Prior to the pandemic’s arrival, television game shows never, ever ranked in the top 20 or 30 ways to spend/waste a few minutes of our precious relaxation time. I truthfully cannot remember a time when we rose from the dinner table to hurry to plunk down in front of the television to watch American game shows that were sure to bore us to tears or made us look at each other in wonderment over the answers from some of the contestants.
That is not to suggest we knew more than an answer or two per evening. But didn’t show producers offer IQ tests to contestants to preserve the integrity of the show or to stop the embarrassment of contestants who simply could not find the answer buzzer.
But faced with repeats of our favourite murder mysteries and other popular shows, and being tired of watching news broadcasts about COVID-19 and Donald Trump, we gravitated to the wide variety of game shows that seemed to be filling more and more time slots on television networks.
We had watched the American version of Family Feud and marvelled at how jumpy and exuberant the competing families appeared. Is there a class beforehand to teach families how to jump, when to jump, how high to jump and when to add the ear-splitting squeals that go with winning the jackpot, or even sometimes just recording a correct answer?
I don’t have any relevant experience regarding how nervous one would be in front of the in-house show audience. My mind would probably go blank when asked the game-winning question, and thinking about the thousands of viewers at home would possibly be the third strike and game over. But I make a great armchair participant, offering answers quietly so even Housemate sometimes doesn’t hear me.
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, Press Your Luck, Weakest Link, Jeopardy and Supermarket Sweep are some of the shows we have spent more time watching than could be considered educational. From my comfortable armchair, I discern that most are luck driven, rather than being based on vast amounts of knowledge.
Then we stumbled on to Family Feud Canada and figured the Canadian component would be slightly more enjoyable to watch and perhaps the questions would allow us to actually be successful in offering correct answers.
The show’s staff spends a lot of time interviewing 100 Canadians per question to gain the feeling of which answers will show up as the top answers on the board.
Even the host sometimes wonders at the identity of some of those 100 Canadians and what kind of lives they live. The most popular answers on the board do not necessarily make sense but then that’s part of the fun of the show.
Before we started watching, a friend had told us about a first season show where the host posed the question as to what Popeye ate to give him muscles.
The contestant was sure she had the winning answer and shouted out: “chicken,” swirling her bleached curls as she proclaimed her answer. Our friend was gasping with laughter by the time she told how shocked the woman was to learn the answer was not chicken but spinach. She had probably never heard about Popeye, Olive Oyl or Sweet Pea.
And so, most Monday to Thursdays, we engage in Family Feud Canada, being both amazed and appalled at some of the answers given by the hundreds of Canadians who have been surveyed.
I have a question: why has our household, or our friends’ households never been quizzed for our opinions? We do have them. Please call.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
