Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 99, Sitcoms and Game Shows.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 99.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Today's podcast is going to be about television shows.
We're going to be talking about game shows and comedies on American television.
Let's get started.
When I want to kick back and relax, I usually flip on the TV and see what's on.
Primetime begins at 8 pm on the coasts in the United States, but there are plenty of reruns and shows in syndication between the time I get home from work at 5 and 8 o'clock.
I like to watch quiz shows like Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
I actually tried out once to be on Jeopardy, thinking I could be the next Ken Jennings.
But I didn't pass the test.
So much for trivia.
The national news is on at 6.30 in L.A., and there is lots of local news before and after that.
Between 6 and 7 there are Hollywood gossip shows like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, as well as some sitcoms.
One of my favorites is Seinfeld, the ultimate comedy program about nothing.
Of course, there are some old favorites, too, such as mash and friends.
When I'm feeling really bored or really desperate, I'll turn on Wheel of Fortune and watch somebody buy a vowel.
We are talking about popular American television in this podcast.
And I began the story by saying that when I want to kick back and relax, I usually flip on the TV and see what's on.
A couple of expressions there.
To kick back, two words.
To kick back means really the same as relax, to sit down, not to do anything very difficult.
To flip on, F-L-I-P-O-N, to flip on the TV means simply to turn it on.
Those two separate words, flip on.
And to see what's on means simply to see what programs are currently showing on television.
Someone might ask, what's on TV tonight?
Meaning, what programs are showing tonight?
I said that prime time begins at 8 p.m. on the coasts in the United States.
Prime time P-R-I-M-E T-I-M-E is the time when the new shows, the most current programs, comedies and dramas are on.
Prime time in the United States is usually three hours long every night, and that's where the most important or most popular television programs are shown.
On the coasts, that is, on the west coast of the United States, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, etc.
And on the east coast of the United States, New York Washington Boston, Atlanta.
The prime time or most important shows are on between 8 pm and 11 pm.
In the middle of the United States, in the central part of the United States, primetime is usually on at 7 pm, from 7 pm to 10 pm.
But here in Los Angeles, it begins at 8 o'clock.
And I said that even before that, there are plenty of reruns and shows in syndication.
A rerun, all one word.
R-E-R-U-N is a program, a television program that has been on before, But now it's being shown again.
Sometimes it could be three four, even five years old, but they're still showing those same programs.
To rerun means, of course, to run it again or to show it again.
When we say a show is in syndication, we mean that this is a program, a television program that individual television stations across the country have bought, have purchased in order to show on their station.
The opposite of syndication or syndicated programs would be network programs.
Network programs are one of the programs that come from the five major companies, five major networks in the United States.
I said I like to watch quiz shows.
A quiz Q-U-I-Z show is a show where they ask questions about some general knowledge topic history or politics and people try to answer the fastest and they get points or money if they answer the questions correctly.
Two of the most popular that have been around for many years.
One is called Jeopardy.
Jeopardy has been around for 20, 25 years, perhaps more.
And it's a daily program, 30 minutes, where the host of the program, Alex Trebek, is his name.
He asks questions for three.
There are three different people.
Now, the interesting thing about jeopardy is that he doesn't actually ask a question.
He gives an answer and then you, as the person playing the game, have to ask a question.
So, for example, the answer he will show you is Sacramento and the question would be what is the capital of California?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Is more a traditional game show where one person asks a question and there's only one person who is playing the game.
They're not competing against or playing against anyone else.
And each question gets more and more difficult until...
The most difficult question.
If they get them right, all the other ones right is worth a million dollars.
Very few people have won a million dollars on who wants to be a millionaire.
I mentioned that I tried out to be on Jeopardy.
To try out, two words, T-R-Y-O-U-T.
To try out means that I wanted to be on the program, and so I went and I took a test to see if I could be on the program.
To try out as a verb in general means whenever you want to be part of, usually a team.
Sometimes it may be a play.
For example, and I'm trying out for the part of Hamlet.
Uh, shakespeare's hamlet means i'm, i go to the theater and i do some acting and see if they'll select me to be the person who plays uh, hamlet.
Well, you can try out for a sports team, you can try out for a play.
