GSK's Second-Half Review of 2011

The month of July was fairly lackluster, w/ the only notable big winner being Mark Runsvold. On his first "Jeopardy!" appearance on the 15th, this Justin Bieber lookalike won $48K. He immediately followed that w/ a $55K win the following Monday, which was the fourth-highest regular game win of all-time. He was dethroned on Thursday & left w/ $154,800. The "J!" season ended on the 29th w/ soon-to-be superchamp Justin Sausville winning his first two games & $58,401. However, about a day or two earlier that week, Alex Trebek tore an Achilles tendon while chasing a burglar in S.F. & is still recovering from it as of today.

August started off w/ the last episode (for now) of GSN's newest version of "Lingo", the debut of the low-rated but popular show "Take the Money & Run" & Elise Sonyae winning Bravo's "Platinum Hit". Week 2 saw Melanie Moore winning "So You Think You Can Dance" while never being in the bottom three & Jeff Mauro becoming "(The Next) Food Network Star", allowing "The Sandwich King" to get on the air. Week 3's top winner was Jennifer Behm, who won the $250K as the Season 2 U.S. "MasterChef". At the start of Week 4, "American Ninja Warrior" made its broadcast network debut (& appeared on GSK for the first time since being removed from this site due to technical difficulties in my area), but nobody made it to the fourth & final stage despite four contestants making it to Stage 3. On the 24th, Johnny & Tyler and Ev & Paula split $200K as the winners of "The Challenge: Rivals". The very next night saw The Gypsies deservingly winning "Expedition Impossible", as they only failed to win one stage the whole series! Sadly, that weekend, Hurricane Irene struck the East Coast, shutting down GSK for the rest of the month. Incidentally, on the last day of August, "The Price is Right" aired its last original episode of the season that was originally scheduled to air the day after Valentine's Day (but was pre-empted due to a Presidential News Conference) & five out of six Pricing Games were won that day, but it ended in a Double Overbid.

The Hub helped kick off September w/ a Season 2 "Family Game Night" doubleheader & a sneak preview episode for both "The Game of LIFE" & "Scrabble Showdown". "Millionaire" began its 10th syndicated season that Labor Day. Also that week on Tuesday, the ABC finale of "Take the Money & Run" was aired & Wednesday had the last $125K winners on U.S. "Minute to Win It". On the 11th, Team Korilla was disqualified from the second season of "The Great Food Truck Race" for depositing $2,700 of their own cash into their seed money box; what's worse, if they hadn't cheated, they would've advanced to the following episode instead of Hodge Podge. On a happier note on the 12th, "Family Feud" resumed airing new episodes in Richmond, VA for Steve Harvey's second season for the first time since John O' Hurley's second season (& both winning families won the $20K that day) & there was the debut of MTV's "The Substitute"! On the 14th (the day after "It's Worth What?" aired its last show), Rachel Reilly won "Big Brother XIII" & Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. won "America's Got Talent"; "Wipeout" wrapped its fourth season the next night.

But Sept. 19th was one of the most eventful GS days of the year, as not only Paul Niedermann won the ninth U.S. season of "Hell's Kitchen" & the 13th season of "Dancing with the Stars" got underway, the rest of the usual shows began their seasons, especially "TPiR"- in the very first round of their 40th CBS season, Sharon Baker not only won a $500 bonus for successfully memorizing the $668 iPad2 set, but ended up conquering a super-special car edition Race Game in 13 seconds to become the first daytime "Price" player to win FOUR cars! To date, she's the biggest winner of the season w/ $79,687 in cash & prizes. The 21st wasn't a lucky day for "Wheel of Fortune", as it had its first $100K loss of the season. On Thursday, not only did "Feud" have its first car win of the season, but Justin Sausville became a six-time champ on "Jeopardy!". The very next day, Justin left w/ $136K, The Lawsons became the biggest winners in the Steve era of "Feud" w/ over $68K+ in cash & car and $350K was won for charity on "Millionaire" (including $250K by Anthony Anderson)! On the 25th, The Lime Truck defeated Hodge Podge to win the $100K on "The Great Food Truck Race". To conclude the month of September, "Price" had its first Season 40 skunking on the 26th, "Wheel" had two Million Dollar Bonus Rounds in the same week on the 30th (& made the 1/2 Car idea semi-permanent), Chad Mosher won $43,550 on a "Millionaire Double Your Money Week" & Chris Fleitas won $82,901 in just two nights on "J!".

Chris, however, lost his very next game to Joon Pahk. Two days after Joon won the title, former "J!" player Noam Osband won $250K on "Millionaire" & Joon wound up sweeping the week! On Oct. 12th, Joon left as a seven-time "J!" champ w/ $201K. That week was also a great one for both CBS shows, as there was a winning car PG week (6-4) on "Price" for the first time since the first week of Nov. '09 (also, both car game winners made the Showcase on the 13th) & four Big Deals out of five were won on "Let's Make a Deal". But it didn't go so well for "Wheel", as they got skunked for the first time this season. Some shows' fortunes were reversed on the week of the 17th, when "Wheel" had its first winning BR week of the season but "Price" had a Car Game Shutout for the first time this season, despite Rio Pacheco's $67K+ Double Showcase Win (first of Season 40) on the 18th.

