MORE OBSERVING OF THE ENGLISH: DEAL OR NO DEAL

As I am here in the London Office, I wanted to continue my study of English and American cultures. Today, I am going to talk about television.

When I was a tiny mj, you could only see UK shows on public television, which seemed like the territory of shut-ins, math teachers, and people who had renounced fun for religious or dietary reasons. So I was both amazed and slightly horrified to find that I liked what I found there, this rich vein of British programming. At the time, this was seen as basically akin to going to a fine wine producing region of France and demanding a bottle of Boone’s Farm’s very best Sun Peak Peach. We were America! We MADE television! British shows were cheap and weird and grim . . .

. . . and also the best things I had ever seen. To this day, I tend to watch more British television than I do American. It’s just easier and more acceptable now. Also, we Americans relentlessly buy UK television shows. We rarely show the originals, not on the major networks, anyway. We remake them in versions where everyone is American doing American Things. The Office, American Idol, Life on Mars, Dancing with the Stars, Kitchen Nightmares, Wife Swap, What Not to Wear . . . all UK shows, remade.

This has always bothered me. The originals of these shows are often much better, much more nuanced. The real Life on Mars, for instance, was an amazing show—genuinely creepy and fun. I lasted for three minutes of the American remake, which apparently hired a crack team of enjoyment-removers to pick the show to pieces, and a second unit of obvious-hint-highlighters to blow a bugle and flash a light whenever a glimpse of the show’s underlying mystery appeared.

But am I saying that all UK television is good and all American television is bad? Most assuredly not! I am just saying that if any of you in Los Angeles are thinking about making an American Doctor Who, know that I have a car full of tasers and trombones waiting at my beck and call. California is only a five-day drive. And while the tasers will certainly give you a shock, believe me . . . you have never heard me play the trombone. I have never heard me play the trombone, either. It will not be good for either of us, but you will suffer the most, because you will be writhing on the floor.

Some shows, however, are meant to be different. If you want to learn about some of the differences between America and the UK, you can learn at a lot by simply watching the two versions of the popular game show, Deal or No Deal. (I should point out that I don’t particularly like game shows, but in the interest of research, I studied both versions of the program. For you, readers, I will do anything.)

Deal or No Deal doesn’t belong to either nation. It was originally invented (like many things) by the Dutch. Unlike many excellent Dutch products—Vermeers, gouda, fine porcelain, tulips, stoopwaffle, and delicious chocolate—this one probably could have stayed at home. Like a fast-moving virus, it took hold all around the world, played in different ways, with the essential underlying format remaining the same. The UK version began in 2003, and the American version in September, 2008. (Or so says Wikipedia. If this is true, I’m amazed, as it seems to have been on FOR ALL OF TIME.)

In case you’ve never seen Deal or No Deal (do you exist?), I will give a brief explanation. If you know the game, you can skip the next paragraph and sail down the page.

HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED: The contestant on the show, guided closely by the host, is faced with a selection of boxes or briefcases. Each box or briefcase contains a certain amount of money (in the United States, there are 22 boxes, with values ranging from one penny to $500,000). At the start of the game, the contestant gets one box, which is placed on their podium, unopened. The contestant starts picking boxes, which are opened one by one, revealing different amounts of money, the hope being that the high values of money will remain in play. As the game goes on, a figure known as “the banker” will call in and offer the contestant varying sums of money to get them to quit the game. The amounts offered are at least partially based on the remaining value in the boxes. The contestant can either take the money offered or keep going, right down to the two last boxes, at which point they can either keep the box they got at the beginning, or swap it for the last remaining box. The box is then opened, and the contestant’s prize revealed.

A game of straight-out BOX PICKING would not be that popular. The game works because of the drama structured around it, and this is where you get to see the cultural variations.

Let’s begin with the American version.

