When You’ve Come Out, You Need a New Secret Shame
January 31, 2005
…and my shame is obsessive-compulsive viewing of Deal or No Deal, on my eternal quest to finally understand the most confusing gameshow in the world.
Where do I even begin to start? To the outside viewer, Deal shimmers as an innocent glittery gameshow, no different than the rest. How utterly mistaken you are. Perhaps you’ve made the mistake of viewing this show sans-audio at the gym after work, and sobbed from the sheer frustration of trying to understand how someone just pointed at a suitcase, then opened it to reveal a prize of $200,000 - which, somehow, is a bad thing. Make no mistake, this is the most complex work of Australian light entertainment since the correct answer to a badly animated picture of a chicken hatching from an egg was supposed to mean “mayonnaise on a nipple” on Burgo’s Catchphrase.
Deal returned for its 2005 season today. What breaks my heart is that after my solid year of battling away to grapple the rules and concepts of this show… they go and throw a spanner in the works by adding some new rules and prizes, and also deciding that the 26 identical models now wear different matching wigs on every episode FOR NO APPARENT REASON. (Yes, 26 identical models. Nothing about this show makes sense).
Oh, then there’s Andrew O’Keefe. I’ve got a bit of a Lleyton-style love-hate relationship going on there. Andrew’s far more engaging than most TV show hosts, but then he insists on repeatedly conducting the fatal error of that awful false OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH laugh. It seems to be a natural reflex, though. Conversations such as the below aren’t atypical of Andrew:
ANDREW: So, what sort of amount are you hoping to walk away with today?
CONTESTANT: (fidgets with dress) Oh, umm…
ANDREW: Mortgage? World trip? What are we aiming for?
CONTESTANT: $7,000 would really be more than enough for us, Andrew. I came here with nothing, and all.
ANDREW: $7,000! Well, I’m sure we can help out with that, at the very least. What are you after that costs $7,000?
CONTESTANT: Actually, my child has cancer and we need it for the-
ANDREW: OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH! Why don’t you pick four more cases and let’s beat that nasty banker?
Here’s a brief summary of the innocent, first-time Deal viewer’s reactions in the mere first three minutes of the show.
Oh, they’re picking people out of the audience…
this all looks very physical and interactive and such.
Are they going to be running around to complete challenges,
before they vote each other out for the main pr-
Oh, I see. It’s actually a quiz show. Well, that’s okay.
Hang on, now I’m really confused. What did this woman do
in particular that the others didn’t? Why is she arbitrarily
picking numbers out of the air and getting excited when
she seems to be losing?!
What is a “megaguess” and why do all the other contestants
have orgasms and throw suitcases in the air when one happens?
For that matter, what the GOD-FEARING FUCK are they doing with
all these suitcases?! (descends into tantrum and weeping)
To tell you the truth, I suspect most of the contestants on this show are quite confused as well. To curtail some confusing rules, one part of the game involves a contestant picking suitcases. Whoever’s holding that suitcase guesses what’s inside it - if their guess is correct, they win a grand. Except I’m repeatedly seeing contestants looking around, blinking in confusion, and opening the suitcase regardless, obliterating any chance they had of winning a prize in the first place.
In fact, even the main contestants are a bit of a worry sometimes. Today, Andrew instructed a woman to carefully consider her potential prize of $20,000, and whether she wished to take a chance to blow it all, or increase her money fivefold. Mood music ensued, which caused the woman to not descend into worry and anxiety over her decision, but to look directly into the camera, and (extremely unnecessarily) shout “WOOHOO!”
