Game shows and trivia competitions are exhilarating, mentally stimulating, and with the right MC, hilarious. My favorite MC for this type of event is Bergen County’s own, “Digital” Dov Katz, whose fun and engaging events I have had the privilege of experiencing nearly a dozen times. While “‘Digital” Dov started out as a virtual entertainer, due to the covid pandemic, “Not-Just-Digital” Dov has now expanded his persona beyond only virtual events: he can now often be found as “In-Person” Dov. (Note: I came up with these titles as a joke; it’s not his real name, so I guess that I’ll stick with calling him by his real stage name: Digital Dov.)
Digital Dov’s versatility shines through as he possesses both the resources and determination to customize any show or event to suit any audience’s background or request. Want a sports-themed game show? Check. A show about the guest of honor? No problem. A trivia contest about rebbeim and Torah? Dov will make it happen.
Digital Dov began in March 2020 when Dov was slated to perform at The Young Israel of New Rochelle Purim party, which was canceled due to the large number of congregants who were confined in quarantine, having caught coronavirus. Dov felt awful about their predicament and decided to do something about it. He orchestrated a comprehensive Zoom event for them to follow the Megillah reading, which to his surprise, drew over 500 congregants in attendance! The event was comprised of both a popular trivia contests and virtual costume competitions with prizes
Following the success of that virtual Purim event, Dov was subsequently hired by many schools and organizations around the country to run virtual events, bringing much-needed lighthearted fun to the events. Dov even once ran a virtual bar mitzvah party for a boy in Memphis whose party had to be canceled due to the pandemic.
My first experience with Digital Dov was in the Spring of 2020 when I was the student council president for the virtual Yeshiva University student body, at a time when all the students were forced to return to their homes. Practically all live entertainment had been shut down, with both the sports world and the movie industry going on a temporary hiatus. Dov, who is a good friend of my father’s, reached out to me and pitched his Digital Dov platform as a unique way to engage with students live, no matter where they were in the world.
I loved the idea.
For our first Digital Dov event, we played “Let’s Make a Deal.” Dov is a master presenter and has the technology to bring famous game shows to life, using professional speaker equipment, green screens, and slideshows with the gameplay layout. “Let’s Make a Deal” was a free prize giveaway in which Dov selected random users to make “deals” with him. He would offer a prize behind one of three closed doors, often coming up with clever remarks to make the contestants doubt their selection, or even coming up with random offers to players to swap their prize for whatever was in his pocket. Many of the contestants won some very cool prizes, such as a drone, AirPods, or even an Amazon gift card, but more often than not, the prizes were more humorous, such as a coat hanger, silly putty, or a free writing session with one of the students.
The show was a huge hit, with many students clamoring for another Digital Dov event. Over the next few months, I worked with Dov to come up with ways of turning more hit game shows into YU-esque virtual events.
At our next YU digital game show, we played “Family Feud.” Before the event, we sent out a survey to the entire student body with 30 prompts such as “Your favorite thing about being on Zoom for classes,” “The worst things to say on a date,” “The best places to go on a date,” “How long does the typical New Year’s resolution last?” and “The top reason to be a Minyan Man.” Then, on the night of the actual game show, Digital Dov worked his magic and called on contestants to play “Family Feud,” based on the student body’s responses, where they had to guess which answers were the most frequently given. This was probably the best format for Digital Dov because it didn’t require any additional capital for prizes, and it was hysterical to see exactly which responses were the top results, while contestants tried to guess the winning responses.
Besides being just a fun game show host, Dov is very knowledgeable about trivia and comes up with engaging and wide-variety trivia contests. For our next YU event, I didn’t want to do a classic trivia night but instead something more complex, based on the television show “The Weakest Link.” The gist of the show is that it was a hybrid of “Survivor” and a standard trivia contest. Dov went around in a circle to each team, asking a different question, and if five questions in a row were answered correctly (called a “chain,” hence the title of “link,”) then the grand prize value increased. But if a question was answered incorrectly, then the chain would reset, hindering the chance of improving the grand prize. After each round, the teams would vote out one team who was “The Weakest Link” and missed the most questions or took the longest to answer. Once the final two teams remained, they competed one-on-one for the grand prize. This game required a lot of logistical planning, such as having the participants match their displayed Zoom names with those of their teammates. In addition, we also played “The Price is Right” in which we recreated the four rounds of the hit show in a competitive game over Zoom.