The American Deal or No Deal is hosted by Howie Mandel, a comedian popular in the early 1980s for an act in which he would stick a rubber glove over his head and inflate it by blowing out through his nose. Howie Mandel is the kind of person people probably suspected was either dead or playing the circuit in Las Vegas. This second one is not far off the mark, as the set of the show is very Vegas-like—great, gleaming platforms, neon panels and glowing hi-tech screens, cityscape in the background, and 22 models in identical outfits with 22 identical silver suitcases arranged on a set of glowing steps. The banker appears in shadow, walking around a balcony, as if he is studying the events. I was going to make the joke that you expect Celine Dion to pop up from behind them all, singing a song, until I saw that the #1 favorite moment from the show’s history was, in fact . . . Celine Dion popping up behind them all on a screen, singing a song.

The contestant’s family members also come to the show. I don’t know for a fact that they do it this way . . . but I like to imagine that the producers come to their houses in the middle of the night, put a bag over their sleeping heads, and drag them screaming to a waiting van. Once inside, they are gassed. They wake up on the set, where they have been placed on a little island off to the side of the stage, forced to watch their relative play the game. Presumably, they are kept in place by an invisible electronic fence, which is dropped at the end of the game, when they always run free of their prison.

The producers throw flair at this show with reckless abandon. In this clip, they surprise the “ultimate Wicked fan” (who, bizarrely, has never seen the show) with a special appearance from Glinda the Good Witch. Based on my limited viewing experience (doctor’s offices, at home in Philadelphia while passing through the living room), I have observed that every contestant on the show seems to be a screamer. I mean, a REAL, THROAT-BLISTERING SCREAMER. Watch how Glinda slowly reacts in genuine alarm throughout the clip, while the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Relatives join in the screaming effort.

When we Americans do a show, we don’t %&*# around.



The UK version of the show is much more low-key, and yet . . . vastly more suspenseful. No Glinda here. No models with silver suitcases. No limos behind velvet curtains. Just quiet, protracted agony . . . exactly the way the English seem to like it.

The host of the UK version is a man named Noel Edmonds, an even-voiced bearded man with a gift for inducing low-level, unending tension. He’s sort of a cross between everyone’s favorite uncle, the nice one who knows how to tell the best stories, and a serial killer, one who’s extremely good at luring victims with his friendly demeanor and then chops them to bits while humming along with classical music on the radio. The one who, when later apprehended, is remembered as being “a really nice guy, but there was always something about him that made you a little . . . nervous, I guess. Nice to talk to, but you wouldn’t invite him over to your house.”



Noel Edmonds

Unlike the flashy American set, the UK Deal or No Deal is filmed in a warehouse, and goes to no effort to hide that fact. There’s no big stage—just a plain platform where host, contestant, and money stay on the same level. The banker is never seen at all, and exists only as the unheard voice on the other end of a telephone. The money is contained, not in shiny silver briefcases, but in cardboard boxes that make a nice, hollow sound. The boxes are held, not by models, but by very ordinary people. And unlike the smiling, silent models, the other box-holders will talk the contestant through the game, often very emotionally—because the contestant is one of their own, a friend who needs to be guided. It's a community effort. (Which still doesn't explain to my satisfaction why Noel Edmonds refers to the audience members as "pilgrims," but who am I to question the ways of crazy Uncle Stabby?).

In fact, you get the feeling that you aren’t actually watching a game show, but rather the exploits of an unlikely, ragtag team of amateur robbers—retirees, students, the random nurse or doctor—who presumably met over Facebook, all bound by a collective disgust with the tedium of everyday life. They have joined together to do a bank heist. Someone probably proposed the idea as a joke, but it was a joke that took on a life of its own. A few weeks later, 80 year old Edwina, office manager Nigel, Angela the shy phlebotomist, Mark, the guy who collects cuckoo clocks . . . are all tearing away from a Barklays Bank in a white transit van, ripping off their rubber masks and throwing them out the window. In the back, Simon (the plot mastermind, a movie buff with thousands of precisely organized DVDs who devised the scheme by combining heists from 28 classic films) is laughing and throwing fistfuls of money at Victoria, a lovely movement teacher who grew up in Essex and wouldn't normally get mixed up in this sort of thing . . .

Amazed by their success, they have thought up an enjoyable way of splitting the proceeds by staging a makeshift game in their warehouse hideout, also used by a friendly local murderer who they recruited as the host.

