By the mid-'70s, the game show Let's Make A Deal had become such a phenomenon that it inspired scores of pop-culture parodies, a lot of hand-wringing from social critics, and Robert Young, E.J. Vaughn, and John Schott's probing 1978 documentary Deal. All but forgotten by game-show buffs and cineastes alike, Deal offered extraordinary access to Let's Make A Deal's creators and contestants, showing how the writers worked through the complicated trades that host Monty Hall officiated on the air, and how the elaborately costumed contestants moved from a holding area known as "the snake pit" to the studio, after a lengthy orientation session that taught them how to act crazy on camera. It's documentary filmmaking in the cinema-vérité tradition, with an eye toward the venal absurdity of the post-Watergate American Dream.
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