I tried out for the game show, the quiz show jeopardy, thinking I could be the next Ken Jennings.
Ken Jennings is a person who won, I think, $2.5 million on the game show Jeopardy.
He was on for weeks and weeks.
Well, I didn't pass the test, and I said so much for trivia.
The expression, so much for, means that we've given up on it.
We no longer have any hope for it.
You may hear someone say, well, I went to the store and they didn't have what I wanted.
So much for that, meaning I've given up.
I don't want to do that again.
So much for trivia, trivia, T-R-I-V as in Victor, I-A.
Trivia is small facts, little facts, not very important.
Knowing the capitals of all the 50 states in the United States would be trivia.
I said that the national news comes on at 630 here in Los Angeles and each of the major networks well, at least three of the five major networks have a national news show that is 30 minutes long every night.
There is also, of course, local news programs, local news here in Los Angeles and in most cities in the United States.
Between 6 and 7 at night here in Los Angeles, there are Hollywood gossip shows on.
To gossip G-O-S-S-I-P means to talk about other people, usually something about their private life.
And Hollywood gossip shows, of course, would talk about famous stars, famous movie stars and television stars.
The two shows that are most popular, that have been around for many years on American television, are Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight.
There are also some sitcoms on during the 7 to 8 o'clock hour.
A sitcom, S-I-T-C-O-M, stands for Situation Comedy.
And it's a comedy show that has some sort of story.
Usually we're following a group of people.
Uh, for example, a famous sitcom from the nineteen nineties was friends, and friends was about six young people living in new york city and that was a comedy show.
That was a sitcom.
One of the most famous sitcoms from the nineteen nineties that is very popular still in the united states is called Seinfeld, and Seinfeld was the name of the star of the show, and it was a show about four people, single people, living also in New York, new york city, and the famous joke on the show was that it was a show about nothing, meaning there wasn't any uh, strong theme of the show.
It was just about the lives of these four people and it was a very popular, very funny comedy show.
The Other comedy shows that are popular or have been popular include Friends, which is also in other countries and other languages.
It's been translated.
You might have seen Friends in your own country.
And the one that was very popular in the 1980s is called MASH, M-A-S-H.
MASH was a show about doctors during the Korean War.
It's kind of a strange situation to have a comedy about, but it was a very, very popular show in the 1970s and 80s.
But people still watch this show in reruns, meaning many television stations still show these programs, like Seinfeld, Friends and MASH, even though they are no longer making new shows or new episodes.
I said when I feel really bored or really desperate.
To be desperate means that you've done everything else you can do and you have nothing.
No other choices, no other options.
When I'm desperate, I turn on Wheel of Fortune.
Wheel of Fortune is another quiz show.
It's a game show where they spin a big wheel, and the wheel has different amounts of money on it.
The game is to guess a bunch of words, usually an expression or a phrase, but they only give you one letter at a time and you have to guess what the word is.
I don't really like it very much, but it's been popular for 15, 20 years in the United States.
One of the things they do on the show is you can guess any sort of consonant, but if you want a vowel you have to take some of the money you have won and buy a vowel.
So I say at the end of the story I watch somebody buy a vowel, because that's something that's always happening on the show.
Someone will buy an A, an E, an I, an O, or a U, so they can help them guess what the word is.
I'm very bad at that sort of game, which is probably why I don't like it.
Now let's listen to the story this time at a native rate of speech.
When I want to kick back and relax, I usually flip on the TV and see what's on.
Primetime begins at 8 pm on the coast in the United States, but there are plenty of reruns and shows in syndication between the time I get home from work at 5 and 8 o'clock.
I like to watch quiz shows like Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
I actually tried out once to be on Jeopardy, thinking I could be the next Ken Jennings, but I didn't pass the test.
The national news is on at 6.30 in LA, and there's lots of local news before and after that.
Between 6 and 7 there are Hollywood gossip shows like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, as well as some sitcoms.
One of my favorites is Seinfeld, the ultimate comedy program about nothing.
Of course, there are some old favorites too, such as MASH and Friends.
When I'm feeling really bored or really desperate, I'll turn on Wheel of Fortune and watch somebody buy a vowel.
From Los Angeles, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
