly in good standing in the last few years under Harry. The show was running on autopilot and pretty much slipped under the radar. In 2017, Wheel began slipping to a distant third in the syndicated game show ratings behind Family Feud and J!, and unlike those shows, Wheel didn't really have any special events or anything else to make it really stand out. The only times Wheel managed to show some relevance from 2015-20 was the occasional one-letter solve, crazy missolve, or Pat Sajak needing emergency surgery and temporarily being replaced by Vanna White. In Mike Richards' first year alone, Wheel was starting to gain traction that it hadn't seen in years. It finally made its primetime debut, managed to bring several notable wins after a very dry past few seasons, and even gave away a house.
If Mike Richards becomes J! host, what do you think this would mean for Wheel? Harry Friedman received much more notoriety and recognition for producing Jeopardy! than Wheel, especially in his last few years, but he didn't have any reason to be focused on one show more than the other. If Mike is producing two shows, but only hosts one, could this mean that Wheel will once again be neglected while the other show gets 90% of the spotlight? Mike will have no choice but to put more focus on the show that he actually hosts and treat Wheel, and the other shows he works on, like the current iteration of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, as a side project. Could Mike be forced to step down from Wheel after just one year on the job, or could it mean another few years of Wheel running on autopilot with its lukewarm reputation as "the dumb people show that comes on before/after Jeopardy! that nobody cares about"?
I have seen several game show fans say that Mike's hosting style on J! was better suited for Wheel, and that he should be Pat's successor instead of Alex's. Likewise, I have seen other fans theorize that Wheel won't see any major shake-ups until Pat and Vanna leave, especially since Pat is now a consulting producer. Can Mike still do a decent job of keeping Wheel relevant even when he has to focus more on the show next door?
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Post by usedletterboard on Aug 4, 2021 20:35:38 GMT -5
I feel like becoming host of one of the two shows was always in the cards for him by TPTB when they first announced him as executive producer. Realistically, how many people are born-and-bred game show hosts these days? His hosting style, to me, is without a doubt more Wheel than J!, though I could see him easing into the role either way. If the news is true, I'm not entirely sure that he will continue in his role as EP for either show.
Also, feel free to remove my post sharing this news in the Off Topic section.
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Post by jjc927 on Aug 4, 2021 21:54:26 GMT -5
If Mike does indeed become the Jeopardy host I'm not sure I could see him still EPing Wheel as well. I know he's EPed and hosted separate shows at the same time before, but at the same time I'm sure there's someone who can fill the role on Wheel who's been there for a while and deserves the chance.
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NopeNoWay
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Post by NopeNoWay on Aug 4, 2021 21:56:48 GMT -5
I would like to read and see assurances from Sony and Mike Richards that they will not sacrifice Wheel for Jeopardy. I know that's not a popular opinion in game show circles; people think it's crazytalk that J! never takes away from Wheel. But anyone who follows the media for both shows and follows what people have theorized here and in social media circles(harder puzzles in the bonus round when they have to payout high dollar earners like Holtzhauer that bust the budget for both shows) can tell you that it's nonsense. J! has been obviously favored by Columbia/Sony since the day Harry Friedman took over EP duties. There is a bias.
If Mike Richards gets the J! job, I would worry that once Pat/Vanna ride off into the sunset, CMV/Sony would convince station groups to bench Wheel for one season in placement of doublerun Jeopardy and the season after either a.) shop Wheel as a doublerun hour in early access syndication[not competing with J! due to a timeslot clause] or b.) shop Wheel to networks for their daytime lineup or primetime specials. Which at that point, who know if they would scale back the budget or dollar amounts on the Wheel or radically change the format.