To give you an idea of the magnificence of this game, here are four emotionally wrought minutes from one episode, in which everyone is inexplicably dressed in Dickenswear, and all of the pirates cry. It’s like Little Nell has died all over again:



I will continue my research. Please let me know if you have any questions or observations of your own.

2009 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS, REVEALED

Happy New Year, friends! I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve tends to be one of those events that has a HUGE build up, but actually turns out to be a.) freezing cold and b.) best summarized like this:



Mine New Year’s Eve was very enjoyable . . . and I met a BLACKSMITH! A female BLACKSMITH! (I’m in England right now, which explains it. This would never happen in New York. No one has a FORGE in the city.) It was pretty excellent. So we had champagne and we talked about tools. I own a toolbox, but there’s nothing very exciting in it. Even my drill is tiny and pink and powered by 4 AA batteries.

The blacksmith told me about all sorts of wonderful things, and after we were done, I had resolution number one all ready to go . . .

#1 Get chainsaw

While her tales of the power hammer were pretty great, I have decided I need a chainsaw more than I need anything else in 2009. You may be wondering what I am going to do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City. To which I would reply, “What CAN’T I do with a chainsaw in the middle of New York City?!”

I feel that once I have my chainsaw, everything else will be a little bit easier. Meetings will go more smoothly. I will get better service. Traffic will move faster. The answer is, and always has been: chainsaw.

#2 Fix economy

2008 will go down in history as the year that all the money broke—the hangover of an orgy of greed, incompetence, deregulation, and flat-out stupidity. We all watched in amazement as money simply . . . melted. We were reminded what a flimsy concept money is in the first place.

Anyway, SOMEONE has to do something. I first thought that maybe Fred and Sharon could help:



But if you want something done right, you can only do it yourself. So that’s on my list. And since I’ll have a chainsaw, I figure this can’t be too hard. I'll budget a week for that.

#3 Finish repairs on the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator

As you probably have guessed, I am a driving force behind the construction of the 17 mile supercollider in Switzerland. My original concept was to have all of the members of Abba collide at 99.9999% the speed of light, almost certainly producing a song greater than Dancing Queen.

My idea was then hijacked by a bunch of scientists, who want to produce a Higgs boson, some kind of fancy particle, which will essentially recreate the conditions that were present less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Also, it may possibly produce some small black holes and something called strangelets, which are either dark matter particles or the title of a new album by 80s emo princes, The Smiths.

Obviously, my idea is better.

So we’re sitting there, eating some chocolate and cheese, and I say, “Listen guys, what does the world need more? Proof of the Standard Model, or Abba’s first single since 1983?” And the scientists nodded. One of them started humming “Waterloo,” which I took as a good sign. But then they went right back to talking about spinning their particles.

Anyway, the thing broke, which buys me a bit more time to pitch my idea again. Failing that, I am simply going to break into the place once we get it fixed, brining all four members of Abba with me. I am certain that Benny, Bjorn, Anna-Frid, and Agantha will willingly be spun around 17 miles of circular tunnel, 570 feet below Geneva, at 99.9999% the speed of light. Seriously, they will be going so fast, they won’t even notice the collision. I postulate that we will create a DISCO SUPERNOVA, or possibly a new, disco ball-shaped planet.

#4 Find home for the Abba Museum

God, what DIDN’T break in 2008? In perhaps what was the most devastating blow, plans for the Abba Museum in Stockholm went completely haywire. The museum lost its location, and now there is NO SCHEDULED DATE for its opening. HORROR.

On the bright side, this frees up some time for Abba to get spun around the supercollider. On the downside, WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO TO SEE THE KARATE OUTFITS FROM THE 1976 WORLD TOUR? Where can I go to MEET MY PEOPLE, fellow lovers of Sweden’s greatest musicians? No, a sing-a-long screening of Mamma Mia is not enough. We need a temple.

I have written to the museum keepers to let them know that they are welcome to store the collection in my house in the meantime, and that I will allow people in seven days a week. They haven’t replied yet, but I figure this is because they are busy putting everything into boxes to send to me.

