Celebrity Name Game comes across as a rather obvious cash in on Hollywood Game Night, with minor celebrities paired up with contestants in a name guessing game. Craig Ferguson brings a bit of charisma to the proceedings, but not enough to save the show.
One major problem is that the same game is played over and over, with little variation in how the game is played or in the challenge level. The only difference between games is who is giving clues and who is trying to guess the celebrity. There is no real sense of suspense, as the names are often easy to guess for anyone remotely good at this type of game.
Moreover, in terms of its guests, the show uses the term "celebrity" very loosely. In the two shows I watched, one featured two B-list actresses from the late 1990s, while the other featured a television actor I'd never heard of. (Although I was surprised to see they got Sheryl Crow-I think she's friends with Courtney Cox, who's an executive producer of the show.) Craig Ferguson does his best to make the proceedings interesting, bringing the same sense of humor he had on The Late Late Show. However, there is only so much he can do with something as dull as this. At one point, he was reduced to openly feeding a contestant an answer when they got stuck on a name.