I would be a tad concerned about what Mike at J! would mean. There is also the distinct possibility that this may end up being an Ann Curry-style PR disaster(people are already hashing over those harassment suits at Price is Right on social media) and they'll need Wheel to anchor the ship through a PR crisis... while getting Rodney Dangerfield level respect for doing so.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 4, 2021 22:39:26 GMT -5
If Mike Richards gets the J! job, I would worry that once Pat/Vanna ride off into the sunset, CMV/Sony would convince station groups to bench Wheel for one season in placement of doublerun Jeopardy... That will never happen. Syndies don't go off air for one season and then come back (Harrison Millionaire was a weird exception Disney pulled out of nowhere when Cops was pulled off the airwaves ASAP), and changing a syndie's time slot every season will just lead to dismal ratings. Remember that a lot of Central and Mountain markets already double-run J! in the afternoon. The worst I see happening, and it definitely wouldn't happen anytime soon, is that Wheel gets cancelled and the ABC O&O's add 7:00 newscasts and slide J! (just one airing) to 7:30. The NBC O&O's all have 7:00 newscasts now (including WNBC which added one after the cancellation of 7:30 program All Access, with Access Hollywood moving to 7:30), with the sole exception of KNSD, which is the only one that airs WOF/J! in that hour. Remember that the network evening news programs used to air at 7:00, and the powerful duo of J!/WOF with their prime access hour mandate was a huge factor in their move to 6:30. Even then, I'd still call Wheel getting cancelled and not J! a stretch at this point. Two years ago, I'd have considered it plausible, however. Most stations wouldn't want to do a double run of anything at 7:00 and 7:30, especially with the rising prominence of 7:00 PM newscasts. When Oprah ended, guess what WABC and some of the other O&O's replaced it with? More news. |
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NopeNoWay
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Post by NopeNoWay on Aug 4, 2021 23:02:23 GMT -5
Family Feud was benched for several seasons before coming back in the 90's. That show also came back under different ownership too so that comparison is a bit unfair. I also don't see ABC O&O's giving up their strong lead-in to primetime by airing news. I think, eventually, we'll see the mighty duo split up and a Mike Richards installation at J! would be the beginning of it, IMO. The question is whether they can just split them up in a way without cannibalizing both shows
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mechamind
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Post by mechamind on Aug 6, 2021 11:12:40 GMT -5
I can see I'm not the only one who thought it was about expenses.
I guess it could work as long as Mike doesn't suffer burnout from hosting while managing both shows.
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Post by usedletterboard on Aug 6, 2021 15:08:12 GMT -5
It looks like some of Mike's past workplace behavior has been recently been thrust into the spotlight, with allegations of harassment and discrimination being reported on by multiple credible hard news and entertainment outlets including The Daily Beast, The Week, AV Club, Snopes, and The Hollywood Reporter. This could potentially call into question not only Sony's decision for a permanent host for Jeopardy!, but also Mike's standing as executive producer for both shows. Fans of both shows should keep a very close eye on this story because it has the potential to change the trajectory of the production for both Sony properties. |
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Post by jjc927 on Aug 6, 2021 15:10:43 GMT -5
He hosted shows on GSN while producing both The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal, so he has done it before. I just wonder if he would do it again this time, or appoint someone else to the position for Wheel so that person focuses just on Wheel.
The Sony saving money by giving Mike the job point is a good thought-- I'm sure they lost a good amount during the last year because of the Jeopardy and Wheel seasons getting cut short due to COVID and Jeopardy having a ratings loss and likely less ad revenue after Alex's final show, so it is possible that is in play in their decision.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 6, 2021 15:25:15 GMT -5
and Jeopardy having a ratings loss and likely less ad revenue after Alex's final show They were still higher than Wheel for most of the guest host weeks, though, so it couldn't have been that much of a loss. |
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Post by pannoni1 on Aug 8, 2021 11:54:28 GMT -5
Wheel needs to introduce new academic-themed categories like Science, European Literature (a special subcategory of TITLE), Classical Music, Ancient History, Math, and Health & Medicine so that its reputation as the "dumb folk's show" could be put to bed, in addition to having those contemporary songs/TV shows/movies that are surely lacking. Perhaps by understanding the greater diversity of categories that other show offers, Mike could send some of those this way. I'd love to see those MATH puzzles such as THE SQUARE ROOT OF SIXTY FOUR IS EIGHT, or a SCIENCE puzzle like THE CHEMICAL COMPOUND SALT IS NACL (with a lower case a that still counts as an A when buying a vowel). Many puzzles from Concentration had similar phrases as an answer, and there's no reason why these wouldn't work on Wheel.
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Post by usedletterboard on Aug 9, 2021 11:43:04 GMT -5
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 9, 2021 11:48:49 GMT -5
Control-F: "wheel"... 0 matches.
The media's already ignoring the fact that he produces Wheel, too, just like they did with Harry in the 2010's...
