First debuted in season 7 with Jeremy Culhane, Anna Garcia, and Oscar Montoya, “Rulette” is a recipe for controlled mayhem. Players don velcro suits that get dotted with random instructions after spinning a giant, The Price Is Right-style wheel, and they are forced to obey those rules or forfeit points — with commands ranging from being extra polite to being unable to use curse words. The format proved so beloved that season 8 delivered “Rulette 2,” pairing Garcia with Demi Adejuyigbe and Josh Ruben in what critics called one of the season’s best episodes.
Fans Want More Rulette, Reich Isn’t Buying It
The appetite for the game is unmistakable. On the r/Dropout and r/GameChangerTV subreddits, fans desired more “Rulette,” with some hoping it would blossom into a full spinoff series. They partially got their wish with “Rulette 2,” and the reaction was visceral: one viewer said they’d “pop a blood vessel” if the game didn’t spin off as a new show. Reich has acknowledged seeing that demand, but he remains skeptical of its longevity.
“I’m not convinced that ‘Rulette’ doesn’t become repetitive once you’ve seen 10 episodes,” he says. “But, man, is it fun every time we do it.”
Sam Reich, Dropout CEO
Reich singled out Josh Ruben’s “crashout” at the end of “Rulette 2” as one of his favorite moments from the season, underscoring the tension between a moment’s spontaneity and its repeatability.
The Alchemy Question
When deciding which games deserve a second life, Reich and his producers weigh several criteria. “Most importantly, is this scalable? Is it still exciting after you’ve seen seven episodes of it?” he explains. “And that could do with the Game Changer episode’s popularity, but it could also do with, how different would these episodes be from each other? Or how repetitive?”
For Reich, the magic of a great episode hinges on comedy’s alchemy. “Do we feel like we captured alchemy here? The fact that the Game Changer episode was so good — was it lightning in a bottle? Or is it, by contrast to point number one, repeatable?” He uses Make Some Noise as the counterexample: improv comedy in its simplest form, endlessly repeatable, with its spark coming from the unique groupings of comedians. Even returning acts like the Noise Boys never grow stale.
But “Rulette” may not clear the final hurdle. “Does this represent something on Dropout that we don’t have already?” Reich ponders. For “Rulette,” the answer might be no — play it too many times, and it risks feeling too close to the intersection of Game Changer and Make Some Noise.
Looking Ahead
Reich and the Game Changer crew have no shortage of history with reviving specific games: “Sam Says” has returned multiple times, “Make Some Noise” was spun off into its own show, and “Crowd Control” didn’t even get the chance to return as a game samer before its spinoff show was filmed ahead of the Game Changer episode.
It has been a year since Dropout launched its most recent brand-new show in Crowd Control, but Reich promises more ideas and shows remain “in the queue.” With Make Some Noise and everything else Dropout has going on — including its first licensed content and a board game Kickstarter — his vision for the company stays clear.
“I just like it when we can do stuff that feels terrifyingly unique,” he says. “As far as Dropout is concerned, I want Dropout to be really all over the place in terms of what it’s trying.”
Sam Reich, Dropout CEO
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