Stylin'

Saw a couple funny tweets today about Who's Still Standing...

BothersBar: Mmm, Who's Still Standing basically not bad I thought. Either I'm getting soft or average quality is higher than it was.

shinydh: Or possibly you're more tolerant of the cartoony style than the buzzerblog crowd, most of whom didn't hate the _game_ as such.

Afraid I don't much care what the BuzzerBlog crowd thinks. But the comment about "cartoony style" got me thinking about the whole issue of style in game show production.

If I had to pick the game show with the most stripped-down style imaginable, I'd settle on Jeopardy. In fact, the Trebek epic seems almost style-less in a way, a show pared to the essential gameplay and little more. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the answer-and-question classic. But a slight bit of pizzazz wouldn't hurt. Trouble is, how would you fit it in?

When Millionaire brought game shows back to broadcast prime time, the show's dark foreboding style almost became a cliche with its many imitators. Maybe style went to obtrusive extremes here.

As for Who's Still Standing, I don't think its trimmings are particularly cartoony or obnoxious. The post-produced Christmas ho-ho-hos are grating but not a huge drawback. And the basic gameplay shines through the production style just fine.