As I’ve mentioned, us home viewers really don’t have it any better. Just when you you’ve got the show down pat, they introduce the Megaguess. Then the Supercase. Then, perhaps most confusing of all, a car appears on the board in leiu of a monetary value. (How does the bank take this into account when it generates its enticing offers for contestants to stop playing? “Your deal offer is $2,500 plus a 1995 Barina, or you can play on for the Peugot, or some arbitrary amount of money, or… ummmmm…. hang on a moment…”)
Yet despite the weekday afternoon confusion this show provides me with, it also plays host to numerous deliciously cruel, and concurrently highly entertaining moments. Particular recent highlights for me include:
• Contestants who loudly declare “I’m going to play until I reach $10,000″, then receive bank offers of $9,999; providing delicious evidence that the Channel 7 staff member in charge of the “bank” clearly thinks the contestant is a cunt;
• The danger of having anyone in the studio becoming eligible to play for the main prize resulting in a suspected paedophile becoming the main contestant (doesn’t anyone else remember the scary guy a few months ago who collected porcelain dolls of young girls for a hobby?)… then said contestant being reduced to playing for a prize of either $5, $1 or 50¢… yet still happily declaring “I’ll just be happy enough to see a novelty cheque reading $1!”… then being told that they don’t wheel out novelty cheques for such small amounts, they just humiliatingly provide a ridiculously attractive model sarcastically brandishing a coin… then seeing the saddo contestant only winning 50¢… then out of sheer pity for the sad contestant, the host offers to toss the coin and he’ll double the prize money for a correct guess… THEN THE CONTESTANT MANAGING TO GET EVEN THAT WRONG. AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA…
• Contestants realising they’ve passed up a prize of over $50,000 in leiu of something like $5 (although, granted, this happens on an almost daily basis);
• That the only person to ever win the major $200,000 prize was fat and obnoxious;
• When they tastelessly cut to the Channel 7 newsroom at 5.55pm for the news headlines, and we’re all presented with traumatic footage of a young girl who’s had an arm ripped off by a tram in Melbourne… then cross back Deal or No Deal for CASH BONANZA EXCITEMENT!;
• Whenever an old person can’t open a suitcase. This, without fail, has me on the floor in TEARS. It’s as if they’ve deliberately inserted at least four senior cits into the podium to ensure the show’s padded out over half an hour.
Several variants to the game immediately present themselves to my attention - obviously, there’s a drinking game to be built upon here. Unfortunately, I’ve only managed to determine one rule, seeing as most people have no idea how Deal works: drink one beer if something happens in the show that confuses you. All participants should be completely shitfaced by the second round.
Then, as my workmate Henry suggested, there’s also room for an R-rated Adults Only Channel version of Deal. Considering there’s now a place on the 2005 Deal board reading “CAR”, there’s certainly room to open up the possibility of a contestant having to decide between prizes of “$2,000″, “CAR” or “HOT DEAL MODEL TITTYFUCK”. (And for me, that’d be an even more heart-wrenching decision than most, considering I only touched my first breast ever last weekend).
Additionally, there could be an extra twist in the adult version, when you pick your first suitcase. Whichever of the 26 models you initially pick has to perform a lapdance - but whoever holds the 50¢ suitcase is actually a man.
Of course, my obsession with Deal has presented its challenges to my relationship with Adam. Explaining the show to him took quite some time:
ADAM: Wow! That guy just picked $100,000 in a suitcase - that’s unbelievable!
JEB: Actually, that’s really bad.
ADAM: How?
JEB: Now she actually can’t win $100,000 at all.
ADAM: But the woman holding the suitcase guessed it contained $100,000, so she wins it, right?
JEB: No, she wins $1,000.
ADAM: Why? Are the other contestants’ prizes divided by 100? (cue ecstatic nodding that he has finally figured one of the rules)
JEB: (weary sigh) No…. they just win $1,000.
ADAM: And now there’s a cartoon monkey running around the screen. Why is there a monkey?
JEB: It’s just t-
ADAM: This show is FUCKED.
Recently, I purchased the DVD game of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (which is actually a lot more entertaining than you may think). Adam keeps pestering me to buy the DVD version of Deal or No Deal so he doesn’t have to suffer through the TV show every afternoon, even though I repeatedly protest that it doesn’t even exist, and even if it did, would be rather pointless. “I may as well pick playing cards at random,” I protest, to which he pleads: “Please, why don’t you?!”
To Deal’s credit, it is the rock and roll gameshow of the late afternoon timeslot. I truly want my band’s first videoclip to be a metal version of Deal. The identical models could dance and headbang with me and everything.
In all honesty, though, I’ve given some serious thought to Deal’s unusual success. In particular, I’ve noticed my pokie-addicted friends in particular are avid fans. This is what strikes me about the show: it’s like watching someone play a high-bet pokie machine on your behalf. This is what gets people so wound up about a ridiculously simple (although bound by simultaneously ridiculously complex rules) show and draws them in, night after night. This show seriously is pokie television - and that’s where the true merchandising opportunity lies. Not Deal or No Deal DVD games, but Deal or No Deal pokie machines. They’d make an absolute killing.
Speaking of which - on a related note, this is one of my new plans for my homometal band. I’m going to incorporate guitar solos from jackpot melodies pumped out by that Egyptian-themed Queen of the Nile pokie machine which seems to sit in almost every pub in Australia. Punters simply won’t be able to resist - they’ll be confused by the mysterious allure of my band’s tunes and the perky little guitar solos sprinkled throughout. Now that’s a winning formula.
