Dropout’s Game Changer is the best game show, prank, and puzzle series

Polygon could be described as having a special place for entertainment and gaming. This soft spot could also have a sweet spot. Game ChangerIs there. This game show, which is nominally hosted by Sam Reich (CEO CollegeHumor), will air on Dropout’s streaming service. The series features improv comedy and puzzle solving.

Check your preconceptions and be open to change Game ChangerThe game show that changes each show is titled. It’s one of the most entertaining, charming, and cleverest TV shows you will ever see.

All pop culture is subject to the same eternal question: “Who would win?” We have the answers this week. Get ready for Polygon’s Who Would Win Week.

You could say it’s like What’s the line anyway?If the points weren’tMade up. They definitely Did matter. Or you could say it’s like Saw, but instead of people captured by a serial killer, it’s improv comics captured by video producers within the trap of their own performing instincts.

In most cases, contestants are required to decipher the game while they play. This usually includes performing, but once they have figured out the rules, it’s time for the fun part. Game Changer’s recently concluded fifth season included scenarios like: a comedy writer inventing the dirtiest pickup lines he can while his mother stands right next to him; a performer known for his competitive streak asked to keep his heart rate low while he plays a game he knows is rigged against him; and the playground pastime of Simon Says heightened to continent-spanning stakes.

We were thinking of competition anyway so we reached out. Game Changer’s host and creator, Sam Reich, to pick his brain about comedy, competition, and pushing boundaries as far as they’ll go while making sure that everyone involved — contestants and audience — is having a good-ass time.

Image by CH Media

Polygon: You’ve said before that Game Changer comes from a love of game shows you’ve had for much of your life. It’s a love that has been there all your life. But, how does it become a reality.

Sam Reich: Game ChangerI was born during Dropout’s history when it was important to produce more affordable, non-scripted programming. The team of writers wasn’t particularly eager to do that, as any team of writers wouldn’t be, and so I felt like by developing Game ChangerI fell on the sword to help them.

A half of my pitch was in old papers. Original title of the show: What the WhatBased loosely upon the parlor game Scissors, Some of our early concern about it was if the players spend the whole game solving a puzzle, then isn’t it boring for the length of the show? And then doesn’t it end promptly once they figure it out?

As we’ve developed Game Changer, it’s turned into more like a series of moments. Then, there was once. [contestants]If you can figure the game out, then the game becomes more interesting.

It is the first 5 to 10 minutes that are the most exciting on the show. Contestants trying to determine the boundary are the best part of the episode.

It’s juicy, for sure. The three Noise Boys in season 1 and the vase would be my favorite clips to share with people. It’s one of my favorite illustrative moments to come out of the show.

I don’t think you can do that all the time. My opinion is that puzzles have a limited entertainment value. We’ve done other punchline-based episodes, like “Tell Us About Yourself” in the virtual season, where we have a celebrity guest in disguise, and the players have to learn by asking who it is, which does suffer from a bit of, Okay, get on it!.

The show’s challenge is to give you a puzzle and, then, like a videogame, help you master it. Then we change it on you. It’s kind of like the game of The Witness: Here’s a bunch of bubbles, and you’re dragging a little snake in between them, and now we’re going to make it exponentially more complicated and then exponentially more complicated again.

I admit I’ve had difficulty communicating the appeal of Game Changer to people who are immediately skeptical of anything involving the words “improv comedy” and “game show.” How do you explain it?

The show is described to me as a mix of a game, puzzle, and prank. It’s probably actually game show, puzzle, prank, and Sam’s nouveau art project. Some of my favorite episodes are ones where I’ve clearly gone overboard. “Escape the Greenroom” is a perfect example of that where, given the opportunity to create an escape room, I didn’t just create an escape room, I created lore and went much too far. [laughs] There’s also an episode in the virtual season called “Jeopardy!,” where I turned a Jeopardy!Board into a TTRPG board game is yet another example of taking things too far.

