Hollywood Game Night

I ran across a lovely "one-whacker" on a TV show called Hollywood Game Night, episode 217, "Don't Be Gunn-Shy".

The program is hosted by actress Jane Lynch, probably best known for her role on Glee as the cheerleader coach.  Each week, two teams of celebrities (3 on each team) compete against each other in a series of games.  Each team is headed up by a contestant--Jane Lynch calls them the "normals"--probably taken from the audience.  Whichever team is declared the winner by the end of the night gets to play for the "big money"--the "normal" chooses one of the celebrities to try and help her win up to $25,000 and whichever celebrity she chooses as her partner can win $10,000 for the charity of their choice.

The show is actually a lot of fun to watch.  You get to see some well-known people in a different environment.  Playing games with friends is something everyone can relate to.  And it's amazing how competitive some of these celebrities are!  There's a lot of heckling and trash-talking going on.

In this episode, one team consisted of Poppy Montgomery, Jeff Probst, and Tiffani Thiessan, along with their contestant.  On the other side were David Alan Grier, Leslie Bibb, and Tim Gunn (hence the play on words in the episode's title) along with their contestant.

The game being played was called, "Smash The Buzzer".  The two teams are seated on couches that face each other, usually separated only by a big rug.  For this game, two buzzers--one for each team--are placed in between, just out of the reach of both teams.  The buzzers sit on top of two waist-high towers.  Jane Lynch announces a category, and then starts to read off a list of items--some actually fit the category, most are made up, some are amusing.  As soon as someone hears an item that they believe fits the category, they have to lunge forward off the sofa and smash the buzzer.  If they're right, their team gets points, and they get to eliminate a member from the opposing team.  If the person guesses wrong, they're eliminated.  The player selected gets to go off to "the bar" and the rest continue playing until one team is totally eliminated.

Because lunging forward on the rug can be a bit dicey, the women were encouraged to take off their shoes before the game started.  Leslie Bibb took her shoes off, and then walked them over to the opposing team's sofa and put them in front of Jeff Probst, probably hoping to impede his attempts to go for the buzzer.  Nothing like a little sabotage in a friendly game, right?  (I told you some of these celebrities get competitive!)

Actress Leslie Bibb--photo courtesy of Allure Magazine

As luck would have it, the first person eliminated is--Leslie Bibb!  So she has to walk over in front of the other team and retrieve her shoes.  As she leans on one of the buzzers to slip her shoes on--Tiffani Thiessan hauls off and gives her a good whack on the butt!  Tiffani has a good laugh as Leslie walks off, and Jeff Probst is pointing at Tiffani just to let Leslie know he didn't do it.

A little later, it's Tiffani that gets eliminated.  Leslie immediately comes running over, telling her, "Don't forget your shoes!", and--I think--looking for a little payback.  Tiffani wisely doesn't try to put her shoes on, just scurries on over to the bar while carrying them, and manages to keep her bottom turned away from Leslie's hands--as least, as far as we can see.

You should be able to find the show on-line somewhere if you want to take a look, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me if a clip turned up on Youtube.