Howie Mandel is cool?

Wait a second, didn't I just see this guy trying really hard to be funny (but not succeeding in the least) in a Boston Pizza commercial? Isn't he the creepy guy that keeps sitting down for dinner with a family he doesn't know and mooching food off the plates off of kids who really don't seem too comfortable with Howie touching their food?

And now he's the host of the most popular prime time game show to come along since Regis first debuted Millionaire?

And not only that, but my 3 1/2 year old absolutely loves his show!

Yes indeedy, it appears as though Howie Mandel is cool once again (or perhaps this is for the first time?).

For the first time tonight I sat down and watched Howie's new show, "Deal or No Deal" on NBC. Unfortunately, I'm now hooked. Not only that, but Carter is also hooked.

From Carter's perspective, he absolutely loves anything to do with numbers so for him, this game is right up his alley. Picture this if you can. Here's a 3 1/2 year old kid, sitting on the couch in his hockey jammies, sippy cup in one hand and he's yelling at the TV telling the contestant which number to pick. Of course he has no idea what the show is all about but to him, just picking the numbers and seeing the other numbers that come up in the brief case is all the fun. By the end of the show this kid was bouncing on the couch he was so fired up! Commercial breaks were absolutely painful for him.

I will admit that, for something that has such a simple concept, the game itself is quite intriguing. I sometimes find the contestants, and Howie for that matter, to be a little bit cheesy, but I can get past that.

The two contestant's tonight followed two very different paths. The first guy accepted on offer (on the advice of his pre-teen daughter- come on guy, what are you thinking?) of $94,000 and could have gone on to win $300,000 +. Oh well, $94,000 for doing pretty much nothing is nothing to cry about either.

The second girl had an offer from the bank for $130,000 and turned it down, only to settle 10 minutes later for a paltry $21,000. Now that's good TV. But again, $21,000 for doing nothing is nothing to be upset about.

Deal or No Deal is fast paced, it's exciting and I'll give Howie Mandel his props (that's right, I said "props"), I think I like him more than Regis.
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I checked out the Rick Mercer Report website tonight and found some great laugh's there. If you haven't checked it out before I encourage you to do so. You can go to it here: http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/index.php.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of his political bits but the time he spends travelling around the country and meeting/interviewing Canadian's provide for some pretty priceless bits. He also has some video clips on there that are hysterical. You've got to watch the "Knee in my package" video.