A great Big....Red ball.

Major funding for today's blog is provided by....

Opening Theme


Madison Brunoehler: From coast to coast, around the world, now in it's 4th conesecutive year, it's............................................

Now, America's favorite contestant, Pierre Kelly!

Me:  Thank you Madison, it feels good to return to our studio under a very small capacity to bring back the feeling you missed since March because it's Game Show Live! where we get lit and get involved. Here I am, back in the office reuniting with a few co workers practicing social distancing and staying apart to do our part to report on what's what in televised contests and actual real life proceedings inside and outside the life of your favorite stars. Let's begin with.....


The Double Toasted opening Toss up story.

The world's toughest and most daring obstacle course returns to tv. Only this time....it's on cable.

TBS has ordered a revival of the renowned, heart-pumping and hysterical competition series Wipeout, returning to captivate viewers of all ages. The network has ordered 20 episodes of the international sensation that features contestants competing in wildly creative and hilariously out-of-the box obstacle courses.

Following its debut as the No. 1 new show of the summer in 2008, Wipeout amassed an impressive following throughout its seven seasons on-air. The series found international viewers in the form of various adaptations in more than 30 global territories such as Argentina, Australia and the UK and has inspired numerous spin-offs and specials.

The re-imagined series will feature new format twists and elements that will push contestants' athleticism and willpower to even greater extremes, all while delivering some pretty epic fails! Each game has been designed into three rounds and now features a jaw-dropping, three-stage, obstacle course consisting of multiple strategy and decision points designed to further challenge, and wear out, the stamina of the competitors. Returning to the game, an iconic staple with many surprises, are the big red balls, back with a vengeance.

"In my many years of producing, 'Wipeout' remains my all-time favorite," said Matt Kunitz, Creator/Showrunner/Executive Producer of the series. "I am thrilled that it is returning more competitive than ever, while continuing to provide hilarious wipeouts. 'Wipeout' is a rare show loved by both kids and adults, a true co-viewing experience. With a strong focus on comedy, there is no better network for 'Wipeout's 'return than TBS."

"I cannot think of a better tent pole program than wipeout as we take our unscripted programming to the next level under Corie Henson, EVP and head of unscripted programming for TBS, TNT and truTV, said Kevin Reilly, Chief Content Officer, HBO Max, President, TNT, TBS, and truTV. "This is a big show for the whole family and we have some big ideas to infuse real drama and new twists into the fun."

"Now more than ever is the time to gather family and tune-in to a fiercely wild and undeniably engaging viewing experience that mixes athletic action with hilarious antics," added Brett Weitz, General Manager, TNT, TBS and truTV. "We are honored to partner with Endemol Shine to present a reimagined take on this universally beloved franchise that keeps audiences of all ages glued to the screen."

"We are thrilled to be bringing back everyone's favorite obstacle course competition with the team at TBS," said Sharon Levy, President, Unscripted & Scripted Television, Endemol Shine North America. "This show has truly become a global phenomenon and its popularity has continued to grow over the last decade with a new generation of viewers. We have some really unique, fun new twists planned for this version and we can't wait to get into production."

Endemol Shine North America will produce the series with Sharon Levy, DJ Nurre, Shyam Balsé and Kevin Wehrenberg serving as executive producers. Matt Kunitz, creator of the original series, will serve as executive producer and showrunner. For consideration to be a contestant on Wipeout, apply online: www.wipeoutcasting.com.

Do come back after this break, because in a minute..... Hi

On your mark, get set....wait right there. I hope you wait after the break on Game Show Live!

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https://youtu.be/F5XXLFpms0c

Madison: Some members of our viewing audience will receive.........

Our summer reading list from Overdrive. With nearly all public Libraries closing up due to Covid-19, you don't actually have to go there to borrow, read and return on an endless supply of e-books and more on the Overdrive app on Apple and Android. Now back to our overseer and undertaker, Pierre Kelly!

