05x04 - Name a Number

[bunniefuu]

[upbeat music]

- It's familiar to the
audience at this point

when we bring an idea
back with the same cast.

What I don't think I've ever done before

is brung the exact same
group of people back

to do a wholly new game.

And in the case of Erika
and Becca and Izzy,

this game was very nearly
inspired by the three of them.

What this game required for
me was people who are daring.

I think not only are these
three players daring,

but they have a sort of manner

in which they egg each other on.

- Eee.

- You got it.

[contiued eee-ing from Erika]

- Keep it going, Erika.

- Eee.

[strained eee-ing from Erika]

- Oh yeah, bro, that was the reserves.

- So this was a
combination of two pitches.

The Mike Trapp pitch was
the first act of the game

and the sort of game mechanic

of if they fulfill upon their
promise, they win the point.

If not, the other two players do.

The Ben Joseph piece was this idea

of they're signing up for something

and they don't know what.

And so, we took those two
ideas and mashed them together

and created this notion
of the redacted prompt.

- We've done a lot of
"Game Changer" episodes

that involve punishments.

It gets kind of hard to keep thinking

of interesting challenges and punishments

to give the players that
haven't already been done

and that are visually
stimulating and cool and fun

and also funny and not too torturous.

We knew that we had to inject

some positive little
rewards into this episode

so that the contestants didn't just say

a low number every time.

- We had to be listening in
for whatever number they said

and, you know, finding that number,

placing it on our table or whatever,

in the matter of seconds
and running it out there.

We're always running around back there,

it's just tables and
tables and tables of props

and there's so many props

'cause all these episodes,

that's the game is like
changing moving parts.

- Sam was very proud of the way in which

he censored the prompt.

Ever so slightly,

you could kind of see the
letters behind the black bar.

Our players kind of saw

those little pieces of letters peeking out

and they were able to tell what it said.

So then we have to be
like, "Pause, hold on,

we didn't think you'd
be able to read this."

- How many...

[Becca laughing]

- Should I guess?
- Oh, I read it.

How many mm mm mm mm, mm mm mm.

- Yeah, it's, how many people
in the crew can I name?

- For those of you at home. [laughs]

We took a little break to make sure

that our sensor bars were
covering up more of those letters

in order so that this game could
serve its intended purpose.

I never guessed that our players

would be quite so intuitive.

- We always have to have an upper limit,

like what's the maximum
number they could possibly do?

We knew that nobody was going to be able

to put on a hundred t-shirts,

but what if someone's doing it

and then someone else decides to counter

or they wanna do it out of solidarity

or they think they can do it better?

Like, we always have to
have quadruple amount

of whatever we think is
going to be the maximum.

- A wild moment from that
episode is Izzy saying

that she would stay after
wrap for eight hours.

You'll recall that she says,

"How much do you wanna
sh**t a trailer today?"

And what she's referring to is
we shot one episode that day

and spent the second half of the day

sh**ting stuff specifically
for the trailer.

She was essentially calling
my bluff being like,

if I stay here for eight hours,

you're not gonna be able to do that

and so not believing.

We made her stay for a while,

not eight hours,

but about as long as the
schedule could afford

- Sourcing the hot sauce
was kind of a challenge.

Trying to figure out what
was the accurate Scoville

and what we were going to be
prepared to give to people,

you know, just because
they chose the number

and then here they are eating a hot sauce,

we wanted to make sure
we had their consent.

- It would be very, very unwise

for you to go up to the
number that we have.

- 15.

- 15.

- Sam wanted us to get enough
variables of Scovilles to,

you know, have it so that
any number they named

would be crazy for them to consume.

But then last minute it was like,

oh no, are we gonna really hurt them?

- I think one of my
absolute favorite moments

from Name A Number was the
professional tag player

at the very end.

I'm really glad that landed with Becca,

I think she took the
assignment very seriously,

and that shot,

it feels like our
"Children of Men". [laughs]

it feels like our
"Children of Men". [laughs]

Every season of "Game Changer",

as I'm doing my spiel with players

where I talk them through what
my expectations are of them,

outside of them knowing
the concept of the game,

before we start sh**ting is
always safety and consent.

All anyone had to do is make this gesture

and say "timeout" in order
to ask for a timeout.

Whether it's because they
wanna discuss something

or whether it's because

they're not comfortable with something.

- Sometimes we do take risks on the show,

but we ultimately want
everybody to be safe.

What a delightful ending to the episode

that it ended up being a tie,

that all three of them got to
enjoy the glory of a victory.

- It's just one of those
moments that you're like,

this is our show,

this is why-

this is why there is our show.