No Deal. Please.

So to get ready for tonight’s big Heroes, I tuned to NBC early, unwittingly watching about half of Deal or No Deal.

Ho. Lee. Crap.It’s the classic trainwreck, except the passengers are 26 passably attractive clones being driven by a preening bald jester in a disco undertaker outfit. Oh, and on the side of the tracks, shrieking like feral schoolchildren, are a seething throng of lowest common denominators.

Deal or No Deal purports to be a game show, but the only talents involved are shouting numbers and trying not to be creeped out by Howie Mandel. Each number corresponds to a case with a monetary amount inside. The “point” of the show is to open as many cases as possible without eliminating the big money. As the cases disappear, a mysterious Banker calls with offers to stop playing, at which point Howie struts around, presses his palms together and spits out the show’s version of “final answer,” which goes “Deal…

…

…

…or No Deal?”

The contestant can either take the money or go for more. A throng of hysterical jackals, some the contestant’s friends and family, urge him or her to go on.

At the point that I stumbled across the show, a woman who apparently loved everything lime green took the Deal of trading her case for a lime green Escalade, while her shrewish family screeched “No Deal!” through a torrent of tears. The Escalade was, perhaps, the ugliest vehicle ever created, unless someone defecated on an Edsel at some point.

She was replaced by Jim, who jaunted up on stage, executed the first of several double pounds with the grinning specter of Death – sorry, Howie – and said he wanted to act like a “big shot.” Being a big shot would, in his estimation, involve taking his family on a cruise and giving money away to a stranger. At one point, he was given $1000 to distribute to strangers in the audience, who responded to these hundred dollar bills like a heart transplant seconds away from expiration. Also, the Banker sent his Messenger out with a stepstool to prove that Jim was too short to be a big shot.

As the show ended, Jim was down to a few cases and several hundred thousand dollars. The followup Thanksgiving episode promises the the train actually wrecking, plus pie, turkey and special guest Celine Dion. Sounds like there's another train on the track.