Me: Thanks Madi2theMax, our mortician to the Trivia Murder Party and this Live! party continues.

(Song stops)


Last Friday, we introduced you all to Boombox, a new REW Retro character. With the charm of a Cali girl and the moves are inspired by High School Musical alum Kaycee Stroh, Boombox recently sent in this photo when Livewire! was wrapped long ago. And here you go.....

Yep, she ditched her circus look and went street to fit the name REW directed it to her. In fact, we could see a trailer all about the new look. Look if you will, and learn.....

The Amazing Race has threw in the caution flag......for now at least and decided to have 2 shows to fill the void.

CBS announced today the series premiere dates for two new reality series. The comedic game show GAME ON!, hosted by Keegan-Michael Key, from Fulwell 73 executive producers Ben Winston and James Corden, will debut Wednesday, May 20 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT). The reality competition series TOUGH AS NAILS, from executive producer Phil Keoghan, will premiere Wednesday, July 8 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT), on the CBS Television Network. The season premiere of THE AMAZING RACE, originally announced for May 20, will be scheduled later in 2020.

GAME ON!, hosted by Emmy and Peabody Award-winning actor, writer and producer Keegan-Michael Key, is a series that celebrates the entertainment of sports, based on "A League of Their Own," the BAFTA-winning U.K. series. The show pits two teams of three, captained by tennis champion and entrepreneur Venus Williams and Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski, alongside comedians Bobby Lee and Ian Karmel and rotating sports stars, comedians and celebrities, against each other in over-the-top physical challenges, absurd trivia and epic field competitions.

TOUGH AS NAILS is a competition series that celebrates everyday Americans who roll up their sleeves and don't think twice about working long hard hours and getting their hands dirty, in order to keep their country running. Competitors who consider the calluses on their hands a badge of honor will be tested for their strength, endurance, life skills and, most importantly, mental toughness in challenges that take place at real-world job sites. The series is from Emmy Award-winning producer Phil Keoghan (THE AMAZING RACE) and his producing partner, Louise Keoghan.

"These are two timely and entertaining series for summer," said Noriko Kelley, Executive Vice President, Program Planning and Scheduling, CBS Entertainment. "GAME ON! is funny, unpredictable and feel-good television, and TOUGH AS NAILS celebrates the hard-working heroes of America in a uniquely emotional and gritty real-world competition."

GAME ON! is produced by Eye Productions Inc. and Fulwell 73 Productions with CPL Productions, a Red Arrow Studios company. Executive producers for Fulwell 73 Productions are Ben Winston, James Corden and Emma Conway with David Taylor, Murray Boland and Danielle Lux serving as executive producers for CPL Productions. Rob Gronkowski, Elle Key, Keegan-Michael Key, Henry Penzi and Venus Williams also serve as executive producers.

TOUGH AS NAILS is produced by Raquel Productions Inc. in association with Tough House Productions Inc. Phil Keoghan, Louise Keoghan and Anthony Carbone are executive producers

Doing nothing can finally pay off.

That's the premise of Ryan Reynolds' new ABC game show, Don't, where contestants team up with family and friends for a chance to win up to $100,000. How do they win big? By taking on ridiculous tasks with one simple rule: "Don't."

The series (premiering June 11 at 9/8c) will feature "hilarious, unexpected moments that break from the traditional game show format," as teased in the trailer. Four-member teams will tackle oddball challenges, like "Don't blink," "Don't Look Back" and "Don't Play Ball in the House." Accomplished missions will earn money in team bank accounts, while failed challenges will force players to suffer some very silly consequences. Contestants can also test their fearlessness by selecting risky options like the "Don't Push" button or a "Don't You Dare, You" challenge. In the end, teams will keep the money remaining in their bank, if anything is left at all.

Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation, Big Little Lies) hosts, while Reynolds serves as executive producer and lends his voice. "I'm excited for people to see Don't and feel we made the right call in changing what was the working title: Please Do Not," said Scott.