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 9, 2021 11:58:09 GMT -5
Wheel needs to introduce new academic-themed categories like Science, European Literature (a special subcategory of TITLE), Classical Music, Ancient History, Math, and Health & Medicine so that its reputation as the "dumb folk's show" could be put to bed, in addition to having those contemporary songs/TV shows/movies that are surely lacking. Perhaps by understanding the greater diversity of categories that other show offers, Mike could send some of those this way. I'd love to see those MATH puzzles such as THE SQUARE ROOT OF SIXTY FOUR IS EIGHT, or a SCIENCE puzzle like THE CHEMICAL COMPOUND SALT IS NACL (with a lower case a that still counts as an A when buying a vowel). Many puzzles from Concentration had similar phrases as an answer, and there's no reason why these wouldn't work on Wheel.
They had plenty of puzzles like this in the 80's and 90's. Look at all the high-culture puzzles in all the Season 13 episodes that are surfacing.
They dumbed all this down in the 2000's because people struggle with these puzzles and it makes the show look bad. One of the few puzzles like this in the early 2010's I remember was THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Event). The R's were missing and a contestant called W, apparently thinking _OMAN was WOMAN. Even the trivia bonus questions were dumbed down in their last few years. Clue/Who Is It? went from "CERVANTES' ROMANTIC IMPRACTICAL KNIGHT" to "SHE CHANGED CINDERELLA'S PUMPKIN INTO A CARRIAGE".
Pat even said on a podcast recently that they don't do puzzles like this anymore because contestants just don't know the stuff, specifically citing the "A STREETCAR NAKED DESIRE" incident, where he saw the puzzle on his card and asked Harry, "Are we sure we want to do this puzzle?"
When Merv wrote the puzzles, they could be about literally anything. After Harry took over, almost all of the puzzle writing relies on whatever theme the current week has, and a random combination of beach and travel words for Prize Puzzles, usually just picking a random puzzle from 3-10 years ago and sometimes making a small change. Phrase went from being actual proverbs and idioms to stuff like "THIS IS THE PERFECT CAMPSITE". Notice how most of the "cultural" categories have either been retired or rarely used now, and have been replaced with more uses of basic categories like What Are You Doing?, Around the House, and Food & Drink. Now that Thing has been split off into like 10 different categories, they don't have to try to come up with Titles, Quotations, etc. to avoid using Thing so much.
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Post by wipeoutman33 on Aug 9, 2021 16:07:24 GMT -5
^Even Show Biz has been significantly watered down. It’s original intent was to highlight current entertainment touchstones/phenomena. Now, most of the puzzles just describe vernacular and terminology that’s commonly used in the industry.
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Post by logicman27 on Aug 9, 2021 17:41:39 GMT -5
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Post by jjc927 on Aug 9, 2021 21:49:37 GMT -5
Control-F: "wheel"... 0 matches.
The media's already ignoring the fact that he produces Wheel, too, just like they did with Harry in the 2010's...
With the reaction to the story that Mike is in negotiations to become the permanent Jeopardy host and the resurfacing of the allegations against him while he was with Price is Right, do we want it known that he is also the Wheel EP right now? It could be for the better for Wheel that his association is largely unknown... |
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 9, 2021 22:23:01 GMT -5
^ That's a good point. I know some of the Dr. Oz boycotters did the same with Wheel just because of the association. It would be very unfortunate if J! went through what The Ellen DeGeneres Show went through last year, but her allegations were far worse, and J! is such a cemented icon by now that I'm sure it won't suffer the ratings drop that Ellen did. Wheel was hardly harmed when Pat made that "unpatriotic racists" tweet a few years ago, though I think times were a tad different back then.
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Post by usedletterboard on Aug 10, 2021 9:48:36 GMT -5
One of the things that always struck me as a strong point of Mike's is his ability to keep the shows he produces in the public consciousness, either through social media, press tours, viral moments, or some combination of these things. I'm sure you all have noticed how we're seeing a lot more official clips of J!/Wheel pop up on YouTube with some regularity these days.
Ironically, now the press he so craved has turned against him, evidently turning him into a household name in a way that works against his wishes, and possibly even against his favor of ever being an on-air talent again. It's a shame too, because he definitely has the hosting chops and I'm sure Sony had that in mind when it brought him on board last year. There is a dignified presence that is/was associated with hosting these two shows, but now elevating his visibility could be detrimental to the image of either.
I've been pleasantly surprised with how he's managed to steer the ship for both shows, particularly during a time of a major setback and transition for one of them. I can't speak to the legal outcomes of his past since that was for the system to decide, but I think it will be interesting to see how Sony decides to best weather through this situation if his image is now beyond repair. I really hope, at the very least, that he is able to continue as EP.
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Post by usedletterboard on Aug 11, 2021 11:23:12 GMT -5
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