Following the covid pandemic, Digital Dov transitioned from exclusively virtual events to primarily in-person ones. For my dad’s 50th birthday, we had Digital Dov host a birthday party with trivia questions that friends and family had previously submitted, themed around my dad. It was a hysterical and meaningful way to reflect on great stories and memories about my dad, and everyone had a blast.
Each year, my family hosts a Super Bowl party and for the past two Super Bowls during the halftime show, we had Digital Dov entertain everyone with segments from his latest games. The first time, we played a series of charades-like games called “Just Say” and “Movie Time.” Digital Dov brought his computer with the games and connected it to our TV. For “Just Say,” two players took turns giving and guessing clues. One faced the screen and provided hints about the featured word, while the other had to blindly guess what the word was. If the guesser guessed wrong, Dov would mark it incorrect, and an X would appear on the screen, followed by a new word. The goal was to correctly get as many words as possible within 30 seconds. It was very fast-paced and quite nerve-wracking to play, as there was the pressure of an audience watching and a timer counting down. I found myself much better being the guesser than the one giving the clues. The next game, “Movie Time,” was similar, but the goal was for the guesser to get a movie title displayed on the TV correctly within the five-second timer while their teammate gave clues.
At my family’s Super Bowl party this past year, Digital Dov returned, and we played an even more competitive game called “Codebreaker.” The game was similar to “Mastermind” but with several unique twists. There were four teams with four people per team, and on each turn, the team needed to guess a four-digit number to unlock its “code.” Dov would input a number on the screen, and a series of arrows would appear next to each number, indicating whether the number was higher, lower or correct to provide hints. After guessing, each team had three special “powers” that it could use. One power was to skip another team’s turn, another was to reset a number from another team’s code, and the third was to scramble a team’s arrow hints. The scramble power wasn’t particularly helpful since it’s only a 4-digit code, so it was easy to have already memorized the sequence. The other two powers, however, were very helpful, adding a lot of competitive strategy to the game.
I won’t spoil the tricks of this game, but our team played it very well because we were able to deceive other teams into ganging up on the other seemingly “winning” teams, not realizing that our team was close to winning. This enabled us, coming from behind at first due to being skipped twice, to pull ahead at the end, breaking our code first for the win.
The most similar comparison to Digital Dov I’ve seen was my experience at the Game of 1,000 Boxes in Manhattan (see issue #474 for the full review). While the Game of 1,000 Boxes is incredible and has some very impressive interactive competitive games, Digital Dov can build an event that’s personalized to you. Whether custom making a game from scratch, as Dov did for YU, or creating an entire event around the guest of honor, as he did at my dad’s birthday party, Dov can make it happen.
My dream is that local entertainers such as Digital Dov, the “J-Sketch Team” of Eli Lebowicz, Ami Kozak, and Mikey Greenblatt (check out the most recent Jewish Link Pitch Meeting Podcast), and perhaps, magicians such as Shlomo Levinger (see issue #481) or Ezra the Magician (see issue #444) will team up for a night of fun at a local venue such as at a shul or Debonair Music Hall every few months. Each show would be entirely different, full of laughter, amazement and game show competition. I’ve pitched this idea to Dov, who seems intrigued by it, but I’m hoping this article can help make it come to life with our Jewish Link readers flooding Dov/Eli’s inbox in support of my idea.
No two Digital Dov shows are alike, and with each event, Dov manages to bring a completely original and fun game to life. If you are looking for an entertainer for a modest-sized to large event and want it to be a memorable one, I highly recommend reaching out to Digital Dov.
(For a full interview with Digital Dov, check out my article from three years ago in which my friend Gilad Menashe and I interviewed Digital Dov for the “YU Commentator:” https://yucommentator.org/2021/03/behind-digital-dov.)
Hours: Anytime that works for you and Dov
Located: Anywhere! Whether in-person or virtual
Website: www.digitaldov.com
Pricing: Email Dov at digitaldov.com; price varies based on group size/length of event
Zachary Greenberg is a consultant at Semler Brossy and the TABC track coach. In 2017 and 2018, Zack was a counselor at Camp HASC. Zack also recently watched the movie “Dune 2” in IMAX theaters. If you have any recommendations of fun places for him to cover, email [email protected].