Somewhere between game show and puzzle and prank — I think there are people who are big fans of puzzles who aren’t fans of pranks or people who are big fans of pranks who aren’t fans of puzzles. You could accidentally make people happy or sad. But really it’s a show for comedy snobs, first and foremost. When you’ve consumed a lot of comedy — and I think at this point, we all have — it’s like you only get off on the hard drugs anymore. Game ChangerThis is a way to make you feel unique, and it can be achieved with various degrees of success. [laughs]

While you’ve done lots of things throughout the series, including supportive and competitive activities, what do I really want? To talk about games that have competition, surprise, boundaries, and how they are different from other shows? Although this is a basic question, it is one that every game host should be asking: What brings you joy in this type of competition? Is there a joy in watching another person be punished or rewarded?

With the show, we’re flirting with a boundary between points mattering and them not mattering. Dropout’s general position is at the crossroads of traditional television and online series. There are gray spaces, which I enjoy a lot and where many people seem lost. If we didn’t do it well, then you might say that the stakes both aren’t high enough and are too high at the same time. Like, the stakes aren’t enough for this to feel casual in the style of most British panel shows, and the stakes are too high as to no longer be relaxed and funny. So that’s a tricky balance. The importance of stakes is to make any show a success. OomphOr structure.

When the points fully don’t matter, you can still have a good show. The other spinoff is Game Changer, Get out there and make some noiseThe show is where you can win points It is really don’t matter, and it’s a more casual vibe. But the loose structure of the game show still gives it some format, so that you as the audience don’t feel lost within it. I’m not very competitive person. My brother was very competitive and really enjoyed sports. He probably wreaked havoc on me because he knew that if we wanted to compete, then he would win.

For me, competition serves only to enhance that sense of playfulness and fun. It is not my intention for anyone to care too much. Part of what’s funny about Brennan [Lee Mulligan] in the show is he’s so determined. And then I get to insert little moral messages in the show about how winning isn’t actually all that important. Or, sorry, according to Brennan, it’s not that he needs to win, it’s that he needs not to lose.

Game Changer isn’t a show without edits — you’ve been candid about how things are cut for time or vibes or just for getting a little too close to a line. What is the best way to tell when competitions are no longer fun?

Hosting a gameshow is very similar to hosting dinner parties. My job is to create vibe. It can go off-track, or it turns bad, I will stop. Oh, by lingering here, staying here, we’re going to have a problem, it’s my job to move things right along, to keep it fun. Then, in post we do some of the same.

So if I feel like there was a moment that wasn’t altogether fun, or the vibes felt a little off, or I’m just worried, even if the vibes were fine, about how the audience would react to it. They are people I am familiar with. [viewers] don’t, and sometimes a joke will make perfect sense in the moment, and then we’ll look at it after and be like, Well, if you weren’t giving these people the benefit of the doubt… blah, blah, blah. That’s what editing is for. We also edit to make things feel a little faster and cleverer than they even were in reality, which means that we’re often shooting for more than an hour, and we’re getting a half-hour show. This leaves plenty of time on the ground.

The key to understanding the audience’s perspective is essential. A lot of reality TV is designed to allow viewers to see transgressions and/or to watch them. It’s not. Game Changer has moments where you check in with contestants who’ve agreed to do a thing — you include the audience in that. Did that happen naturally or was it part of the original plan?

It’s not. Not in any way. We had a season 1 which wasn’t particularly spicy. Jess invited us to season 1 which was not particularly spicy. [Ross]Tao and Brennan [Yang]’s significant others to set on day one, that’s an episode I’ll never beat. Because you can’t do a sequel to that. That’s how you catch people again. But I didn’t ask — I mean, there was no consent involved in that episode. [laughs]This is what we did.

