TV is the New Reading

“Game Show in My

Head” lets host shine

Joe Rogan may finally have caught a break.

You’ll remember Rogan being consistently outshone as a brusque conspiracy theorist and sociopathic maintenance guy on the ‘90s sitcom “NewsRadio.” Then he hosted a gross-out reality show, “Fear Factor,” which was very successful but didn’t require a whole lot from him beyond showing up.

Now he’s driving people mad in “Game Show In My Head,” which at least makes better use of his hosting abilities in a fairly decent indicator of how much the average, day-to-day person is expected to put up with in the course of any given afternoon in Los Angeles.

In the CBS production “Game Show in my Head” – running back-to-back on Saturday evenings – a hapless contestant is wired for sound and plunked down in a plaza outside the studios. Rogan gives the contestant instructions designed to put them in embarrassing contact with passers-by and if they can complete the instructions, they win $5,000.

So it becomes a question of how far are people willing to go for $5,000. Apparently, pretty far. They’ll appear in their underwear and ask people for articles of clothing. They’ll walk up to people in a food court and touch them in various places on their bodies. They’ll convince others to climb into fountains with them and fish out coins, and they’ll remain in uncomfortable proximity to others for fully a minute – all without being able to tell these genuinely puzzled people why they are doing these things.

The show has a couple of things going for it. First off, you do find yourself rooting for the contestant – generally a likeable person being asked to do socially awkward things. It’s relatively easy to imagine how one would try to act in a similar situation – both as the contestant and as the other people.

And Rogan doesn’t make it easy for them, but you can tell he’s rooting for the puppets he’s sending out on his strings. Also, as the contenstants are running about trying to complete the challenges, their friends and family are in the studio cheering them on as well.

Ultimately, the embarrassment passes and the contestants are thousands of dollars richer than they were when they came in, all in the name of some good-natured comic fun. It is another incarnation of reality television, but mostly without having to eat bugs or drown.

“Game Show in my Head” airs Saturdays at 7 p.m. on CBS.

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