Wednesday witticisms

The hype for supercomputer Watson's arrival on Jeopardy is reaching Super-Bowlish proportions. Seems like almost every game show story in the Google news cache concerns the question-answering (or answer-questioning) mega-gizmo. Not to mention a PBS documentary and scads of interviews with its hapless human opponents. At Broadcasting & Cable the always sensible Paige Albiniak previews the upcoming battle. Her wryly appropriate title: "Resistance is Futile."

A few mere humans remain in the game show business. One is a fellow named Pat Sajak. He hosts a certain version of hangman involving a big wheel. This local media account from Wichita offers a few items I didn't know about the quick-witted host: his father was a trucking foreman and he once worked local radio and TV in Nashville.

The secret to Sajak's success after all these centuries, er, decades? "They expect you to come out and not treat it as show number 5,950 but as show number one. It's fair to the people who hire you, it's fair to the people who watch you, and it’s fair to the contestants."

No surprise, but the ouster of Gabe Kaplan from GSN's High Stakes Poker in favor of Norm Macdonald is not sitting well with online pundits. An mlive.com writer grumps:

Kaplan worked solo in the booth last season and, while he fell a little flat without A.J. Benza, he remains poker's best commentator. MacDonald may be an 'avid' player (according to GSN's press release), but he won't be able to match the cash game experience Kaplan provided. The new season premiers at 8 p.m. Feb. 26, but I'm running out of reasons to watch.

I don't want to prejudge the Saturday Night Live alumnus. But Macdonald better be really good really fast on High Stakes Poker, or the online grumpiness will only grow.