And then season 2, we did “Do I Hear $1?” And in advance of that episode, I talked to Grant [O’Brien]Ally [Beardsley]Who had done it? Total ForgivenessRaph spoke to me on the platform [Chestang]. I said, “I want to do a spicy episode. There’s gonna be some spicy challenges, are you sure you’re in?” and got enthusiastic responses from all of them and it was only really then that I was comfortable doing that episode. Because it is not my intention to make anybody uncomfortable.

Flirting with the boundary is acceptable. It’s the flirting that makes things fun and suspenseful, but you never want to topple over. And then in future seasons, what I did was, I reached out to everyone in advance of the season, and I said, “Give me a sense of what your boundaries are, what you would do and not do, and tell me like, what the craziest thing is that you would do on camera.” And that gave me a More better perspective on people’s willingness or not willingness to play overall, and meant that I could start flirting with that boundary a little more.

People have told me that they will do the same things as I would. Never do. Many people told me that they were going to get naked on video; many others told me that they wanted to get tattooed on film. Then I got started. Yes, it’s possible to push the envelope a lot further than I imagined, provided that those episodes feature the right actors.

It’s almost like you backed yourself into the now-standard TTRPG technique of For lines and veils, ask for them before you start a campaign.

Sure. And then we have a safe word and phrase that we use on the show —

What do I mean? It wasn’t going to bring up kink negotiation…

[laughs quite hard]That’s what I meant, totally!

People either say “time out,” or they do this [gestures with the “time out” sign] and so long as they’re holding their fingers like this, I cannot use what they’re saying on the show. That’s the deal. Many have. There have also been a few instances where people have come to me afterwards and said, “I don’t know how I feel about this in retrospect about my behavior. And so can I watch it and make sure I’m comfortable with it before we air it?” which I always honor as well.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how to know when it’s not fun. What is the best way to think? What is the best way to have fun?

Everybody loves the chance to show off their talents, even improvisers. What I believe is the most important thing about Game Changer particularly fun is that feeling of going on an amusement park ride, where it’s like, This is something I can’t be prepared for. It is a common theme in entertainment and all aspects of life that people don’t feel prepared. In addition, Game Changer, you can’t. My goal is to take you off guard.

For me, the best part about it is for them to just let go. [laughs] What you’re watching oftentimes when episodes first begin is that freefall moment of “I don’t know what this is, but I’m here for it.” I think there’s something to that. If we’re going to add to what Game Changer is, you might say “prank” or you might say “surprise party.”

Well, you have literally flown someone’s mother out from Ohio to surprise them on the show.

Exactly! They don’t know. They don’t know if it will be good for them or not. This could prove to be quite a challenge. This could lead to a huge prize. They do not know.

I love episodes in which contestants are pushing back and trying to get you to change the rules. I’m curious how you see that fitting into the structure of the show and its appeal — your role as host and antagonist.

I’m setting up a game. In the world of improv we would say a “comedy game”; in Game Changer we would say a “game game.” And my feeling about it is, usually, if you’re abiding by the rules that I’ve set up, unless this goes far outside those rules, then I’m interested in what you’re bringing to the table no matter how disruptive it is.

In the first Noise Boys episode, I say, “Do a North Dakotan,” and Brennan says, “I love it here in North Dakota. Yeah, I just moved here from the East Coast.” And yeah, that tracks, that works. I haven’t called out specifically that it wouldn’t.

If I’m setting up the cage, then my contestants’ job is to be the cats exploring the corners of the cage. They do this because they love to explore the cage and it’s a display of curiosity. Some times I will have to fight back completely because they might outright ruin my game. [laughs]It should be no more fun for anyone. And It’m always a little sorry when I have to do that.

I In loveI will not be offended if they do. They should have the right. What they’re being asked to do is is undignified and I deserve it, and that’s part of it.

My final question for you is: Was “Escape the Greenroom” It is reallyThe season finale

Do you believe I might have something to my name?

Game ChangerThe streaming is available on the Dropout.tvSubscription service YoutubeCollegeHumor has a taste menu of clips and episodes at http://www.CollegeHumor.com.