They couldn’t have warned us? Seriously, when you have a stupid idea for a TV show, doesn’t it usually make the Internet rounds for a little while before we find out it’s being produced? Because apparently, Merv Griffin Entertainment is producing a Pac-Man reality show, and nobody bothered to ask us our opinions. Here are my issues with this:
This sounds more like a game show to me. I don’t know how it can’t be. Pac-Man is a game. Games entail objectives, strategies, competition, teamwork. If it’s not a game show, it’s a competition show, like Top Chef. Except that it’s not based on a practiced skill, not even video game skills. But an “unscripted reality show”? Based on Pac-Man? Have they ever seen Pac-Man? I haven’t played video games since 1994 and even I know how Pac-Man works. Did someone actually think to themselves:
“I always wondered what was going through Pac-Man’s mind. What’s happening in that perfectly circular yellow skull? And what do the ghosts think? What of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde? We’ve been taking them for granted for years, but what kinds of lives do they lead? What do they have to say about being referred to as ‘enemies’? Yes, these characters, in this game from 1980 … I want to let them speak. And I want to humanize them and put them on television. I want to see Ms. Pac-Man talking about how conniving Pac-Man can be sometimes. Because this is what I thought about this morning before I presented this fantastic idea, and still think it’s a great idea when I say it out loud to my goldfish.”
See how stupid this can be? Because “a big, crazy, Wipeout-type event with a lot of energy” sounds like Jersey Shore, and no good can come from that.
Either that, or America is trying to one-up Japan on something.
(Deadline)
