The 1% Club

I'm a big fan of this show and the only person I could think of who would be better than Patton Oswalt at hosting "1% Club" would be Louie DiPalma (heh heh heh). Oswalt got better each week in 2024 and upon seeing a new host blasted on us this year,I didn't have a good feeling. It turned out my suspicion was right on the mark.

Joel McHale talks like a phony,he gives off poor vibes for THIS show and I basically tuned out his between questions banter. It was a mistake going with a new host,imho.

The questions were interesting--as last year--and on the first episode of 2025,I managed to get to the 10% level. I give it a 6 rating--10 for the show and -4 for McHale.

I like the concept of this game but was bored with the filler moments. Apparently the producers wanted a show to cover an hour time slot when commercials are added. But 42-45 minutes is too much. If the filler time were reduce this could be 30 minutes per episode. It starts with the chatty talk with contestants. Plus they go back to the same people too much. They have 100 people sitting there and they concentrated on just a few too often. It got old before the end of the first episode. The rolling total for the jackpot is slow, just show the number. Also, the delays to try and add suspense get old too. For later episodes, I just press the 10 second advance to bypass the useless nonsense and stop when I get to the next question. Patton is fine as a game show host but it does seem too scripted. Rating: 10 stars for the game itself, 0 stars for the fillers...so make it 5 stars.

I would have rated this a 9, but was so upset that the final question was terribly phrased. The question referred to a "password" made up of 6 letters, from 4 letters shown on a keyboard. Obviously, some of the letters were repeated.

An actual password can be made of many different characters, but in this case only letters were used. Actual passwords are better if they don't use an actual "word", rather use random letters.

The answer was based on an actual "word", but the instructions didn't mention anything about the password having to be a "word". The instructions only asked for a certain arrangement of those letters - in which case, there could have been many correct answers.

Hard to believe this question was allowed to be used the way it was worded. Someone should have caught the error. I guess the staff that works on the show are far from being 1% themselves!

I enjoyed this show from its inception, but I prefer the new host. No hate for Patton, I just enjoy the new environment more. A bit more edge and Joel says what we are all thinking at home watching, The interactions with the contestants are fun and the hosts self deprecating nature is very funny. Some of the questions this season seem a bit too easy, but in general it is still an interesting watch.

Lee Mack of UK version is way funnier than Oswald (and still without being mean or snarky like host of Australian version). Questions on UK version are much better. More varied, interesting and fun, and more original ideas. American version questions are overloaded with boring wordplay puzzles. Many of the questions are word puzzle types that will be familiar to many people (and will give those people an advantage). Like a lot of game shows other than Jeopardy, there is a fair amount of filler, such as explanation of how the game works, and music that goes on too long before results are revealed.