Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader Jumps the Shark

The game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" was one of my favorite game shows. However, if officially jumped the shark yesterday by having two celebrity contestants. I was disappointed to see that they are continuing with celebrity contestants again next week.

Ironically, they had Regis Philbin on as one of the celebrity contestants. "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" jumped the shark with too many celebrity episodes.

Celebrity episodes of big-money game shows just don't work. A celebrity probably makes more in a week or two than he could have won on the game show. When someone making $30k a year risks $300k to go for $500k, you have real tension. When a celebrity risks $300k to go for $500k for his charity, there isn't the same sort of tension. On a celebrity episode of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", Drew Carey offered to personally reimburse his charity if he cost it money by getting a question wrong.

Celebrity episodes remove one of the key elements of big money game shows: contestants who are risking a substantial amount of money, relative to what they can make in their regular job.

Hopefully, the makers of Deal or no Deal and Power of 10 don't make the same mistake. It would be a shame if those shows made this obvious shark-jumping move.