A Game Show for the Rest of Us

I tired long ago of Jeopardy!, with its highbrow questions, cardboard host and stagnant setting. No offense Alex, but your show is an I’ll-watch-it-if-I’m-in-the-doctor’s-office proposition. And although I know a lot of useless trivia, quite honestly I’m not that good at Jeopardy!.

Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab is a different animal. It’s Jeopardy!-like without being stuffy. It has a variety of general knowledge questions lowbrow types like me can answer. It’s also family friendly, which is getting to be a rarity. I think we’re down to two shows we can watch as a family without embarrassment on somebody’s part.

Caustic Host; Crazy Setting

Cash Cab takes place in a New York City taxi driven by Ben Bailey, a would-be comedian whose low-key sarcastic wit and snarky camera glances make the Cash Cab fun but don’t intrude on the real stars—the passengers. New York City has a plethora of interesting people who unwittingly become contestants on the show. These unknowing passengers jump into the cab, thinking they’re going for a typical cross-town taxi ride. Then, amid a swirl of disco lights in the roof of the cab, Bailey tells them they’re on a game show and eligible to win a bunch of money on the trip to their destination. Their reactions and their behavior in the cab are hilarious.

Great People-Watching

There are few Ken Jennings types in the Cash Cab. It picks up people from all walks of life—parents and kids, business types, groups of friends, slackers—all manner of people who have varying degrees of education, and in some cases it seems, none. But that is the beauty of it—you never know what you’re going to get. For some reason, it seems that if there are two or more people in the cab, it quickly becomes clear who is the smartest. But no matter, the money they win goes to the group.

There are also losers, of course, who get booted from the cab if they get three answers wrong before they reach their destinations. Correct answers pay $25, $50 and $100. Of course it seems that no matter what happens the contestants get at least a free cab ride, which in New York can add up to big bucks. We laugh each time there’s a winning contestant, who inevitably jumps out of the taxi waving the handful of cash he or she has won. We wait for the day when the camera captures the winner being knocked to the New York streets and mugged.

Test Drive Cash Cab

In my area, Cash Cab is on around dinnertime. We usually record the episodes and watch them whenever there’s nothing good on, which is most of the time. Here’s the show’s website if you want to check it out for yourself.

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/cashcab/cashcab.html