BobH

For Monotunes, the words on the screen are just for the home audience, right? The actual players just hear the words? Because I probably wouldn't have gotten "Uptown Funk" if I was just hearing it. "Better eat your Wheaties" was a slogan. I think "Breakfast of Champions" is the more well known one, but that might depend on age or geography.

"Hey Crisco, quit shortening it up" is a great line. I know Jeopardy will occasionally accept an answer that's technically correct but not the one they were expecting (well, short of "three people who have never been in my kitchen"), either on the fly or with a judge's review after the next break (I think I read a description of a taping once that the breaks could be quite long if they're debating whether to reverse a decision and accept an answer). Not sure if any other game show does that. It would be exceedingly unlikely in Wheel of Fortune for an alternate answer to exactly match the number of words/letters, including all those showing and eliminated, and the category. I'd expect that "Nine" wouldn't have gotten the point for "Annie", and you have to match the answer they have. There was definitely something weird going on between Jane and David Walton. There seems to be a weird edit in his interview/plug segment that led to him giving her a hug.

Good episode. All of the games were ones I liked, including the new one Pic A Name. No one was really embarrassingly bad (a McPhee/O'Leary level), but there were a few amusing little slips to keep it entertaining. I felt a bit sorry for guy civilian, as he was pretty clearly the strongest player on his team, and came painfully close to pulling ahead at the end. if the teams had been flipped I think it would have been a runaway game. Scott Wolf was the best choice for the final round, and top celeb overall, and David Giuntoli was the best choice from his team and did a good job of mostly staying quiet until Scott hesitated. Probably could have gotten January Jones by saying "her first name is the first month" and mentioning that John Oliver is British might have helped, but the civilian played well, stayed calm and passed quickly instead of getting stuck so there was time to spare for Scott and David to remember that JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, not Lord of the Rings, and Jennifer Lawrence isn't in the Anger Games (one of those might be stupid moment of the episode). I probably wouldn't pick anyone to never come back, maybe Mary Lynn Rajskub if I had to pick someone, since some of her Take a Hint clues weren't great, and maybe cost her civilian the win.

I usually like Scott Wolf and Kate Flannery, so this could be a good episode.Not too familiar with either David, but the Show & Yell hosts seemed to be pumped for them, so hopefully they'll be good.

Decent episode, though the winning team so clearly dominated after the first round (Clue Boom, where the scoring is more down to luck than skill) that it wasn't even close. Jay Pharoah ended up being the absolute wrong choice for Where Ya Goin, which was a contrast to Justin Long who played it just about perfectly, even with some less than ideal clues. I found Trading Faces to be surprisingly hard. I was usually still trying to figure out the second name by the time the answer was given, and a few I don't think I'd have gotten at all. Winner made the same choices for the final round that I would have. Justin Long and Elisha Cuthbert did a good job working together, but that was also definitely an easier set of names than last week.

All first time guests, I think. Only really familiar with Kevin Smith among them, he can be hit or miss, but when he's on he's very entertaining. No reality TV / celebrity chef types, which is always a good sign.

I re-watched a bit and didn't realize the first time through just how bad the guy civilian was at Where Ya Goin. He had White House, Space Mountain, South Beach and Sistine Chapel and didn't get points on any of them. White House you can maybe blame Yvette equally, but Space Mountain was not a movie with The Rock, the Pope does not live in the Sistine Chapel and his clues for South Beach were awful. "Opposite of North, and where you find sand and water".

Found a site which looks at Wheel of Fortune games from recent years in depth, and it looks like the final round there averages about a 40% winning percentage.

Glad to see the podcast spin off to a standalone. I think what happened before was that Yvette and Anthony Anderson had the two best final times in the first season in separate episodes, so that rivalry was played up by putting them opposite each other in season two. I don't recall if Zach's winning time was especially good, but maybe he and Yvette have the best times among returning players this year. Tom Arnold and Sharon Stone were actually in a movie together, so that's probably why he knows she's close to the same age as him. Zach could almost certainly have won the game on Where Ya Goin if he had been as preemptive in passing as Yvette was. He could have gotten Statue of Liberty if he had a few more seconds to think about it. It would be interesting to see some stats for final rounds in various game shows. I think HGN is about 50% getting the full prize. Jeopardy is the only one I know with fans crazy enough to keep track, and checking those stats from recent seasons it looks like about 45-50% of Final Jeopardy responses are correct (though obviously sometimes that includes answers by players who have no chance of winning). When I watched Celebrity Name Game with two new episodes back-to-back I noticed that almost invariably if the first show had a winner the second would have a loser, and vice versa, so that's probably close to 50%. I'd almost think that the producers aim for a 50/50 win/lose outcome when designing the games (how much time to give, how hard to make the answers). From what I recall Price Is Right is a little different because it pits two players against each other in the finals, and it was pretty rare for both of them to lose by going over, probably balanced by the rare case where the winner is close enough to win both prize packages.

The show opening from the season debut has had clips from this and future episodes, so it was definitely filmed before that incident, which was about the only clue that could get me to pull the name.

