What Did I Miss? features a smarmy host quizzing sequestered contestants on the headlines. But politics is not funny any more<\/p>\n
The classic television game show is one of the simplest pleasures available to the sedentary, socially maladjusted people we used to call \u201ccouch potatoes\u201d. An average Joe is required to perform a task \u2013 ranging from answering a trivia question or spinning a large, colorful wheel to keeping a hand on a Toyota Land Cruiser<\/a> for as long as possible \u2013 in exchange for the possibility of winning a cash prize (or a truck<\/a>). For the viewer, there is the satisfaction of believing, perhaps falsely, that you could win the prize if you were in the contestant\u2019s place. Maybe you identify with that contestant and actively root for their success. Or perhaps you just want to see some poor bastard shot out of a cannon<\/a>, like on TBS\u2019s dearly departed series Wipeout. Whatever your pleasure might be, it\u2019s not an uncommon or esoteric one.<\/p>\n We watch game shows because they are basic human drama distilled into an easily repeatable format. TV development executives have tried to modernize it with the fancy graphics of something like NBC\u2019s The Wall<\/a> or the gratuitous flesh-baring of the 2000s disasterpiece Are You Hot, in which a panel of \u201ccelebrity\u201d judges such as Lorenzo Lamas critiqued people on the number of visible abs on their bodies. The simpler a game show premise \u2013 guessing the cost<\/a> of basic household items, answering multiple choice questions<\/a> in a spooky room, or doing menial tasks<\/a> for a man who combs his hair forward \u2013 the better. Perhaps this is why my initial reaction to the press release<\/a> for the forthcoming mini-series Greg Gutfeld\u2019s What Did I Miss?<\/a>, on the Fox Nation streaming service, was so immediately negative.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Did I Miss? features a smarmy host quizzing sequestered contestants on the headlines. But politics is not funny any more The classic television game show is one of the simplest pleasures available to the sedentary, socially maladjusted people we used to call \u201ccouch potatoes\u201d. An average Joe is required to perform a task \u2013 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}