Show & Yell: What Can Brown Do For You?

[Primetimer]

Yvette Nicole Brown's been banned from her friends' game nights, so thank god this show exists.

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[Qoass]

In Little Picassos, it's clear to me that the kids are copying an existing photograph so if you look more at the pose or the props, it can be much easier to guess the subject.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Qoass

[Corgi-ears]

Here's the incredibly weird thing about Curtis saying, seemingly in resignation, "Hamlet," when shown that bizarre portrait: Benedict Cumberbatch IS playing Hamlet at the Barbican.

[iMonrey]

Zac Levi wasn't very good at Where Ya Goin'. I thought Tom Arnold was surprisingly good. I almost might have picked Tom over Zac for the bonus round.

 

The marine guy never really stood a chance at winning the bonus money. He was terrible at Where Ya Goin'. I had to laugh at the way Yvette kept kicking him out of the "car." She didn't waste her time with that guy, she was just like "Nope, get out." He couldn't even get her to say White House, sheesh.

 

So Zac is going to be in the new Heroes reboot? Crap, now I'll have to watch it.

[BobH]

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.

[Monty]

Because I had to know:

 

Sharon Stone's was born March 10, 1958. Tom Arnold was born March 6, 1959. If the movie they were in together (The Year of Getting to Know Us, 2008) was shooting in March, they could well have both had birthdays while they were on set.

[mylesgordon9]

When is HGN going to indulge us with Joe v Tara as the civilians? <br /><br />P.S. I am pro grosh

[April Bloodgate]

I'm normally on the same page with Joe and (especially Tara) on these recaps, but this week I was surprised to find myself disagreeing with them on several points. 1) I thought Yvette should have easily gotten White House from those clues. If you say DC and that's not it, how could you not think of White House next? And while he probably should have said "building," he did say "residence" as a synonym for house. 2) I actually didn't find Curtis that bothersome. And re: the Kenny G/Mr. T question, there's actually only 4 years difference between them, so that could easily go either way to me. 3) I was really surprised to hear Tara and Joe say that they thought Aziz Ansari was not a household name. I see him all over the place in the media. 

[BobH]

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.

[Maverick]

 He couldn't even get her to say White House, sheesh.

 

 

 IMO, that's on Nicole.  What else do you need other than "where the president lives"?  Yes, I could see Washington as a first thought, but when that fails how is the next guess not the White House?

[Tara Ariano]

I was really surprised to hear Tara and Joe say that they thought Aziz Ansari was not a household name. I see him all over the place in the media. 

 

YMMV, as always, and George got it right, which supports your point! But I bet my sister doesn't know his name and my mom definitely doesn't. It's not like he's on the same level as (past Bonus Round clues this season) Denzel Washington or Michelle Obama.

[April Bloodgate]

YMMV, as always, and George got it right, which supports your point! But I bet my sister doesn't know his name and my mom definitely doesn't. It's not like he's on the same level as (past Bonus Round clues this season) Denzel Washington or Michelle Obama.

Oh yeah, totally not on the same level as those 2. But compared to others in that round (Renner, Miller, Grande), I thought he was one of the easier ones. Which goes to your point about how hard this particular round was.

[Corgi-ears]

In general, I didn't think Male Civilian was as dumb as Tara and Joe did. (At least not in the final round. He didn't cover himself in glory in Where Ya Goin' not knowing about South Beach and the Sistine Chapel, but I feel like Yvette not getting "white house" is all on her.)  

 

Rewatching the last round, he was actually quite impressive in getting the first six answers. He missed Claire Danes, but got Emma Stone, Aziz Ansari, Zac Efron (despite Yvette's poor clue -- I am not a crackpot -- that never stated "High School Musical"). But things really got derailed with "Sienna Miller" -- Yvette urged him to pass, and the next clue came up on the board ("Anthony Hopkins"), but Male Civilian was still going, "Pass!" Which was confusing, because it was not very clear if they were all trying to work on the Hopkins clue. Of course he was rattled and...whatever the equivalent of "lost his place" is, and then was hit with the unholy run that was Ariana Grande (again, Yvette gave bad clues about her dating Big Sean; how about naming her actual hits, like "Problem" and "Break Free"?), Jeremy Renner, Alan Rickman, Penelope Cruz. It was a tough break.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Corgi-ears

[Rinaldo]

 IMO, that's on Nicole.  What else do you need other than "where the president lives"?  Yes, I could see Washington as a first thought, but when that fails how is the next guess not the White House?

I think part of the problem was that that round was literally the first time she had ever played that game, and her mind wasn't yet set on "building" as opposed to "city or state" for possible answers (when it wasn't Washington she jumped to Illinois). She was thinking on the wrong scale, so to speak. She soon reset herself.

[iMonrey]

 

IMO, that's on Nicole.  What else do you need other than "where the president lives"?  Yes, I could see Washington as a first thought, but when that fails how is the next guess not the White House?

 

To be fair, the marine corps guy was probably trying not to say "no, the house," since that would have been part of the clue, so yeah it's at least half his fault. Yvette was way better and passing in this game than Zac was.

 

How could neither of them know to name check Snape for Alan Rickman?

[Irlandesa]

How could neither of them know to name check Snape for Alan Rickman?

Or even Die Hard villain Hans Gruber.  (which I don't think they said.)

 

I think the final bit was mostly on the civilian, partly on more semi-obscure names than usual (at this point I do think Jeremy Statham is more well-known than Renner) and partly on YNB & Zach's clues.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Irlandesa

[smrou]

I'm pretty sure at this point I love the aftershow podcast much more than Hollywood Game Night itself (because the podcast is so great not because I have any problem with HGN). I was straight-up crying from laughing during the whole "grosh" (spelling?) conversation. 

 

As some others have said, I think it was more a failing of Yvette than the civilian that she didn't get the White House, though perhaps she was just stuck on the notion that it would be cities and not more specific locations in that game. But after that the civilian sucked at that game. 

 

But compared to others in that round (Renner, Miller, Grande), I thought he was one of the easier ones.

Seriously, there was some difficult names! I'm pretty sure there is literally nothing a person could say that would clue me in to Sienna Miller or Ariana Grande. Like...I know their names, and that's about it, so if you can't say their names I'm SOL. Renner's one where I do know who he is, but it's probably a 50/50 gamble that I'd be able to come up with his actual name on any given day. 

 

Like Joe and Tara I was so sad when Yvette said that she was trying to rein in her intense, competitive game-playing nature. That's the best thing about her! Well, that combined with the fact that she's actually good. So I was glad to see that at least by the end of the show she was as intense as ever. 

Edited August 7, 2015 by smrou