Two things I learned tonight: 1) Rachel Ray isn’t the brightest mind around 2) Regis Philbin doesn’t know Neil Patrick Harris is gay I’m not old enough to remember the original game show Password, but I have seen an incarnation of Pyramid or $10,000 Pyramid and so I get the general idea of the game. Here’s the general idea: A celebrity is matched up with a regular person. Like charades or pictionary, they are given a word (aka password) to portray to their partner, but in this case, they can only give hints in 1 word doses. For example if the password was old, a good hint would be Regis. Is it worth watching? And why the Rachel Ray hate? Why does Doogie make everything better? All that and more after the click.

When I was a kid, I loved game shows. The Price Is Right and Family Feud were my favourites, but I was also known to catch the odd episode of American Gladiators and Just Like Mom (I had forgotten about this gem, but it’s a Canadian classic). The captivating nature of game shows are their simplicity. It’s easy to understand the rules, it’s fun to play, and it’s addictive. They’re the precursor to computer solitaire games like Minesweeper.

The problem with these new game shows is that they model everything after Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Every show since then has the same ominous music, the spot lights, the pyramid prize structure and the modern set design. The hype overshadows the game and you can’t tell the difference between Deal or No Deal and American Gladiators.

The most annoying part of the new generation of game shows are the incessant use of delay tactics. What is usually a 30 minute show during the day, can be extended into a full hour–sometimes two hours if the show is new and popular.  And it’s not the number of commercials, but rather the amount of time between the actual game play.  It’s comparable to the 80 timeouts allowed during an NBA basketball game these days.  If you watch Moment of Truth, in an hour you probably get through 5-10 questions…in an hour.  That’s just ridiculous.

Despite my general ranting, I did find the first episode of Million Dollar Password entertaining and I attribute that mostly to Neil Patrick Harris.  I think adding him to your show guarantees a certain level of entertainment value.  While it might be fun to see Rachel Ray’s mind go blank every few seconds, that can only hold your attention for so long.

It was refreshing to have a celebrity who actually tried to compete even though there was nothing in it for him.  He genuinely wanted his partners to win as much money as possible and gave it his best effort.  It’s also really great to see an intelligent person on TV every now and then.  It just reiterates how brilliant the How I Met Your Mother team was for casting him as Barney Stinson. In my opinion, Neil Patrick Harris is probably the most under-appreciated comedic actor on TV today.

As for MDP, give it a shot if you’ve got nothing to do.  It’s fun to play along with and I’m sure they’ll continue to cast a few idiots who you can feel smarter than when you watch…hopefully some of those idiots won’t all be celebrities.

Oh and just in case I get called on the Rachel Ray thing…she seems nice, I just have a pet peeve when it comes to stupidity.

Spoonfuls (thoughts in smaller doses):

1. “Uh, Regis, I’m not into women.”
A couple times, you could see Neil Patrick Harris bite his tongue instead of correcting ancient host Regis.
2. Fiasco.  Ouch.
Although, you knew the 6th and final word was going to be difficult, I felt bad when I saw fiasco on the screen.  That’s a $225,000 word.

When I first watched this episode, I took nothing from the fact that Hodgins gave Zack morphine.  I thought it was placed there to throw the fans off the trail.

But it turns out that Hodgins was being Hodgins.  I’ll explain after the click.

With the sinister music setting the scene, I had all but written off this scene.  But, I watched the season finale a second time and realized that Hodgins knew it was Zack when he was at the hospital.

He’d already discovered the lead levels pointed to his house and he obviously ruled out Angela and figured out it had to be Zack.  Putting that together with the knowledge that no one could have switched the chemicals to start the explosion, he had to have realized Zack was Gormogon’s new apprentice.

And in that knowledge, he tried to save Zack by administering enough drugs to shut Zack up at the hospital.  What looked like a sinister act was one of loyal friendship.

When viewed in that light, this scene stands out as one of the best scenes for a secondary character on Bones.

What are your theories?  Think I might be mistaken?  Let me know below.

And tucked in between all those pictures was one interesting image that stuck out…

(and no it’s not the one of Stella..check it out after the click)

Those sneaky bastards.  In between the pictures of Robin, Barney, Lily and Marshall was one picture that didn’t make any sense:

Why would there be a picture of Ted’s wedding before he is married?  Could this be a subtle hint for the fans that Stella is the mother?

While that wouldn’t really bother me because I like Stella, I think it might just be there to get people talking–It’s not like they aren’t known for that.

What do you think?

FYI: I do realize this picture is shown in a previous episode, but it’s shown as a glimpse into the future.

Here we are.  A new site or blog and no one (or maybe a few friends) reading.

As you’ll soon see, we will be posting commentary on episodes of our favourite shows.  After the click, I’ll fill you in on the details.

There are hundreds of places to find plain reviews or recaps on tv shows.  But, I never understood most of them.  If you’ve already seen the show, why would you want to read a synopsis or a detailed description of everything that happened…you already saw the show.

So, no pointless recaps.

What YAWGURT.com will bring is commentary about each episode.  Sometimes it will be funny, sometimes it will be intruiging, and sometimes it be controversial.  The comments are open to anyone who registers or who has an OpenID account.  Agree? Disagree? Hate me?  Discuss in the comments.  We’ll be monitoring the comments for stupidity, so that we can respond with an appropriate insult or comeback.  Just don’t leave spam or shamelessly advertise.  We won’t delete your post, but we will make sure it doesn’t help your cause.

Okay, so that’s about it.  You can leave a comment or use the contact form at the top to get in touch.