《闲话美国》-老牌综艺背后的“猫腻”，抠门还得是你！
英文小酒馆 LHH
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Hello, everyone and welcome to America Under the Microscope advanced episode. Hi, Lulu.
Hi, James. Let's continue with our talk about American game shows.
Alrighty. Let's talk about household names, specifically the host of the three shows we talked about in the basic level, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and The Price Is Right.
I would imagine with those big three being so popular and then they've been on air for so many years. So the hosts of these game shows they would be, like you said, household names, everyone at least recognize those names even if they don't watch it.
For Wheel of Fortune, the hosts are Pat Sajak and Vanna White. These two people are household names, everyone in the country knows them.
And how long have they been the hosts?
30+ years.
And that they never changed hosts?
No, I don't think they want to quit because they get paid really well to do this. Multi-million dollar contracts to make the show and…
It's not that difficult, is it?
It's not like acting. They don't have to remember scripts or anything like that. And so they get paid a lot, and same with Jeopardy's host, Alex Trebek.
I've heard that name before, Alex Trebek.
Suddenly, his name would show up in the news a lot more now because he has cancer. So Jeopardy is going to have to find a new host in the very near future.
And he is still hosting?
Yes. He still is, but that's going to come to an end soon…
And then…
For The Price Is Right, you have the old host Bob Barker which everyone knows, but he retired several years ago. And now is Drew Carey who's a famous comedian and he had it on his own TV shows in the past. Everyone knows these people.
Apart from these household names. Are there any references? I would imagine there's some references in terms of the phrases they use on the show, because in China, this was the case.
Yeah, that's true, too. So like from Wheel of Fortune, people might use the phrase and conversations like I’d like to buy a vowel when they want to like get clues…and stuff.
Get hints. I’d like to buy a vowel. Because vowels are… they are more useful than consonants, aren't they?
And like lots of them from The Price Is Right like Come on down or How much do you bid? And all these catch phrases, people will use them for playing other games or they'll… like English teachers use these all the time in class to make classroom games.
And is one of those things, if you say to an American, especially in that voice, they would immediately recognize. And you also see parodies of these games.
A lot of comedy shows will do parodies of them, and they'll do be parodies of them on sitcoms, and they are that big.
I have to say that I'm perhaps more familiar with some of the British game shows because of the summer I stayed England for 2 months. I did watch quite a bit of game shows. A lot of those game shows in the UK, they would have celebrity special, so they would invite famous people or minor celebrities to be the contestants.
Oh, we do that too and they play for charity.
So that's the same. So they play and the money because they already quite rich, they don't really need the money. They play for exposure and then for charity.
Yeah, and those episodes are never serious, like they have Celebrity Jeopardy episodes and they never asked them that hard because...that… doesn't look good, and the celebrities don't take it seriously because no matter what they do, they get money for their charity whether they win or lose.
Yeah, in the UK, the only the winner would get money for their charity.
American TV shows like You lost. That's okay. We'll still give $10,000 to your charity.
