Review of Win Ben Stein's Money

This game show "Win Ben Stein's Money" was an anomaly in a good way. The series ran for 5 years on Comedy Central during the prime era of the network, with it's biggest hit being The Daily Show. Ben Stein's money was a refreshing supplement to the hit political comedy talk show. The star and centerpiece of this uniquely engaging show was of course Ben Stein, a man who himself had a uniquely interesting career. In his first act of his career in the 60s and 70s, he was a professor, lawyer, and presidential adviser/speechwriter. Then in his second act, in the 80s and 90s, he turned to the entertainment industry playing in various commercials, TV series, and films. His most notable acting role was a scene-stealing performance as an incredibly monotone Economics teacher in the iconic '86 teen high school comedy "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," the famous "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller..." guy. Then in the late 90s came this game show that Stein himself both co-hosted and competed in. I'm pretty sure that it was a new thing for the show's host to also be one of the competitors. Each 30-minute game episode was divided into 3 segments. The first segment had 3 contestants competing against each other win Stein asking questions that they got to choose from a Jeopardy-style game board where the player with the lowest money total would be eliminated. The second segment involved Stein competing against the 2 remaining players with the questions being asked by Stein's co-host and whichever player had the highest money total goes onto the final round. The third segment and final round was Stein against the player where the co-host asked them 10 quick-round questions they had to answer within the span of 1 minute and if the player answered more questions than Stein in this final round, then they win $5,000. My re-collection of the series was that in addition to Stein himself, he had 3 different co-hosts with comedy backgrounds during it's run: Jimmy Kimmel, Nancy Pimental, and Cousin Sal, who if I'm not mistaken is Kimmel's actual cousin, thus the moniker for the show. Kimmel was Stein's original co-host and had the longest co-host run of about two-thirds of the series. Then Kimmel left to do The Man Show and Pimental took over for a brief stint as co-host, and finally Sal finished out the final few episodes as co-host. Stein and Kimmel had a great rapport with Stein's old school straight-faced monotone perfectly countered by Kimmel's modern hip and irreverent humor. Pimental turned out to be a really strong replacement for Kimmel and it was actually cool to see a pretty hilarious rapport develop between Stein and a female co-host. Sal was probably the weakest co-host of the trio and didn't really seem to be quite as snappy or quick with the humor as Kimmel and Pimental, but he was still OK. Kimmel was obviously the most successful of the group as he has gone on to host his own popular nighttime ABC talk show The Jimmy Kimmel Show. Pimental sent onto do a few writing and acting gigs and for some reason, I mistakenly assumed she was a stand-up comedian as she really gave off that vibe. I recognize Sal as a sports analyst from random sports shows. Being biased here but the cute and attractive Pimental was my favorite co-host as I had a major crush on her from this show! LOL The early season intros were the best where Stein was more boisterous and vitriolic while the intro got watered down a bit in the waning years, most probably due to political correctness. Stein's monotone personality meshed well with the outgoing comic personas of his respective co-hosts to make for a refreshing and original game show during the late 90s-early 00s era.