Sunday, December 6, 2015

On The Air: Monopoly Millionaires Club (2015)

It started with an instant lottery ticket, available in several states. Earlier this year, Hasbro, the company that has literally created a monopoly on the toy & game markets, introduced their first syndicated series, Monopoly Millionaires Club. Best described as a cross between The Price is Right and the former Hub series, Family Game Night, which Hasbro's TV arm also produced.

Actor-comic Billy Gardell (Mike & Molly) is the series host, aided by game show veteran Todd Newton, who helmed Family Game Night during its run. Newton's role mostly is to do localized mini-games, one per show, in a separate studio. The series began as a hour-long show back in the spring, but after a summer hiatus, Millionaires Club returned, trimmed to a half-hour, likely because the ratings weren't there. Basically, the show's been given a second---and likely last---chance.

However, even though Wikipedia says the show returned in September, the local CW affiliate, which carries the show, didn't bring it back right away.

Here's a recent episode:




Equal parts game show and infomercial. That's what it feels like.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

Scoobyfan1 said...

As a game show fan, I definitely have watched this before; it does seem a bit like the show being trimmed to a half hour smacked of desperation on the part of the producers.

It really is a shame though, as I got to watch most of the first season back in the spring and summer and I think at least that it's a fun show to watch; Monopoly Millionaires Club also had a deal to run the show nationwide on GSN, but it was derailed because apparently you cannot air a lottery based game show in states that don't have lotteries or something like that, so that pretty much took care of the show running on GSN.

Plus I think the fact that it's syndicated definitely hurts, as the timeslot does vary throughout the U.S.; here in the Seattle market the show aired on our My Network affiliate on Saturday evenings originally, but when it came back for a second season it was moved by the station to Sunday night at 6:30 PM.... up against a little thing called Sunday Night Football.

If My Network TV or the CW as a whole maybe picked up the show as an experiment on Saturday nights, it might have a chance; although, the problem there is a small number of My and CW stations air play by play sports still on Saturdays, or other programming so that may not be the best solution.

hobbyfan said...

As noted, in upstate NY, MMC airs opposite the SNF pre-game presently. In NYC, it had been on a wee bit earlier than 8:00 (WPIX aired it at 7, IIRC). GSN had tried out something called "Let's Ask America" last year, to call attention to the show as it wasn't airing in a lot of markets. It bombed. Didn't know GSN had a deal for MMC until you mentioned it. Maybe Hasbro could move their Hub games over to GSN as a consolation?