Metacafe’s Original Content Play: Drunks

Video-sharing site Metacafe is hooking up with Endemol, the producer of such shows like Deal or No Deal, to create a TV-style game show by the name of Buzzed that will feature a host asking impromptu trivia questions to people around the country as they leave bars and nightclubs. And in a twist on the “lifeline” from Who Wants to be a Millionaire, participants can “drunk dial” a friend to help answer a question.

Classy, Metacafe. Real classy.

According to Variety, Buzzed is scheduled to launch this spring, with one to two new episodes running each week. Each episode will only be a couple minutes long, presumably because the contestants will be “Wooo! On Spring Break! I’m so wasted. Hold on. Hold on. No, YOU answer a trivia question. Am I on TV?”

I’m not sure what’s more disappointing: the concept (“Drunk people say dumb things”) or the fact that in this time of striking writers, the web is supposed to be a haven from bad game shows, not for them. And while other companies are taking the concept of games to a whole new interactive level, Buzzed just seems like a step backwards. Granted, not everything online needs to be interactive, but web companies should at least be trying put the “new” in new media.

Maybe I’m wrong, and the show will be a great, easy distraction. But as of now, my guess is that Buzzed will get gonged.

(Disclosure: Metacafe was a sponsor of our Pier Screenings last summer.)