Classic Posts - Family Feud

An old post about Family Feud from my old blog follows. BOTG talked about how ridiculous it was that the "triple" round basically decides the game, and renders the first two or three rounds as useless. Anyway, apparently it is still on TV. My thoughts from years ago follow.

The last time I've seen the show, I believe J. Peterman from Seinfeld was the host.


Why did I watch this show often as a kid, even though the structure of the show was ridiculous? Allow me to explain.


The overall premise wasn't too bad. Each family would have to guess what responses "100 random people" gave to random questions, usually about ordinary aspects of life. Whichever family performed better did the same in a final round with a chance to win money. Family Feud certainly is part of our cultural lexicon and has been a successful show for a long time.
 However, here are the three things that have started to bother me over time, in increasing order of annoyingness:



1) Why do they ask if a family wants to "Play" or "Pass" when they win the toss-up question? Theoretically, you'd see why a family would want to pass, I suppose... but, I'm sure in my lifetime I've watched this show at least 100 times and I've seen a family elect to pass maybe twice. It seems analogous to winning a coin flip in overtime in a sudden-death football game, and electing to "kick" rather than "receive". The best case scenario is that the other team fumbles or has to kick back, resulting in your possession... why not just receive in the first place?



2) It's annoying that sometimes a family gives what seem like "better" answers and they can't win a board because they miss one answer that is ridiculous that nobody would ever guess. I think the show's writers shouldn't use results to surveys if they are counterintuitive.



3) (This is what prompted me to write this post): The scoring structure is dumb. The family that gets to 300 points first wins. The first two rounds are usually worth close to 100 each, as the "top x answers are on the board" - and since 100 people were surveyed, the maximum amount of points each round is worth is usually somewhere between 80 and 100. 

Round 3 is worth 200 points, since scoring values are doubled. So, from time to time, a family will not only sweep each of the first three rounds, but also do so by sweeping the answers, and win after three rounds. However, this is not common. What usually happens is the game goes to a fourth round, where point values are tripled. So, often, the team that wins the triple round winds up winning the entire game, hence making the entire game up until this point almost insiginifcant. It would be kind of like a basketball game entering the 4th quarter and the referee going "Ok, since nobody is up by 30 points yet, let's have every basket for the last quarter count for 8 points each."


Random Notes 9.15.08

So, where was I? Ah yes, babbling about random shit.

- I took my first sick day of the year. I've been on this medication that's making me cough all night. I'm going to switch medications. I was too tired to function today, after being too tired to function all last week. Although, I suppose I'll have to get used to this should I have kids someday.

- I was posting yesterday about which web sites I find myself visiting with regularity. I started thinking about which TV shows I watch with regularity. If I'm home, I usually find myself watching Sportscenter in the morning and then reruns of the Simpsons and Seinfeld in the evening (most of which I've seen already). I also regularly watch poker on the Game Show Network on Monday nights and The Soup every Saturday morning. In stretches recently, I found myself getting into (and then losing interest in) Lost and this awful show. I'd never watched Law and Order and for some reason was morbidly curious to watch this (spinoff?) train wreck of a show. Needless to say, Ice-T and co. have acting skills that make Bob Saget look like Laurence Olivier. Why do I watch such CRAP? There's not much else on TV. Is it just the medium? Freaks and Geeks was a flash of brilliance in a dark, dark talentless world. Yet, everytime some old Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is on, I'll watch, zombie-like, until some cast member shamelessly sings to promote their singing careers, get disgusted with myself, and then watch it again the next time it's on. Am I just occasionally attracted to crap TV, or is most of programmed TV "crap TV"?

- I find myself missing Joe Grossberg's blog and find myself struggling to understand the Twitter concept that he's moved to. Maybe I'm like Side Bar as far as not being able to comfortably adjust to new technology or something. Anyway, Joey is always on the cutting edge, and made the suggestion (which I am grateful for, because I love Facebook so far) that I should invest my time in Facebook instead of Myspace because Myspace "is for kids and retards these days". Regarding his blogging and writing, how can you not feel nostalgic for his brand of wit, with lines like this that state that his buddy "spouted trivia like Peter North spouted ejaculate - profusely and widely"? I still don't understand what happened to your blog being hacked, but come back Joey, you are missed.

- A poker question: When could you ever fold pocket aces pre-flop in poker? ("Never" is my response.) Well, my brother pointed out that there is one scenario - like if you are in a tournament, it's early, and you have pocket aces and six or seven clowns or so go all-in with reasonable hands, you are probably an underdog to win the pot. Sure, you are favored vs. any one of them heads up, but you are an underdog "versus the field". And, why risk going all-in when you are not a favorite, when you should be able to outplay them later on? An interesting point. Here's a site that can figure out odds in hands, for up to five people.