Good game, all of the celebrities had a good attitude and were pretty good in the gameplay, and no one was overly annoying. There were a few blunders, but nothing near the level of "Pig Park". I thought all the games were pretty decent. Little Picassos I could take or leave, but the rest were enjoyable. The final round was a bit of a letdown. The civilian definitely didn't help not being able to get Anthony Hopkins, but to be fair no amount of clues short of spelling out their names could get me to guess Ariana Grande or Sienna Miller. I think the big problem wasn't the two clue givers (Zach deferring to Yvette but chiming in with some good hints when appropriate) but the fact that the civilian is the only one who can pass, so that wastes a lot of time when the clue giver has to say "you should pass it" and the civilian has to register that and actually say "pass". There was an interesting angle coming out of one of the commercials that showed a glass room above the audience with a few viewers in the front. Never noticed that before. Are those the judges, or is it some sort of production room?

Tom Arnold was on a few times in the first season. He's kind of annoyingly over-exuberant, but generally not bad at the actual games. Zachary Levi was pretty good last time around, and Yvette Nicole Brown is one of the best in both gameplay and personality. Don't know the others, I'm hopefully about the actors, but generally celebrity chef players aren't the best.

I don't think they've ever said that miming isn't allowed on How Do You Doo, and haven't ever deducted points for it. I think just about anything in there should be fair game, as long as you don't make any sound but "Doo" with your voice.

"Pig Park"? Holy heck, Kevin O'Leary should just have walked off the stage there. It would have saved him trying to give a clue for "Credit Card" in Clue Boom. God forbid he just say "Amex, Visa, Mastercard". I'd forgotten Nate was on the show before (since I only know him from this show). He was pretty good. Weird Al and Constance were okay, not as good as I was hoping, but passable (except for Constance's singing). Rosie was actually less annoying than I was expecting, but still needs to turn it down about 50%. Rocco DiSpirito was mostly a non-entity, though saved by the comparison to O'Leary. "How To Get Away With Murder", I think maybe "Instructions Escape Homicide"? "Saved By The Bell", "Rescued Dingaling". "True Detective", "Correct Investigators"? I'm not happy with that one. Maybe three words and "Not False Investigators". "Happy Days" obviously "Ayyyy", with a thumbs-up if allowed (I think hand gestures have been allowed in the game before). "Biggest Loser", as Rosie was quick to point out, "Weight Loss" would do it. Not sure what works for "Blacklist" in two words. "Not White, Catalog" if you're going three maybe. Still, safest bet in that game seems to be to let the other team take their chances.

Looking forward to Constance Zimmer, hopeful about Weird Al. Not really too optimistic about the rest.

Not my favourite episode. At least no one was terribly annoying, either in personality or gameplay, but no one was a standout either. I just didn't love any of the games. I definitely hope we never see Song Sung Wrong again, and Casting Couch is still on the fence for me, leaning towards no. I've enjoyed Off The Top Of My Head before, but I think in this case the categories were just too easy (as you can see from the high scores both teams got). In any case, it's probably my least favourite of the 5-point round games.

Enjoy the EHG podcast on the show. I also tripped over Jane giving 1977 as the year Jabba the Hutt came out, but to be fair he was mentioned by name in the original version of the movie, even if he didn't appear.

Okay, so the two celeb final round format can work to get a winner, so that's good, but I still think it's less entertaining TV. Good episode overall, no one was too annoying. The backwards movie game was clever, and the popcorn one was okay, if you don't mind celebs over-reacting (not to mention over-acting). I wouldn't complain if they lost Four Letter Words. The tie-breaking rule seemed odd, if only because a tie game on points has a good chance of also being tied in games won, two wins each and a tie (or 1-1-3 or all five tied), so you'd need a second tie-breaker. Not the case this time, but definitely possible.

Hm, J.B. Smoove could be interesting. Hopefully Will Arnett will be decent. Kind of dreading Debra Messing.

Glad the show is back. Of the new game, I like the "Where you going" game, it seemed fun. Didn't care for the rebus one (they've got enough video display one-on-one games), I'm not sold on the musical pillows one but wouldn't mind seeing it again. Zachary Quinto is the only one of the celebrities I'd consider for an all-star team (though he kind of took a while to get "Hogwarts" and "Bedrock"). Most of them were entertaining, except of course Chrissy Teigen. I do not like the change in the last round. I hope they re-think that.

Thanks, I'd fallen behind and managed to watch that one just before it was deleted off my DVR. Great round there, and good that they had some fun with bringing the now-superfluous second contestant up. Just looked at some of Craig's recent tweets, and it looks like it'll be pretty obvious by his suits when they start running the new wave of episodes that are taping now.

Aisha was definitely doing the heavy lifting, but I think Kevin did get "Bazooka" ahead of her. But otherwise, yeah, you could tell why he was cast on WEEDS. I don't know if the producers would want to see a single contestant clear the final board, but if they did they did my first choice for a dream team would be Aisha. Maybe team her up with Yvette Nicole Brown or Ross Mathews.

Pretty impressive final round with Aisha Tyler and Kevin Nealon today. If "King Tut" hadn't been so surprisingly hard I think the first contestant had a shot of finishing up the game solo.

Any word on when the next season starts? I was hoping for a January start like last year.

Anyone know if they recorded any after the original batch, or if it's going to be all repeats until that second season in the fall? I missed the first few weeks when it began, so I've still been watching to see if one I missed shows up, but I think now I've seen them all.