Alongside Reynolds, additional executive producers include David Goldberg, Caroline Baumgard, David Hurwitz, Conrad Green and George Dewey..

Meanwhile, we "do" give you some Bachelor news.....

With over 18 years, hundreds of men and women, countless romances and some heartbreaks along the way, Bachelor Nation has witnessed some of the most unforgettable love stories in television history.

Beginning MONDAY, JUNE 8 (8:00-11:00 p.m. EDT), "The Bachelor: The Most Unforgettable - Ever!" will take audiences on a journey to look back at some of the most dramatic moments ever from "The Bachelor" franchise in a 10-episode series event.

Each Monday, directly from the Bachelor mansion, Chris Harrison will reach into the vault and bring back one of his favorite seasons, highlighting some of the most devastating rose ceremonies, passionate proposals, unexpected new arrivals, dramatic meltdowns, biggest breakups, and, of course, the most romantic moments.

The weekly retrospectives will also include virtual catch-ups with fan-favorite Bachelor alumni, checking on the latest in their lives after their final rose.

"'The Bachelor: The Most Unforgettable - Ever!' is a love letter to our fans who have been with us through some of the most heartwarming, heartbreaking and unexpected moments throughout Bachelor history," said Karey Burke, president, ABC Entertainment. "We can't wait for Bachelor Nation to fall in love all over again as we take this wild journey down memory lane."

Hosted by Chris Harrison, "The Bachelor: The Most Unforgettable - Ever!" is a production of Next Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon Unscripted Television. The series is produced by Mike Fleiss, Martin Hilton, Nicole Woods, Bennett Graebner, Peter Gust, Tim Warner, Peter Geist and Chris Harrison

And there's more.....

When "The Bachelor" franchise launched in 2002, the very first season aired in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The original idea was to shoot the final rose ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower, but due to safety precautions in the wake of 9/11, production was limited to domestic locations, so plans for the romantic Paris proposal were nixed.

Nearly two decades later, the ABC franchise is dealing with another unexpected tragedy: the coronavirus outbreak. And once again, the globe-trotting show will be forced to shoot domestically — and within the confines of a quarantined location. While all plans are a work in progress and subject to change, given the uncertainty surrounding future government-mandated stay-at-home orders, Season 16 of "The Bachelorette" is tentatively aiming to head into production sometime this summer.

If those production plans can move forward, the new season would likely air in the fall, Variety has learned. "Clare's season is happening one hundred percent," ABC's reality chief Rob Mills tells Variety, debunking any rumors that the season, starring Clare Crawley, would be canceled due to coronavirus concerns; the only question is when exactly the season will be able to head into production.

As Variety previously reported, the new season would shoot within the confines of one large location, which is yet to be determined. All contestants and crew members will be tested before entering the private venue, and then effectively quarantined on-site for the duration of the season's shoot. "We've looked at everything — are travel restrictions going to ease up?

And it just doesn't look like anything is changing anytime soon, and what we would rather do is start getting the season underway, sooner rather than later," Mills says. "As of right now, the plan is to get a great location that has a ton of space where everybody could safely be together and we can still have great dates that still feel big and romantic, and we would shoot the entire season there."

Sources say production on "Bachelorette" shut down in March just one day before the infamous limo-arrivals scene was set to tape, meaning the first episode was never completed. Since no footage with Crawley's contestants has been shot, the network is taking advantage of the production delay to do some additional casting, meaning there could be new suitors who have not been announced. On the flip side, since the casting process is still underway, some of the original contestants may not appear in the season at all.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT, network television's #1-rated daytime series and the longest-running game show in television history, welcomes multiple Emmy Award winner, television host, actor and model RuPaul to the iconic stage for THE PRICE IS RIGHT AT NIGHT primetime special, Monday, May 11 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

RuPaul will be playing to raise money for the charity Planned Parenthood while the contestants will have the opportunity to win amazing prizes, including the latest electronics, a new designer wardrobe, thousands of dollars in cash, and of course, brand new cars! Drew Carey will host the special.

