Happy, Yipee, Yehey! Versus Eat Bulaga

By Ed Sicam

Two blogs ago, I wrote that ABS-CBN’s new noontime show, “Happy, Yipee, Yehey!,” (it premiered last Saturday) would have a difficult time dislodging GMA-7’s more established “Eat Bulaga” from its number one position. On Monday, February 14, I sat through two hours and 15 minutes of “HYY” and these are my observations.

The show started with images straight out of Willie Revillame’s “Wowowee”: Dancing girls in red (in keeping with Valentine’s Day), the hosts, almost a dozen of them, rushing in and dancing to the theme song, the audience being fired up to join the merriment, and finally some audience members going onstage to dance one by one and getting P500-P2,000 for their effort.

The opening segment was a “Wowowee” trademark that “Eat Bulaga” also copied, then dropped after a while. I suppose it was meant to get viewers in the studio and at home excited about the show. The “HYY” song was not as catchy as the “Wowowee” signature tune.

Next came the first game. Assorted items like toothbrush, lunch box, broom, etc were hidden in three display cases and covered by curtains. Contestants had to locate the desired item when the curtains were drawn. It was like finding a needle in a haystack except the items were much bigger. It started with 12 contestants until only one remained for the jackpot prize of P50,000.

For this, he had to find five items in one minute. The finalist got one item wrong but with host Mariel Rodriguez’s help, he was able to replace it with the right one. I thought that was unfair. As a TV game, this did not register well on the screen as the camera could not catch the action for the viewers to appreciate.

Deviating from the games, “HYY” presented a spoof of the primetime drama “Mara Clara”: about babies switched at birth that was not funny at all. The usual slapstick elements--guys dressed as girls, overacting talents, exaggerated fight scenes—did not tickle my funny bone. This was followed by a musical number featuring Matteo Gudicelli and Maja Salvador. Matteo has the potential to make it as a singer.

Then the biggest prize being offered that day was announced P100,000, if the contestant could shoot a small ball into a goldfish bowl from about ten feet away. It reminded me of “Minute to Win It,’ a US game show featuring challenges using ordinary objects. I understand Solar is going to do a local version. An elderly woman was given three chances to win the top prize but she failed and got a consolation prize of P10,000.

If “Eat Bulaga” has its “Juan for All’ where the program gives away money to a lucky household outside the studio, “HYY” has “Ikaw Ang Bida” where a contestant is chosen at random. Last Monday, “HYY” went to Marikina where the first person to buy roses from a chosen flower shop got to join the contest.
The lucky person then had to undergo several tasks to win the top prize of P50,000. For the final task, the chosen one, a guy had to put on lipstick and kiss 10 girls on the brow in one minute. This was an easy task as there were school girls in the audience willing to be kissed. The guy won the top prize. Unlike “Juan for All” where a lucky household won large amounts without joining a contest, “Ikaw ang Bida” only had one winner and he needed to complete several tasks.

In another game where the hosts were the contestants, they had to transfer a coin using only their brow to pass it on to the next person. Again, this was something that “EB” did where hosts competed against each other in different games.

Of the many hosts on the show, the ones that created an impression on me were Toni Gonzaga, who maintained her vivacious persona throughout the show and Mariel, who was just as kikay as Toni. The guys, John Estrada and Randy Santiago, were not impressive. Hasn’t the network learned from previous shows where John and Randy were co-hosts? Didn’t they cancel the shows these two hosted? Repartee is one of the ways John and Randy can improve their hosting. The writers have to come up with something more kwela for them to say. Bentong has a funny face but the writers have to give him something funny to do.

Overall, I would say that “HYY” is much better than “Pilipinas Win na Win” but needs to come up with really inventive and unique ideas to compete with “EB.” Introducing games that involve more contestants is also a way to distribute more prizes that will attract a bigger audience. Of course, what I monitored was just the second show. It will take several months before we can judge its competitive strength.

Photo by Voltaire Domingo, NPPA Images

Source: Yahoo blog of Ed Sicam

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Well, Sir Ed Sicam and me almost has the same observation.

Here's some of my thoughts

HYY is trying hard to be a noontime show.

Most of the concepts are actually from Willie Revillame's defunct show "Wowowee" and GMA 7's Eat Bulaga.

Well, we can't blame them, some of the writers are still working on abs-cbn.

As we know, that the benchmark of noontime shows here in the Philippines is Eat Bulaga, so probably most of the new comers will actually get a concept and they will just change it for the people will not gonna recognize it. But still, it came from EB.

Pera o bayong AFAIK was from pepe pimentel's Kwarta o Kahon

EB's version was Meron o wala.

There's a lot of noontime shows that abs-cbn handled, Magandang Tanghali Bayan, Sang Linggo Na Po Sila (before ASAP, There was Sa Linggo na po sila) and Eat Bulaga was also a former abs-cbn, but the rumors was, abs-cbn wants to "BUY" Eat Bulaga, so they are forced to jump into another Channel which is GMA-7.

A little trivia, before GMA-7, EB was in Abs-Cbn. But before ABS, Eat Bulaga was aired at RPN 9.

Lastly, we can't actually blame them for "robbing" the concepts of a noontime show, because even thou it's "their" intellectual property, it's not registered to them.

As far as i know, i still stand that Eat Bulaga, is "their" Benchmark for noontime show concepts.