I am a huge fan of TV trivia game shows. From the main stream programs such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Jeopardy to Cash Cab or the short lived classic Sale of the Century. I watch them all!
And nothing beats Alex Trebek just being a dick to the contestants.
Well TruTV has a new trivia game show coming out with a unique angle that could be viewed as being exploitative of young people who find themselves in an unfortunate situation.
Paid Off will give one of three young college grads an opportunity to have their student loans wiped out if they can prove their trivia knowledge!
Who knows, maybe that masters degree in music history somebody spent $60K on will actually come in handy!
SPOILER ALERT: I doubt it.
According to TruTV‘s website “Paid Off with Michael Torpey gives three lucky college grads – saddled with student debt – the chance to test the depth of their degrees in a fun, fast paced trivia gameshow. In the end, one lucky winner will get the chance to have their student debt wiped out.”
It is an interesting concept and adds a new layer of intrigue to the normal, everyday trivia game show. However it does also make light of the serious problem of crippling student loan debt that over 60 million young people do face in our country.
While Paid Off is no where near as exploitative as some other television programming ideas that has reared it’s ugly head over the past decade or so (Cough… Toddlers & Tiaras … Cough),
it does open the door for other game show ideas that exploit the unfortunate.
Such as Richard Dawson hosting wrongly convicted convicts competing against American Gladiator rejects for their freedom…
Or maybe an American Ninja Warrior course where contestants are offered United States citizenship if they can complete the course in a given time period?
For the final obstacle, the ‘Warped Wall’ could simply be replaced with the ‘Trump Wall’…
That last idea was actually lifted from a caller into the Luke Thomas Show. I didn’t catch the caller’s name to give him the credit.
Geeky Daddy 