Since 2009, RuPaul has executive produced and hosted the reality competition series "RuPaul's Drag Race," which airs on VH1, for which he received six Primetime Emmy Awards in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. RuPaul is the most commercially successful drag queen of all time, and in 2017 he was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

Both of THE PRICE IS RIGHT AT NIGHT specials that aired in December 2019 were ratings winners. The SEAL TEAM episode on Sunday, Dec. 22 was the most-watched entertainment program of its night, and the episode featuring Seth Rogen on Monday, Dec. 23 was the top broadcast of the night in viewers and all key demos. Daytime's THE PRICE IS RIGHT reached its largest audience in over four years for the week ending April 17.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT is produced by Fremantle and broadcast weekdays (11:00 AM-12:00 PM, ET/10:00-11:00 AM, PT). Evelyn Warfel is the executive producer.

We switch on over to a Mistplay Game Break. No need for boredom as we reveal an Idiotest to play with.....

See if you can find it after a Pandora song break as we kick off the class of 2010 with Bad Girl Riri......

Now we asked you to find the water cooler. Sadly in this test, there is not one because the girl is holding up a cup with ice cubes in it. That's the answer.


One of the most famous tv moms ever is Mrs. Cunningham played by Marion Ross
 In real life, she is related to Taylor, who's also an actress and singer and someone who is an actual master impressionist....which brings us to a brand new segment.....



https://youtu.be/7f7EkWs_pVg


It's time to read yet another one of those all-star fortune cookies with multi-hypenate award winner, Jim Meskimen.

Here's our last story......

When Harry Friedman first joined "Wheel of Fortune" as a producer in the mid-1990s, the pace of the game show was lumbering. Between puzzles, the crew would have to stop taping, draw huge duvetyn curtains in front of the puzzle board and manually replace each letter in each light box. The process stretched out a half-hour show to 45 or 50 minutes of taping, which would "just suck the life out of the audience, out of the contestants and out of Pat [Sajak] and Vanna [White]," said Friedman.

So in 1997, the television producer — who that same year would take on producing responsibilities for "Jeopardy!" — switched out the manual puzzle board for an electronic one. Vanna would only have to touch each light box to summon a new letter. The show could essentially be recorded in real time, allowing for more rounds during each taping and reinvigorating America's Game.

"Harry quite literally saved the show when it desperately needed a strong dose of creativity," Sajak told Variety.

Today, Friedman is closing out a 25-year run at Sony Pictures Television, the studio behind both game shows, as he opts to move on after the end of his contract. The well-respected television veteran holds a Guinness World Record for having produced 12,540 game show episodes, more than any other individual, and is the only producer to have won two Emmys in the same category in a tie with himself.

"There's no one in this business I respect more," said Sajak. "I will miss his tremendous talent, his unerring instincts and his genuine kindness. He is simply the best."

Amid a public health crisis that has everyone anxious about the future, Friedman's last day comes as millions of viewers, confined to their homes, turn to the shows he helmed for comfort.

For the week of April 6, "Jeopardy!" averaged 11.6 million viewers each weeknight, while "Wheel" averaged 11.3 million, according to national syndication data — outperforming nearly all the nightly news shows across networks and all primetime programs on both network and cable, including Fox's popular Wednesday night competition series "The Masked Singer" (7.9 million viewers) and CBS' Sunday night newsmagazine "60 Minutes" (9.7 million).

And for the first four weeks since stay-at-home directives were beginning to roll out, starting in mid-March, "Jeopardy!" ratings grew 18% in total viewers, while "Wheel" ratings rose 15% compared to the four weeks before that. Total viewer ratings for weekday showings of "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel" between mid-March and mid-April increased 27% and 23%, respectively, from those same weeks a year ago; on the weekends, those figures surged 67% and 59%.

