USA TODAY International Edition
We took a ride in the ‘Cash Cab’ (and won!)
Discovery resets the meter on iconic game show
NEW YORK – It looks like an ordinary New York City taxi. Well, maybe a little cleaner than most.
But open the door, clamber in and see the flashing colored ceiling lights and a familiar face at the wheel: Ben Bailey, 47, the stand-up comedian and longtime host of Discovery’s Cash Cab, which pays you money to answer trivia questions while riding to the destination of your choice.
The show, which originated in the U.K. in 2005 and has aired in dozens of countries, has been off the air in the U.S. since 2012, when Discovery Channel canceled it after 400 episodes. But it’s re-emerging from the garage Dec. 4 (10 ET/PT) for a six-episode run of back-toback shows on consecutive Mondays.
And this time: celebrities. Matthew Perry, Brooke Shields and Scott Bakula are among those surprising contestants by riding shotgun to help answer rounds of questions for cash prizes. (It’s not exactly a get-rich-quick play: The most the show has awarded a single player is $6,400.)
Also new: “social media shoutouts,” in which players can request lifelines from inside the taxi by asking Cash Cab fans on Facebook.
On a crisp afternoon this month, Bailey — who has a taxi license but drives one “only when I’m hosting the show” — took me for a spin and a mini-game of six questions, five of which I got right.
I knew the jurist approving her tongue-in-cheek nickname, Notorious RBG, was Ruth Bader Ginsburg; that the pink packets of artificial sweetener with a musical logo were Sweet ‘n Low; and (easy one) that USA TODAY’s 2015 fake front page commemorated Back to the
Future. (What I didn’t: that the non-European country 9 miles from Spain is Morocco).
How does the cab find its game-show passengers? “Pretty much I pull over and pick ’em up,” Bailey says in an interview in the cab after our game. They sign a release form, a producer hops in the passenger seat bearing a clipboard and off they go for a free ride, unless they lose the game before reaching their destination, in which case they’re ejected from the vehicle.
Bailey says he won’t pick up people with suitcases (they might be in a hurry), many recognize him (or the flashing lights) instantly and a few provided memorable fares.
“One guy got really angry” when the cab pulled over for a street shout out, in which pedestrians can help out. “They didn’t know the answer, and he thought we planted them there. He was screaming and yelling, saying “these people are shills!” which wasn’t really the right term. I got out of the cab.”
Another lost the game, scooted to the middle seat and “buckled himself in with all the seat belts and said, ‘I’m not getting out.’ ”
Savvy New Yorkers recognize him, even five years after the last episode. (Reruns air on GSN.) “What happened to the show? When’s it coming back?” they want to know. “For years, I had to say ‘I don’t know why they canceled it.’ ” (An answer was not forthcoming from Discovery, which has new management.)
Celebs, many of them Cab fans, provided “some of the best shows ever,” Bailey says. Who was the most helpful? Perry assisted one couple nicely. “There were a couple that didn’t seem to know any of the answers but were very entertaining,” Bailey says. “Dave Foley had much younger people in their 20s. I don’t think they would have gotten anything right if he hadn’t been there.”