9/11/2023 0 Comments Prank gamesI pitch the show to people as something in between a game show and a puzzle and a prank. I admit I’ve had difficulty communicating the appeal of Game Changer to people who are immediately skeptical of anything involving the words “improv comedy” and “game show.” How do you explain it? It’s kind of like the game of The Witness: Here’s a bunch of bubbles, and you’re dragging a little snake in between them, and now we’re going to make it exponentially more complicated and then exponentially more complicated again. And then we switch it up on you in some way. Our challenge with the show is to present you with a puzzle, and then like a video game, hopefully you develop mastery over it. We’ve done other punchline-based episodes, like “Tell Us About Yourself” in the virtual season, where we have a celebrity guest in disguise, and the players have to learn by asking who it is, which does suffer from a bit of, All right, now hurry up and solve it already. The truth is, I think puzzles can be limited in terms of their entertainment value. I don’t think you can do that all the time. It’s one of my favorite illustrative moments to come out of the show. If I had to pick one clip to show to people to describe the show, it would be the three Noise Boys and the vases in season 1. The most electrifying moment in the show is always in the first five or so minutes, when the contestants are trying to figure out what the boundaries are. And then once figure out the game, the game heightens in some way. Some of our early concern about it was if the players spend the whole game solving a puzzle, then isn’t it boring for the length of the show? And then doesn’t it end promptly once they figure it out?Īs we’ve developed Game Changer, it’s turned into more like a series of moments. The original title for the show was What the What, based loosely on the parlor game Scissors. I had half a pitch hanging out in old documents somewhere. The team of writers wasn’t particularly eager to do that, as any team of writers wouldn’t be, and so I felt like by developing Game Changer, I was sort of falling on that sword for them. Sam Reich: Game Changer came out of a time in Dropout history where there was pressure for us to develop more cheaper, unscripted programming. But how did it go from affection to reality? Polygon: You’ve said before that Game Changer comes from a love of game shows you’ve had for much of your life. Game Changer’s recently concluded fifth season included scenarios like: a comedy writer inventing the dirtiest pickup lines he can while his mother stands right next to him a performer known for his competitive streak asked to keep his heart rate low while he plays a game he knows is rigged against him and the playground pastime of Simon Says heightened to continent-spanning stakes.Īnd since we happen to be thinking about competition this week anyway, we reached out to Game Changer’s host and creator, Sam Reich, to pick his brain about comedy, competition, and pushing boundaries as far as they’ll go while making sure that everyone involved - contestants and audience - is having a good-ass time. In (most) episodes, contestants must decipher the game as they play, the play usually involves performance, and once they figure out the rules, the real fun begins. Or you could say it’s like Saw, but instead of people captured by a serial killer, it’s improv comics captured by video producers within the trap of their own performing instincts. You could say it’s like Whose Line Is It Anyway? if the points weren’t made up and they definitely did matter. Prepare yourself for Polygon's Who Would Win Week. One eternal question spans all of pop culture: "Who would win?" This week we have answers.
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