Deal or No Deal Unveils ‘X-treme Edition’

Following steadily declining viewing figures that are thought to be the result of it slowly dawning on the population that there can be no actual strategy involved in opening sealed boxes containing arbitrarily placed notional sums of money, Channel 4 are claiming that they plan to ‘shake up’ the formula of Deal or No Deal by introducing an element of danger

Director General Geoffrey T. Butler told us: “People pointing at boxes and then being either happy or sad when they contain certain numbers has lost its appeal, so as of the start of next week the boxes will either contain big money prizes or hornets”

“But it won’t just be hornets. Some boxes will contain live hand grenades, jury rigged to be set off when the lid is moved. Some will contain a cross little monkey with shards of tin gaffa taped to his hands. Others will contain a broken milk bottle on a spring. Yet others might have as their contents handfulls of pregnant spiders, goat feces or a beaker of nitroglycerin and some nervous mice.”

“We’ve also found a rare amazonian viper with a unique camoflage reaction whereby it changes its scale pigments to resemble a red card that reads ‘£75,000’ when it is angry and full of venom”

“One box will contain Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a homage to that film- Shakespeare in Love- in which she was so insufferable you wanted to cut off her head and stuff it in a box”

“There will be one box that contains a claw hammer and a note saying that the person who opens the box can claim the place of the main contestant ‘by any means necessary’. That one’s a real game changer.”

In keeping with the new tone of Deal or no Deal it will now be hosted by Ross Kemp in a disused warehouse in the East End of London. The role of the banker, which was that of an unheard voice on the end of a telephone will now be an unseen sadist congratulating contestants on their newest acid-scars through a tanoy. “We took a lot of influence from the Saw films for that one” claims Butler

However, Butler denies that the show will revolve entirely around cruelty springing from out of a box: “There are still at least four big money prizes each game but we’re hoping to really up the human drama. Some mum from Bolton asking how number three ‘feels’ about her box is all well and good when there’s nothing at stake, but think of the human drama when someone might be about to get an old copper spike to the throat.”

“With every ‘no deal’ our contestant puts his fellow human in danger for the possibility of monetary gain. They may get their money- but at what price? And if they get something different, well then that’s a nice moral comeuppance for the viewer”

“We have to move with the times. Viewers like to see humiliation, pain and hate now. Not chummy box-pointing overseen by an ex-DJ in an industrially ugly shirt”

Deal or No Deal X-treme is due to premiere next Wednesday at 3pm


FP