- Accidental Innuendo: Does the Christmas 2010 game "Deck the Balls" remind you of anything?
- Awesome Music:
- "Get Up", the Title Theme Tune introduced part-way into Season 1.
- The music played during Supercoin (which is by no means exclusive to this show). The game will own your ass up one side and down the other, but at least you get to listen to some while it does. Based on its increased usage outside of Supercoin of late (it's practically become the show's second theme song), it seems even the producers are aware of this.
- Difficulty Spike: After level 3 or 4 usually sees the first spike with the games being a bit harder as a result of more cash to win, then after level 6 may have another, and if you make it to Level 8, 9 or 10 then some games seem to be Unwinnable by Design due to the exponential rise of the money.
"As the money goes up the challenges become more diffcult."
- Growing the Beard: Tweaks were done to the show's format and production near the halfway point of season 1; the show began trying to avert Who Wants to Be "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" (with less tensity/padding and a brighter, revised set with a grandstand-style seating area instead of the stereotypical "theater in the round"), and the show experimented with new formats (such as a Celebrity Edition and the "Last Man Standing" format).
- By its return in the summer, the show began to do more celebrity specials, a few more Last Man Standing episodes, and episodes with teams (usually couples) playing together (either taking turns having a go, or playing a cooperative game), and toying around with a Million-Dollar Mission to force people into playing their Unwinnable trap of a Final Boss. Ratings also improved greatly upon its move to a weekday timeslot in NBC's Summer lineup as a lead-in to the popular America's Got Talent, from its original Sunday-night slot. Fans will tell you that the end of Season 1 was the best — the contestants were relatively normal, the atmosphere was lighthearted, and the show was extremely fast-paced. The beginning of season 2 was also pretty good, introducing blueprint bonuses to make the games easier and get contestants to the harder levels. As well as introducing Families of 5 or even 6 as teams (despite it's unfairness). Season 2 also introduced best of 7 head-to-head episodes, which were really just that as whoever won had to compete from level 6 onward and the winning team often just lost their lives real quick. Contestants also performed better here overall.
- However, as quickly as it did that, it also developed Seasonal Rot just as quickly: after the halfway point of Season 2, MTWI began to show signs of Deal or No Deal syndrome - it became flooded with library pop music, increasingly obnoxious contestants, sob stories for just about everyone ("You haven't seen your dad for 10 years, now turn around!" *cue lots of crying, hugging, and not playing, although they probably will talk about the game and how they need to pass it*), generous amounts of Filler, the manifestation of Viewers Are Goldfish, and liberal use of Commercial Break Cliffhangers at the drop of a hat. The foreign versions, unsurprisingly, managed to avert this and are still much like the American version was in its prime.
- Unfortunately, other than the new host, top dollar amount, location (in New York now), and theme song, GSN's revival is literally the same show, right down to the obnoxious padding. Also, the contestants in this version are much worse at the games, not getting higher than level 6 or 7 during the first half run of the show and losing lives on earlier levels. During the second half of the run, the contestants got somewhat better, but this version (both runs) tried to have new contestants at the start of each show, meaning it was quite predictable when the contestants would lose just by looking at the time left in an episode and the Trailers Always Spoil.
- Surprise Difficulty: Although the games are played using typical household items, quite a few of them have proven to be very difficult.
- That One Level:
- Level 9. Many teams made it here but the fact that only two teams beat it makes it difficult, along with the fact that the challenge below was overused here...
- "Uphill Battle" is an insidious game-ender, involving keeping three marbles rolling on an inclined surface using nothing more than a big spoon. The margin for error in this game is practically nonexistent: hitting a marble at the wrong time, making two marbles hit each other or with too much/not enough force even once will inevitably cause a ripple effect that renders the game failed and Unwinnable, making it true test of skill (and some luck). However, a certain episode this game was beaten proving it was beatable.
- "Don't Blow The Joker", usually played at level 9, is painful. There's three decks of cards, each stacked on a bottle. The goal is to blow on the cards from the side, leaving only the bottom (joker) card. It seems simple at first... but it's actually quite easy to accidentally "blow the joker", especially when there's only a few cards, because you need the perfect amount of breath and the right angle to blow. The only mercy this game shows you is that you only have to pull it off once. This game was beaten more at home than on the show, ironically enough.
- "CD Dominoes" The game is one of the (if not) toughest level 7 game(s), if as everything at level 7 wasn't hard already. The game sees the player trying to set up twenty plastic cases that must be set up
to knock them all down (tip or blow, it was never said which one the contestant had to follow) to land the last case in a bucket. The difficulty comes from that the dominoes must be set up in a curve around a shot glass or red sticker. Contestants struggled tremendously with the game, losing their cool and having to reset dominoes. However, as long as the contestant knocks the first case down within the time expiring, the last case can land in the bucket after. - "Oh Nuts!" is a level 8 game that was only beaten on the GSN revival once and never beaten on the NBC version. The point is to basically stack eight nut and bolt pairings on a steel ruler. The difficulty came from the fact that the pairings were just as shaky as the nuts on "The Nutstacker". Also, removing the ruler became insanely difficult without moving some part of the tower as the further the pairings leaned back, the further you had to remove the ruler. Like other games, knocking the tower over resulted in losing a life automatically.
- "Ker-Plink! or Plunk!" Although it's deceptively simple at first, it proved to be harder than usual. The goal of the game is to sink a container floating in a punch bowl with marbles. The problem is the number required to sink it was usually more than twelve making it extremely difficult, even as a level 6 game.
- SUPERCOIN, the only known Level 10 game. Out of anyone who have played it (with it either forced upon them as a bonus level for winning a group competition, being a lucky audience member, or being the few to make it this far in an actual game), NO ONE has won this game.
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Early in development, the show was going to be a ripoff of The Cube — a more elaborately produced British stunt game that had been shopped around to CBS and FOX around the same time MTWI's pilots were taped. It ended up being changed significantly later in development and even post-production, with the final product more influenced by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Beat the Clock. Despite this, the show gained many detractors among some fans of The Cube for this reason, especially on Game Show website BuzzerBlog.
- It's Short, So It Sucks!: Pong to the Fifth Power (Pong^5). The goal is to bounce five ping pong balls in a row into a glass within twenty tries. The game is admittedly hard, but it was basically beaten and dominated every time it was played. Most got 5 balls in the first or second glass despite it being level 6.