As my sixth season began on the 24th, "Price" had a mixed week- while it had its second winning car game week in three weeks after a two-year drought (including a miracle Lucky $even win despite two nines being in the price), it had back-to-back DOBs in one taping day (CBS didn't air that week's shows exactly that way). Also, Dustin Ellermann became the third "Top Shot", Chris Hanmer became the second "Top Chef: Just Desserts" & Anya Ayoung-Chee won the ninth season of "project RUNWAY".

FOX viewers got a treat on Halloween when that network & DirecTV finally agreed to terms on a new carriage deal. But on November 6th, most of a team of video game geeks got tricked by Frank Tota on the "Million Dollar Mind Game" (to start off their tapings, no less) when they were forced to play not one, but two Million Dollar Questions because of him & lost their entire $600K- the biggest team loss in GS history. Starting on Nov. 7th for 12 episodes (after they had suffered their second $100K loss of the season on Nov. 3rd), "Wheel" players competed for themselves & their designated home viewers in the sears Secret Santa Sweepstakes. Exactly a week later, Roger Craig blew eight-time champ Tom Nissley & Buddy Wright out of the water in the "Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions" final when he made back-to-back unprecedented True Daily Doubles successfully in a Double Jeopardy! Round & finished w/ $50K in just Game 1 (on the same night GS veteran Dave Ramos won $63,100 on "Millionaire"), en route to his $250K win the next night! Also on the 15th, Bonnie Rutschilling became the biggest single "Wheel" winner of the season to date w/ $81,900 in cash & stuff (including a 2012 KIA Soul during the maingame & $50K in the endgame), all of which Ron H. also won! On the 22nd, the "Wheel" SSS ended exactly the way it began w/ the night's champ solved a bonus puzzle for $30K, but the Bonus Wheel spin was two spaces off the $1M envelope; also, J.R. Martinez & Karina Smirnoff won "Dancing with the Stars". The next day before Thanksgiving, Jan Spreen left w/ a record Round 1 bank of $70,600 during the second "Millionaire Double Your Money Week". On the 27th, Brad Rutter led his team of pub trivia experts to the biggest official group win on the "Million Dollar Mind Game", $600K! The extended rest for "Price" because of the Thanksgiving bread proved to be well worth it, as Racheal Battle became their second DSW of the season w/ just under $56K & Jacob Krause won almost $65K the very next day (including $26K on The Big Wheel). Also that week to close out December, PENTATONIX won the third season of "the sing-off".

Disaster struck on "The Amazing Race" December 4th when despite them leading heading into the final clue for the Pit Stop, six-stage winners Andy Finch & Tommy Czeschin got completely lost & became the last team eliminated before the finals. On the 5th, Joan & Joe Hall racked up the highest "Wheel" total of the season to date w/ $87,470 in cash & stuff after nearly sweeping the maingame & winning a pair of Honda CR-Vs in the bonus round. The 6th had the unfortunate end of Club Millionaire. Another bizarre situation arose on the "America's Next Top Model: All-Stars" finale on the 7th, when Angelea Preston got disqualified after participating in the final runway show, allowing Lisa D'Amato to gain the victory. Former "BrainSurge" contestant Rachel Crow's heartbreaking "The X Factor" elimination (which was triggered by Nicole's decision to force the Deadlock) dominated the 8th. To conclude the first full week of December, Ernie Halvorsen & Cindy Chiang, who won the very first leg of "The Amazing Race" for the Express Pass they used on Stage #7's Detour, won the $1M top prize on the 11th. The next week's big winners were John Rhode (who won "The Biggest Loser" on the 13th), Patricia Mellor (who became "TPiR's" third DSW of Season 40 w/ the luck of Larry Edmur & won $76K+ on the 15th) & Sophie Clarke (who won "Survivor: South Pacific" on the 18th), although Jason Keller started his long tenure as "J!" champ on the 16th.

"Who's Still Standing?" finally made its U.S. debut on NBC on the 19th, but it didn't get the best of reviews, nor did "Price's" Christmas Week, despite the car game record for that week being a respectable 4-5-1; "Wheel" also got Scrooged on Christmas Week (despite no holiday decorations being on the "Great Escapes" set at the time) for the first time since '08. On the very bright side, Kymia Nawabi won "Work of Art" Season 2, Brian Burkhardt came out on top on "project ACCESSORY", Jason swept the week to become a six-time "J!" champ & Melanie Amaro won the $5M+ "The X Factor" super grand prize package after initially not even making the live performance shows!

To close out the year, Jason finished as a nine-time "J!" champ w/ $215,900 on the 29th & both "Price" & "Wheel" came so close to being perfect in certain areas- on Boxing Day (the 26th), the last PG of Switch? ruined a Perfect Show & the BR on that same day prevented "Wheel" from having its fourth & final PERFECT BR WEEK of '11, as every other endgame was won that week.

Next year starts out w/ celebrities competing for charity on "Price" & "The Voice" and "American Idol" going head-to-head in the ratings.