Review - Snoop Dogg Presents: The Joker's Wild & Drop The Mic

Text by: Cyndi Seidelman

On Tuesday, TBS debuted two brand new game shows/competitions to their primetime lineup.  These games being a revival of The Joker's Wild and a spinoff of James Corden's Late Late Show, Drop The Mic.  There's been a lot of hype in the game show blogosphere about the revival of The Joker's Wild, with some saying that it's the best that the show has ever been. There wasn't much said about Drop The Mic, but are both worth watching again?  Let's find out about both.

Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker's Wild: Snoop Dogg did it! The hype was real and what we got was a damned great game show.  First and foremost, the set looks fantastic.  It's slick and stylish and looks great with the big slot machine front and center.  Actually, it looks more like a slot machine than the original did, though the 1990s one looked more like a slot machine.  I'm going to combine Snoop and Jeannie Mae's hosting here and just say that they played off fantastically well together as Jeannie setting up the category descriptions and introducing the contestants and Snoop being Snoop being Jack Barry. Gameplay wise, it's a marked improvement.  Instead of playing to a certain amount, there are 4 spins in round 1 and 3 spins in round 2 with the payouts being 100 for a single, 200 for a double, 300 for a triple and 500 for three jokers, with the amount doubled in round 2. 

The style of questions range from the very inventive (Just Sayin' with Wiz Khalifa and any with the dice table) to some that are kind of out of place (The Match Game takeoff and Seth Rogen's Canadian Bakin' one).  However, that doesn't take away from the game itself and are really minor nitpicks. I will admit that I'm not a fan of the Face The Devil bonus game, but it is a functional bonus game and is a faster bonus game than the one on the 90s version. Overall, it's a slick and fantastic package.  You see the credits and notice that Michael Strahan is behind this one.  I'm starting to think that he's got the touch.  He helped out with $100,000 Pyramid's revival on ABC and he did the business with The Joker's Wild.  The ratings were great with a 1.2 million total viewership.  I hope this continues and we can all take a hit from Snoop's stash of cash.
Grade: A

Drop The Mic: Not much to say about this one, aside that it's a bit from James Corden's Late Late Show stretched to a half hour.  So basically, it's two rap battles between celebrities with the audience judging it.  I have no idea if this is all scripted or if the celebs were coached, but if they were, I couldn't tell. Also, I enjoy these rap battles. I was a fan of John Cena's rap battles back in the day and also watched Yo Mamma on the regular. Method Man plays a good ref and it's just silly fun mainly.  I'm not giving out bonus points for Halle Berry basically depantsing James Corden in the opening salvo, but it's still an entertaining half-hour.  It's not going to blow your mind or is anything exemplary, but it is still entertaining.
Grade: B