It was another night of celebrity game shows on Wednesday, which included a Taylor Swift puzzle on “Wheel of Fortune” and Kevin from “The Office” talking about his chili on “Jeopardy!” and George Costanza brings up “shrinkage” in the $100,000 pyramid.
Here’s a look at the highlights and not-so-highlights of the network’s four different primetime celebrity game shows. (What is “too many adjectives,” Ken?)
The $100,000 Pyramid
The first half of ABC’s “The $100,000 Pyramid” featured celebrity contestants Rosie O’Donnell and Jason Alexander. The latter was at some point paired with a non-celebrity candidate named LaVonn from Louisiana. One of their categories was called “Dry and Mighty,” where Alexander had to attempt to describe to LaVonn “reasons why some people avoid swimming.” The last word was “shrinkage,” which is undoubtedly a reference to one of the most popular and talked-about episodes of Alexander’s show “Seinfeld,” which appears in its fifth season and is called “The Hamptons.”
Alexander tried to describe the word as “This is what you have when you…when you…” while holding up his fingers before LaVonn interrupted him with the correct answer, “shrinkage.” With that the round of words ended and a round of applause and laughter began. Especially from host Michael Strahan, who walked around the stage laughing and finally recited one of Alexander’s famous lines from the Seinfeld episode, which also happened to be the…
Joke of the evening: “I was in the pool! I was in the pool!” Strahan screamed. To which Alexander replied: “I never thought this would be helpful to any part of humanity, but apparently… it happened.”
Celebrity Danger!
Pyramid wasn’t the only show to feature a famous sitcom character referencing a famous episode.
On Celebrity Jeopardy! The three celebrities of the evening included actors Brian Baumgartner, Lisa Ann Walter and Timothy Simons. At one point, Baumgartner discussed playing Jeopardy! had been immortalized. Hunch, one that was, as he described it, “about chili.”
This refers to a season five episode of Baumgartner’s show “The Office” called “Casual Friday,” in which his character Kevin spills a giant pot of his “famous” chili on the ground and tries to use nearby binding agents to scoop it back in.
Baumgartner took advantage of his character’s long-standing association with chili and eventually published his own cookbook, Seriously Good Chili. He joked that he had brought some for his fellow contestants, to which Jennings began to say, “That could…” and Walter jumped in: “Literally backfire.”
Also on Celebrity Jeopardy! It was a funny moment with Simons, who, after arriving at the game’s final Daily Double, decided to utter the famous words “true Daily Double.” But when he found out what that actually meant – namely, betting everything you’ve got on one question – the former Veep star had to back down very quickly. And it’s almost certain that the moment is good enough to be the…
Clip of the evening:
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune
With celebrity contestants Kel Mitchell, Kim Fields and Penn Jillette having a lot to offer Celebrity Wheel of Fortune’s nostalgic viewers, it was a special Taylor Swift puzzle that brought out a different kind of viewer: Swiftys.
But Jillette literally raised the bar for the evening. And he’s the big one…
Winner of the evening: Jillette raced through the game and finally made it to the evening’s bonus round, where he easily guessed the final puzzle correctly, adding $75,000 to his total. He ended up making $133,200 for the University of Rochester and its research into myotonic dystrophy, which killed Jillette’s boyfriend – comedian Gilbert Godfried.
But the real winners of the night may have been the viewers who witnessed Jillette almost make host Pat Sajak disappear. After exchanging jokes back and forth about their heights – Sajak is 5’7″ and Jillette is 6’1″ – the two ended up standing next to each other and Jillette climbed onto Sajak’s platform, further increasing the discrepancy between the duo and makes for a great picture.
Penn Jillette and Pat Sajak in Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. (ABC) (ABC)
Snake oil
On the new Fox show “Snake Oil,” in which contestants work with celebrities to distinguish between real and fake products, one article in particular sparked a big reaction. Make it the…
Loser of the night: The man fork. This product was described by its owner, Brent, as “designed to help men eat bigger bites because we eat more than women.” It makes sense.” And that earned him some boos and eye rolls from the audience. The fork is 40% larger than average forks and is actually a real product, which NBA star Dwight Howard and his partner Tony guessed wrong.
When host David Spade later asked if the Man Fork was really just for men, Brent responded with an “Absolutely,” as did the crowd in their distaste for his product.
Celebrity Danger!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune And The $100,000 Pyramid airs on Wednesdays ABC; Snake oil airs on Wednesdays Fox.
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