Hi, everyone. Just thought I'd share with you some of my random musings about Deal. I've had some ideas for a long time now, so here's a stream-of-consciousness post about them.

We all talk about how we could improve the game if we were sitting in the producer's chair. Here are some of the things I'd do if Endemol were ever to hire me (they won't, but a man can dream):

1. Add sex appeal to the game.
I'm no expert with UK TV ratings - remember, I live in Canada - but I'm willing to bet a toonie - look it up - that Deal ranks well with males between the ages of 25 and 54. The majority of the members of this forum are in that group. With that being said, I think a little bit more sex appeal should be injected into the game. Yes, some of the young female contestants already account for that, but what if they did something else? I'm thinking they should replace the current Banker, a wily old curmudgeon, with a sexy female banker. I'm thinking a red-haired woman dressed all in black with a black eyemask on. Do away with the phone as well, and let her deliver her offers via a large video screen in the studio. I'm telling you, it'd be a hit. Trust me on this.

2. More randomness.
So you're probably wondering, how can you possibly make a random game even more random? It is possible. As we know, the player chooses every box on their own at random, including the one they're holding. But what if they were to change that and add and additional element of chance into the game? Instead of the player making their own box selections, they hook the entire game up to a randomizer, and have the player press a button to determine which box will be opened. A small screen will flash the numbers of the remaining boxes, and when the player hits the button, it stops on one of those numbers. This idea comes from Press Your Luck, a game show that was a cult classic on American television in the mid-'80s.

3. More game-changers.
I recently began watching Affari Tuoi, Italy's version of Deal, and it's quickly become my favourite international version of the game. They call their Banker The Doctor - methinks someone on their production staff's a Whovian - and they also have a bunch of interesting wrinkles that I find really add to the game. There's Paccos X and Y, which contain mystery amounts chosen at random by the contestant, and my personal favourite, Pacco Matto. This box can do anything, from allowing the Doctor / Banker to set aside one unopened box which he chooses to open at any time, to removing the contestant from the game and sending them back to the wings, which is great if their game is going down the tubes. These elements make the came more compelling to watch, but they also give our statisticians-in-residence huge headaches because the unknown values of Paccos X and Y, in addition to the unpredictability of Pacco Matto, often make the stats incredibly hard to figure out.

4. Set changes.
The set hasn't really changed that much since the show began way back in October 1987, so you'd think that after 25 years on the air, they'd change it up a bit. While minor changes have been made over the years, the set has remained relatively the same. I'm think they should completely overhaul the set, adding chasing lights, fireworks that go off when the £250,000 is won, a more comfortable chair at the Pound Table, and maybe a screen that displays current and previous bank offers. And why not update the logo and music while we're at it.

5. Mo' money.
The top prize of £250,000 has been won five times now, and while that's a huge amount of money, don't you think they should alter the board a bit? I'm thinking a top prize of £500,000 would work, with a board that looks like this:

£10
£25
£50
£75
£100
£150
£200
£300
£400
£500
£750
-----------
£1,000
£3,000
£5,000
£10,000
£20,000
£35,000
£50,000
£75,000
£100,000
£250,000
£500,000

And so endeth these Deal-related musings from the forum's favourite (?) nutter. What do you think? Most of these suggestions are purely for laughs, but I do think that the game could benefit from some of them.

I've absorbed each of these ideas and all I can is this - if these (bar Option 3 - we don't need more filler) were implemented, there's a good chance I'd start watching the game again. Probably.

Here's my own musing you can add to the mix -


Noel Edmonds is hugely irritating at times. What times you ask ? From about 4:00pm to 5:00pm on a weekday. So, using an idea I referred to last week during Sarah's game thread, I propose this:

Once the contestant has been picked and the necessary drama about their upbringings in a skip on the hard shoulder of the M20 have been revealed, they are given a choice as to how the game will unfold from that point on... Edmonds or No Edmonds ?

There are two boxes, simply labelled 1 and 2, which will either contain YES or NO. Once the contestant puts away their tear-stained photograph of their deceased pet Budgerigar, they will wipe their eyes clean of Endemol-induced tears and pick a box.

YES will mean that Edmonds stays and the show will continue as normal, with Edmonds displaying a storming lack of basic logic, hindsight and common sense and shall continue to milk every second of the game until it's bone dry.

NO will result in the eruption of the studio in whoops and cheers as Edmonds is forced to step outside for this game and the playing contestant, the fellow wingers, the audience and, most importantly, the remaining viewers at home, will enjoy an Edmonds-free game of luck and tension, which will make it more watchable by a factor of 1,000.

_

If Noel, or anyone from his management team who monitors the web for information posted about him, comes across this and decide to visit me, all I can say is that I make a grand cup of tea

Hmm... an interesting set of ideas...

1. I couldn't really care less, being asexual and all.
2. This idea... is just pointless.
3. This however, is a great idea. I played Affari Tuoi (italian-style) with KP a few days ago. Really interesting and more fun than the UK-version. I would like the UK game to incorporate some of the twists of Affari Tuoi.
4. Why not?
5. Yeah... 1(p)athetic wins are getting really old now. How many have we had? 147, right? I do think £500,000 is quite large a prize though

Also, psychokiller's idea:

There's nothing that would attract me more to Deal than more sex appeal. Just take a minute to internalize this:

Sexy. Female. Banker.

Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Perhaps if my art skills improve, I'll produce a drawing of what that might look like.

And while we're at it, why not replace the sometimes-annoying Edmonds with a Sexy. Female. Presenter. She could say anything, and I'd watch. Even if you're asexual - never understood why some people are like that - anything's better than Edmonds sometimes.

More money is needed. Although £10 is still chump change, it's better than 1p, which has been won by 98 people since 1987. I think you can actually do something with ten bucks; less is possible with a penny. Canada is retiring its 1-cent coin, and all I've ever done with mine is place them in plastic rolls that hold 50 of the things. When I get a whole lot of them, I take them to the bank and have the combined value of the rolls added to my savings account.

Affari Tuoi is the best international version of Deal, hands down. Would gladly watch this any day over the UK version for a variety of reasons. In fact, I might just do so today and write a recap. Stay tuned for that.

That would be Press Your Luck - the gameshow that someone managed to work out the sequence of the randomness. Picking numbers by a Random Number Generator would never be able to convince everyone that it wasn't fixed in some way.

I've always though that there might be a chance that Deal is sometimes fixed, and sometimes not. When we see a string of consecutive blue wins, you can't help but think that the producers are looking for ways to save money. So they put a greedy contestant in the chair, and as we all know, most of these greedy folks are often the recipients of some of the game's worst trainwrecks, all of which were self-inflicted.

How do you spot a greedy contestant? Very simple. It all begins at the auditions. After going through the basic questions - Where are you from? What do you do? How old are you? Do you have a family? etc. - the producers start to ask gameplay-related questions. This is how they separate the gamblers and greed enthusiasts from the chaff. Put one in the chair, and you're almost guaranteed a blue win.

If you're looking for a 'sexy female Banker', then I nominate Kelly Brook to be that Banker.

I'd much rather the banker were this fellow:

Who's that ? Looks like a big bag of nowt.

Actor Ian Somerhalder. Nice to look at!

No clue who that is, given that I'm from Canada. Kelly Brook might be an attractive choice - I've heard of her - but I'm stressing that a fine ginger lass would be more suitable. Either that, or someone with black hair. Just seems right to me.

Hey, I've thought of something else that might work - the awarding of cash bonuses, a la the Aussie version. If a contestant on the wings correctly predicts what's inside of their box before opening it, they win £500. Additionally, the playing contestant could win a £1,000 bonus for keeping the £250,000 in play at the end of the first round, or if they find the 1p on their first pick.

Hmmmmmm! Mad Mark and psychokiller. Pot & kettle.

(turns the 'missing the point' factor up to 11)


A suggestion that we're a double act ? ''Pot and Kettle''... a rather unorthodox title, but I guess it could work.

''Bill and Ben the Forum Fools'' might have been better name, to alter the existing title to the 'Baby Boomer' generation's favourite 'home from school' TV Show.

Or you could choose from a range of terms that many of the forum users mutter from behind their computer monitor:-

The Trolls
The B*stards
The Blues Brothers (in reference to our distaste at low value wins)
''Those Two Idiots''
''Those Two Scumbag Steves''

I'm not the most popular person on here and I must say that, whilst my fall from grace has been largely self-inflicted, it's given me a good laugh and has provided amusement to a very select few on here (basically the only few that don't want me banned for good).

Anyway, enough droning, bringing up 'Pot and Kettle' as a talking point has made me quite thirsty, I'm off for a brew.

I say we go with Team Sarcasm, because that's as good a name as you can get. But the ones suggested are good as well.

Mr. kaledmutant, you, like too many other people who frequent this dark corner of the universe - or is it the unireverse? - fail to understand that my associate and I are here strictly for laughs. Unfortunately, most people are too busy being fusspots or analyzing utterly useless game stats to take a joke, which is quite sad, actually. Don't like what we're doing? Take your fedora and trenchcoat and go elsewhere.

I've never been popular here, and I accept that. As I've just stated, I, like psychokiller, am strictly here for laughs. We use our biting saracasm, wit, and brutal honesty to our advantage. It may have angered thousands of people over the years, but damn, do we ever have fun doing it. And until the day we're banned - almost seven years and counting now - we will let nothing stop us from doing what we do.

Rant over.

I came here for the show and the fun but you seem to use the rest of the forum members as the subjects of your own personal humours. Rudeness isn't cool, stetsons and bowties are!

In another age, we'd have been banned instantly for some of our comments on here. We're fully aware of this.

As it stands, here we are. Maybe you could start a petition to force us out, or perhaps just me if you wish. I'd like to hear a response to this.

Bow ties and Stetsons are incredibly cool. Nothing will ever change that.

But sarcasm is too, and it's sad that most of you can't handle that.

I still wonder why my sarcastic brother-in-arms and I haven't been given our walking papers after almost seven years. Perhaps it's part of some large-scale social experiment or summat. Who knows?

Either way, I love what we do, and it's fun as hell. Ain't that right, psychokiller ?

It sure is, Mark, it sure is

Anything that happens, happens.

Anythng that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.

It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

-Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless.

Peace be with you, my friends.

Well said...