New game show filmed on Allegiant flights

Airlines have hosted everything from fashion shows and comedy performances to music concerts on their airplanes. Richard Branson's Virgin Produced shot and edited an entire movie onboard a Virgin flight from Los Angeles to London, Dallas, Fort Worth and Sydney.

Now there's a television game show set and shot onboard airplanes, using passengers as contestants competing for prizes from cash to luxury vacations at resorts in Las Vegas and Orlando.

Premiering Sept. 20 and described by producers Alpine Labs as part quiz show, part game of chance, the first season of The Game Plane includes 40 episodes shot during flights operated by low-cost carrier Allegiant Air. (A preview reel and a station line-up is included here.)

"We like doing things differently and the majority of our passengers are going on vacation," so letting a film crew shoot an in-flight game show seemed like a great match, said Brian Davis, Allegiant's vice president of Business Development.

Filming was done on regularly scheduled flights, with potential contestants alerted, pre-interviewed and prepped in the gate areas before boarding. Passengers who didn't want to participate, or chance being caught on camera, could request to be seated in sections of the plane away from the action.

Hosted by Mark L. Walberg of Antiques Roadshow fame, the show takes inspiration from game show classics such as Let's Make a Deal and The Dating Game.

"We chose to film on some of Allegiant's longer flights," said Kevin Abrams, co-founder and principal of Alpine Labs, "and had games like hot potato, where the hot potato was a crying baby doll."

Another game played during the show, "How Smart is Your Co-Pilot," sends one half of a couple to an isolation booth — in this case the airplane lavatory — while the other half answers relationship trivia questions the partner emerging from the lavatory must try to match. A miniature golf-putting contest, called "Bye Bye Birdie," takes place in the aisle, while the "Barf Bag Challenge" asks contestants to choose questions from an array of three barf bags worth up to $200.

Other games have names such as "The Plane Truth," "Landing Letters," and "Wing Man." And for times when turbulence meant contestants had to stay in their seats, the producers created an "Operation"-style board game in which players must remove game pieces shaped like headsets, a captain's hat, a barf bag and a bag of peanuts from cut-out sections of a tiny airplane without touching the electrified edges.

"We took travel, which has become mundane, and tried to turn it into something memorable and special," said Abrams, "On one flight to Las Vegas, the first prize winner was on her first plane ride. She was supposed to split a room in a small hotel away from The Strip but ended up winning a full-suite experience at the MGM."