Rogan

No, the hidden-camera-and-earpiece idea isn’t anything new by any means. It’s been used on everything from Punk’d to David Letterman. GSIMH (hell of an abbreviation, isn’t it?) tries to be different by making the tasks “hilarious and embarrassing.” As I watched last night, I saw a girl who had to make people line up for 3 minutes for no reason, and guess which of a group of people would make it across the street at an intersection the quickest.

The “bonus round,” if you can call it that, asked her to convince a man to marry her. A full wedding was set up in a park, minus a groom, and the poor girl had to find a guy willing to fill-in for the groom, including writing vows and kissing the bride. It sounds impossible, sure, but the girl managed to do it …and that’s probably the point where I began to become addicted to this awful, awful show.

I’ve never watched Fox’s awful The Moment of Truth, and I’ve even rarely watched Punk’d. Yet, there’s something about this girl humiliating herself and members of the general public that oddly enticed me. Yes, it’s a guilty pleasure to me now. Of course, since it’s on Saturdays on CBS, I’m it’s only got a few weeks before its cancelled, but until then I’ll be watching and giggling horrendously as these idiots make fools of themselves in front of people on the street, and probably a couple million viewers.

Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS.

To me, anyway, Family Feud has the worst identity crisis of any game show today. The show has gone through five hosts: Richard Dawson, Ray Combs, Louie, Al from “Home Improvement,” and now O’Hurley. You can make it six if you count Al Roker on the atrocious Celebrity Family Feud. The theme music has been mixed, re-mixed, party-mixed, Chex-mixed, and then eventually just replaced altogether with the original music. The set changes more often than I do. Don’t even get me started on the logo. Yet, it’s still a (semi-)successful game show, and a fun one to shout at the TV to.

Alex Davis at Buzzerblog paid big money and did some unmentionable things to get on to the Family Feud set, and like a trooper he returned with a full report. Details include chatting with announcer Burton Richardson, the size of the set, and how tall the giant screen actually is. Either way, it sounds impressive. Check it out, pics included.

Digging in to Flickr, I found some other interesting tidbits. A family upload a series of pictures from their own Family Feud adventure. Apparantly O’Hurley isn’t afraid to pose for pics during commercial break. I’ve always wondered why the hell people in the audience had so many posters to hold in front of the camera, but apparantly the familys make them themselves, and they’re distributed to the audience.

What can I say? I’m a huge game show junkie. This stuff excites me.

Ferguson

So now I’ve begun to put together criteria. The person must be living. Dead people, to put it simply, are not awesome, nor hygienic. The person must have talent and ability. This immediately rules out Joe Francis, Bill O’Rielly, and all people who identify themselves as “rappers.” Lastly, the person must be from this planet. This excludes Obatma.

Immediately my mind is drawn to one person: Craig Ferguson. This man is always eager to point out that it is a great day in America, and damn it, it always is. He’s on TV almost every night with great material and has the charm of a prince. This lone individual could easily be the most awesome person in the world. But then I realized, however, that he does not qualify. You see, Craig Ferguson is a Scotchman, and Scottish Parliament repeatedly opposed James I’s requests for taxation to pay an English ransom in the 1420s, and for this I will never forgive them. Therefore, the most awesome person may not be from Scotland.

Maddow

So I simply take a 90-degree turn to MSNBC for my next two candidates: a one-two punch of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. These two, like Ferguson, come on every night to give their views of the world. Most of the time, these views side very much with the Democratic Party, and damn it if that doesn’t make them awesome enough. However, the world’s most awesome worldly person in the world should be fair and look at things from both angles. Don’t get me wrong, Maddow easily takes the title of world’s most awesome lesbian.

As I flip through the channels on my fancy color television set, I decide on a new rule: you are not considered ‘alive’ if people don’t even know whether you are or not. So now Abe Vigoda, Larry King, and my 3rd grade music teacher are all gone from the mix. Who else is left? Obatma’s less-famous half-brother Barack Obama and Mrs. Shank, my high school economics teacher, are both too obvious. Perhaps my fake award could go to the lonely man who filmed the infamous video ‘2 Girls, 1 Cup.’

But, no, there needs to be a certain standard of dignity to be upheld by the award. To give this to some sort of commoner would be a disgrace and insult to my post-reading audience, all three of them. Maybe the most awesome person in the world is the guy who invented the cute little Smart Car… and then tried to claim he was straight.

Goldberg

No. I’ve figured it out. After careful deliberation and a shot of legal beverage, I’ve concluded that the single most awesome person in this very world is simply Barry Goldberg. Barry. Effing. Goldberg. Who is he? He is the Santa who stood outside of a Wal-Mart in Lisbon, CT and handed out $10 gift cards to every person he saw. Of course, he was immediately shooed away by Wal-Mart’s security guards/greeters. But, damn it, a $1300 good deed shouldn’t go unnoticed. This 41-year-old man simply did something nice. Maybe that’s all it takes. Maybe he really is the most awesome person in the world?

Nah, it’s probably me after all. I’m just modest.