#5 Bring back Cookie O’Puss

When I was a tiny mj, the ice cream chain Carvel used to have a series of ice cream cakes, which they would relentlessly pimp on our local television stations. The Carvel ice cream cake family included Fudgie the Whale, the Tie Cake, and C.P. (the “celestial person”), which was some kind of alien shaped like a light bulb with an ice cream cone for a nose. None of this made a lot of sense, even to a five year old who didn’t care what it was as long as it was MADE OF ICE CREAM. Carvel could have sold cakes in the shape of giant rats, or guillotines, or Paul Revere’s etching of the Boston Massacre, and I wouldn’t have cared. As long as they all had that delicious vein of chocolate crumble between two flavors of soft serve, I would eat it.

But even I remember slightly questioning Cookie O’Puss. Which was especially odd, because he was GREEN, which suggested a high probably of MINT ice cream, which is my lifelong favorite. Cookie O’Puss was the friend of C.P., the alien with the ice cream cone for a nose. That he was an Irish alien with a slight Brooklyn accent made it all the stranger.



Cookie O’Puss made me nervous. But then LOTS of things made me nervous when I was four years old. Kiss dolls. The band Queen. Teenage boys who talked about dragons. That fourth grade girl in my cab who tormented my friend.

I should explain that I went to Kindergarten in a cab every day. This was because there were only four people in my area going to my school, so the district thought it would be more cost-effective to hire out a station wagon from the local cab company. The local cab company was staffed entirely by a crew of burned out Hell’s Angels that hung out at a place called Phil’s, which was essentially a biker bar.

So on the first day of Kindergarten, my mother put me, her tiny mj, into a maroon station wagon driven by an ENORMOUS HELL'S ANGEL named Mr. Jimbo. Years later she confessed the terror that she felt on that first day . . . but Mr. Jimbo liked kids, and he drove well, so she grew to accept it, and to like it. It turns out that large, bearded, tattooed, leather-vested bikers are EXACTLY who you want shepherding your tiny children. No one messes with Mr. Jimbo or his little charges.

Anyway, there was this girl named Danielle who was, as I remember it, Satan’s very own spider monkey, and her #1 occupation was tormenting people smaller than her. I was a very meek child, but things must have built to a head. She was bothering us Kindergarteners relentlessly one day and I just went POW with my enormous lunchbox. (Which was plastic, and heavy, and had a pair of shoes in it, because I had to change my shoes once I got to school for some reason. The shoes fit perfectly into the place where the thermos was supposed to go, so every single day of Kindergarten, I got: "What are you having for lunch, Maureen? SHOES?” At first, this made me very upset, but after the first three months or so, I started to reply, “YES. I AM HAVING SHOES FOR LUNCH.” This is when I learned that Kindergarteners do not excel at multiple rounds of verbal jousting, and generally had no idea where to go from there. They might manage a “Ew, gross.” But by that point, the barb had lost its sting, and they knew it.)

Anyway, Danielle was perpetrating some form of evil on my friend, and I was just mad as hell and couldn’t take it anymore, and down came the lunchbox. This shocked EVERYONE, such was my gentle and meek nature. In fact, I didn’t even get in trouble, because my teacher said, “If Maureen hit her with a lunchbox, it must have been pretty bad.”

Which was SCORE FOR ME, except we then found out that Danielle had recently had brain surgery.

We kind of got along after that, but it was a delicate détente. She gave me a weird looking elephant she’d made of masking tape, which also made me nervous, because it was so freaky looking. I hid it in a drawer, because I was too afraid of it to get rid of it.

Anyway, Cookie O’Puss was just one item on a long list of concerns. But I still WANTED ONE. And I think 2009 is the year they should come back.

#6 Mo Better Blogs

More blogs. More stuff. All the time. 2009 is the year I plan to make you truly sick of me.

#7 Write some books

Which will include Suite Scarlett three, and A BOOK I CAN'T TELL YOU ABOUT YET.

This list is sort of rough, and I’d like to improve on it. So if you have any ideas, please let me know.

And now, let me give out a SIGNED BOOK to a random commenter from the last post. And that random commenter is Cat, who spread Cheer by volunteering at a homeless shelter over the holidays. Cat, send me your address!

For now, that is the end of the book giveaway. And I say FOR NOW, because there will ALWAYS be times in the future that I give away some books. You never know when it can happen.