Cram

''OPENING SPIEL: (Man: Cram!) 24 hours ago, four brave souls were locked up in our Hollywood Highland Cramatouriums. Deprived of sleep, two teams were each given a huge pile of ridiculous information to study. Trapped in a Hollywood store front all night, they have to resist they urged to sleep, and Cram as many facts as possible into their exhausted brains. (Man: Cram!) No Sleep. No Privacy. No Mercy. Now, we're gonna find out what they've learned, there's 10 Grand ($10,000) on the line. It's time to... (Man: CRAM!)''

A show with teams, each composed of two contestants. For 24 hours before taping, the contestants were sequestered in a window store front, with the intent of staying awake and "cramming" various material such as trivia questions and jokes, which they would then answer on the show while attempting physical stunts in an attempt to stay awake.

Broadcast
Game Show Network 2003

Packagers
Mindless Entertainment/Jonathan Goodson Productions

Host
Graham Elwood

Marc Summers 04/01/03

Hostess
Berglind Icey

Ms. Pickwick
Andrea Hutchman

Gameplay
To start, both teams went into their respective giant human hamster wheel where they must keep on moving, and they were spotted 100 points.

Round 1 (The Rant)
In the first round, host Graham gave a choice of three articles (two in the second season), and the team who won the "3 AM coin-toss" got to choose and play an article first. They were given 40 seconds (20 for each player) to "rant" about the article as much as they can. While all this was going on, the home audience was shown eight keywords and/or phrases. Each time a team member said a keyword, the team gets 10 points (for a maximum total of 80). The catch is that they must talk continuously (keep on talking), for each time a team member stops, saying "Um" or "Uh", or any other time-waster, the team loses 5 points. When the 40 second time limit was up, play went over to the other team who would choose their own article to rant on (in the second season, the other team was left with the unchosen article).

Round 2 (Stunt Round)
In the second round, each team played a 45 second stunt with questions which all came from "Cram's Big Dumb Book of Stupid Lists". The team in the lead became the first to select a stunt which was a mystery under a tray cover in season one, and later from a book shown by Icey in season two. During the next 45 seconds, the team in control alternated turns answering questions while performing the stunt which was usually a matching game. Each correct answer on the questions was worth 10 points, while correct matches in the stunt were worth 20 points. After the team finished their stunt, they must sadly return to their hamster wheel. The process was repeated for the other team.

Round 3 (Catch-Up Round)
In the final round of the main game, both teams were released from their hamster wheels. The team in the lead took the time to rest while the team that's behind played the round. One member of the team in control performed a physical activity involving speed, while the partner answered questions in which the answers came from a book introduced by Graham. The question answering player cannot start answering until the physical activity player met a certain goal. Sometimes, the physical activity player must blow a certain amount of air; another time allowed the physical activity player to "take shots". Each correct answer was worth 30 points, while each incorrect answer forced the physical activity player to go faster. The team in control had 40 seconds to do all that. After the trailing team took a shot, the other team took theirs unless the first team didn't get enough points to catch-up. The team with the most points at the end of this round won the game and $1,000. The losing team won $500.

Bonus Round ($10,000 Quiz)
To start the bonus round, the winning team finally had a chance to sleep (almost). While they were in bed, Ms. Pickwick read a brand new series of facts to cram. All this continued during the final commercial break. A few minutes after that break (after Graham told the rules), an alarm went off (and Icey sounded her own alarm), and a 60 second timer started. The winning team woke up and ran over to a balancing object, and that's when Graham started to read questions based on the facts given by Ms. Pickwick beforehand. Each correct answer brought the team one level up, but each incorrect answer dropped them down one level. To make matters a little more challenging, if the winning team lost their balance and any body part touched the floor, Graham restarted the current question as they get back on track. The winning received $100 times the numbered level they're currently on, but if the winning team can reach level five before the 60 seconds expired, they're winnings jumped to $10,000.

Music
Jon Ernst

Trivia
The crammers were placed behind a store window at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles. On segues to commercial break, home audiences were shown clips of their study session.

On Sunday night shows in season two, there were special celebrity shows in which celebrities played with civilan contestants.

On a special April Fools day show, Marc Summers then of WinTuition did the hosting duties, while regular host Graham Elwood acted the part of Ms. Pickwick and reading facts to the winning team.

Tagline
"That's it for today but the Crammers for our next show are already loaded into the Crammatoriums. They look pretty freash now, but wait 'til you see them tomorrow. For all of us here at Cram, I'm Graham Elwood saying "If you snooze, you lose"." - Graham Elwood

Links
Rules for Cram @ Loogslair.net