Even prior to times of national crisis, TV viewers have found great relief in watching Sajak and Alex Trebek do their thing. Two years ago, Friedman recalls, a "Wheel" audience member who there with her 11-year-old daughter asked a page if she could speak to the executive producer. She was escorted over to the stage. "She said, 'I just want to let you know that we've been through a lot this last year' — she didn't say what — 'We've been through a lot this last year, and your shows make us feel safe and warm.'"

Sony Pictures Television typically films 230 original episodes of "Jeopardy!" and 195 episodes of "Wheel" a year. For over two decades, Friedman would typically leave his house at 5:15 a.m., work out at the gym on the lot in Culver City — "one of the great perks of all time" — and remain at the office until 7 p.m. every night.

"If I thought there was a way to do it all again for another 25 years, I would do it in a heartbeat," he said.

Friedman has also updated "Jeopardy!" over the years, adding visual elements to clues, such as the video prompts from the show's Clue Crew. That team, comprised of roving show correspondents, have recorded clues in more than 300 cities across seven continents since its inception in 2001. "It's really, really much better to see St. Mark's Square in Venice, with people being there rather than just talking about it, or even [showing] a picture of it," said Friedman.

Perhaps the most significant change for "Jeopardy!", he said, was lifting the five-show limit for contestants on a win streak. The new rules opened the door for Ken Jennings to make his historic 74-game run in the mid-aughts; the move made minor celebrities out of trivia enthusiasts, and had viewers rooting for winners on a roll.

The recent "Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time" tournament in January saw Jennings — by then a household name — competing against Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer, delivering a ratings smash. The first episode of the tournament scored 14.4 million total viewers, and peaked with 15.5 million viewers by the third of four installments.

"Harry is the most creative producer I've ever worked with," said Trebek, in an emailed statement.

Friedman will not be closing out his storied tenure with a big bash. His last day, in the midst of government orders to stay at home, will instead be feted with two Zoom parties — one with his "Wheel" work family and one with his "Jeopardy!" comrades. Is there a proper sense of closure, then, given the nature of his farewell? "Truthfully, no," he said. "I wanted to be able to celebrate these last 25 years with the people who have made it possible. And you can only go so far with Zoom." But he is no doubt leaving on a swell of high regard. "Harry Friedman is the best producer I've ever worked with," said White, the longtime hostess of "Wheel of Fortune."

"Not only his positive energy, but really caring for his whole staff and crew, makes him one of a kind. I've loved every minute of working with him." Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra calls Friedman a Hollywood "legend."

"For 25 years, Harry has been at the helm of two of the most iconic game shows in history, which continue to earn some of the highest ratings on television," he said. "He is a legend in this business, and we are grateful to have worked with him. I want to wish Harry the very best as he starts the next chapter of his extraordinary life, and passes the baton to Mike Richards."

Incoming executive producer Richards has been at the studios since September, just a month after Friedman first announced his decision to step down. Friedman calls it a "very well-organized transition process."

As for why he decided to choose 2020 as the year to step down, he said that "25 was a nice number."

Closing Theme

That's it for this week. Today's consolation prize is a copy of some song a kid sang that went viral recently that I can't name it covered by Grace Vanderwal. Hasn't the kid who sang should've went back to G instead of PG-13? Anyhoodles.....


Don't forget to email me at kellypierre8@gmail.com, coppockonsports@yahoo.com, Pierre Jason Kelly on FB and @Johnny_Arcade on twitter. Also I'm on Snapchat as MisterGSN and Instagram as MrJackbox. We will return next Wednesday, and until we return, Play on playas.

Madison: Game Show Live! is a presenation of Jackbox Media Services, Spy Fox Entertainment and Pluto TV Networks which may or may not be responsible for the mess we made. I'm not joking. Really.