The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: vexer6 on June 30, 2011, 05:23:45 PM
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What are the most obscure game shows you've seen? (by "obscure" I mean shows that haven't been seen in reruns since the original airing). Two examples for me were "It's Your Chance Of A Lifetime"(not to be confused with the 100,000$ Chance Of A Lifetime) which I saw when I was only 10 years old, I had already gotten hooked on game shows after watching Millionare with my mother and grandmother every week. "Lifetime" was a very short-lived clone of WWTBAM that aired in June 2000 on Fox, it was hosted by Gordon Elliott and only lasted for 5 episodes aired over the course of one week, it had only a few differences from Millionare. The first question-which if answered correctly would allow you to pay off a credit debt of up to 10,000$(the credit card bill was shredded onstage) There were only nine questions rather then fifteen, and they ertr all divided into categories like Popular Music and In The Animal Kingdom, the questions were not multiple-choice, though one lifeline gave three possible answers to a question, another lifeline let you change the question to a category of your choice, and at the very end, you got a "last chance" which allowed you to re-use either lifeline. Most people thought that show was boring, personally I thought it was enjoyable enough(it certainly beats the hell out of "Deal or No Deal" that's for sure!, how is that show still on anyways?) Gordon was a fun host and added some "color" to the show, the questions were of reasonable difficulty, and it had a rather impressive set design(that was the one area where the show beat Millionare IMO)It's a real shame that show is almost forgotten today, it showed up on Youtube back in 2008 but then got removed for whatever reason, no other images or videos of that show seem to exist anymore.
The other example was "Dirty Rotten Cheater" which aired on PAX TV back in 2003, the show was somewhat similar to Weakest Link, one player was designated as "the cheater" which allowed to them to see all the correct answers for the questions. The first question was a survey question, wih certain answers being worth more then others, the players were given opportunities to accuse each other of being the cheater by giving votes(the studio audience also gave out votes near the end), if the wrong person was outed, then the total money earned up to that point was halved, and the player(s) that got removed from the game get a chance to win money at the end of the show, if the cheater was succcesfully outed, a new one was designated. If no contestant received three votes, the cheater could eliminate an "honest" player from the game. It was a pretty fun show with enough uniqueness(is that a word?), and it could've fared better if it wasn't on PAX.
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A friendly welcome to our newcomer, plus a word to the [hopefully] wise. It won't be necessary for you to explain to THIS group how games were played, especially games from the last ten years or so. If you want to ask questions about them, cool. But you can pretty much assume that we're going to be familiar with most anything you come up with, we won't need the rules spelled out for us.
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Yeah I kinda figured that, I just wanted to make sure(mostly for "Chance Of A Lifetime" since barely anyone remembers that show).
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A copy of "The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows" remains your best source for finding obscure shows. For example, there is "Lets Celebrate", a one-time series that aired on NBC on December 15, 1946.
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Thanks, i'll be sure to pick up a copy. So anyways, what are the most obscure game shows you guys have seen?
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vexer, I think if you're looking for obscurity it'd probably be easier to go back quite a bit further as a start- local stuff, I think, would fit even better. Short-lived and obscure don't necessarily have the same meaning. Especially things that have aired in the last ten years. You'd be surprised at the trove of knowledge possessed by the membership.
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To answer your question...hmm...the best I can really think of is NY Wired, which was the New York Lottery's attempt at a game show. Don't know if that's the kind of stuff you're looking for.
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I've seen the Knowledge Bowl hosted by WBKB-TV 11 in Alpena, the third-smallest Nielsen market in the US. Heck, I was even at a taping! (I was called in as an alternate but never got to play.) You can't even hear what the contestants are saying most of the time, and the host can't be bothered to figure out the correct pronunciation of anything. It's a really dismal watch, and yet it's been on forever.
(It's not the most obscure thing in the world, but how many of us here watched the first two episodes of On the Cover before it got yanked and put back on the schedule in retooled form?)
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I was a member of the Paley Center, and viewed most of their game show collection.
Some of what I've seen:
An episode of "Pantomime Quiz" that might predate all network runs: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Pantomime+Quiz&p=1&item=T82:0115
An episode of Information Please from a run that I've found no sources for: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=information+please&p=2&item=B:27161
An episode of On The Spot, a local Portland game show from the 1980s: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Portland+Game&p=1&item=T87:0264
An episode of the short-lived 1952 program Ask Me Another, which focused on sports personalities: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Ask+Me+Another&p=1&item=B:53863
Finally, every episode in their collection from the 1950s "museum curators guess the object" program, What In The World": http://www.paleycenter.org/collection?advanced=1&q=What+In+The+World&c=tv&f=title&x=0&y=0
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Yeah, that's along the lines of what I was looking for.
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Pro-fan (it's mentioned in Maxine Fabe's book). I saw it one summer when my parent's antenna could catch signals from Akron and London, Ontario. Picture This is another show I have seen since it original airing.
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Also, there was a Lingo game before GSN that aired back in 1987-1988, it was never reran and barely advertised, it also apparently had a problem paying the winners, one women won over 100,000$ but never got paid.
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There was a movie that came out around 1984 that had the first Jeopardy! revival pilot in it. That was the most obscure game show to me for a long time. So much so that I can't remember what the movie was.
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I think the film you're thinking of was "Spies Like Us"
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When Millionaire first came out, there was (I believe) a Canadian game show called the "Million Dollar Word Game". I've always wanted to see that one.
"Shopper's Casino", as mentioned in another thread, is a good one too...
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I also look toward "Grandstand", the short lived Curt Chaplin-hosted sports trivia game from '89. Largely because it seemed to be in such a limited run that it almost seemed like filler (at least, that's how the NYC station that carried it aired it).
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An episode of Information Please from a run that I've found no sources for: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=information+please&p=2&item=B:27161
Well, I can help you here. It's from the version the EOTVGS references, a 1952 summer series. The Encyclopedia just isn't quite as accurate for that listing is all. The episode hosted by Russel (one 'l') Crouse aired live on August 10, 1952.
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New Jersey Bowl On NJN but that was more Cable/PBS based. Oh wait!! Disney's College Bowl with Dick Cavvet is one. It aired late at night and I think I saw atleast two episodes. hmm what else... The Dream League and Sports on Tap both on ESPN. ( I guess Chris Berman's Boardwalk basball would fit the list).
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The problem for me is that I missed out on about four-sevenths of game show history on account of not being old enough. The most obscure game show I can think of doesn't even peg on the meter for some of the people who have been around twice as long as I have. Plus now there's the internet and all, so stuff I had only heard of, or never remembered, can be seen by all who want to.
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"Fantasy Park" is another obscure one.
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New Jersey Bowl On NJN but that was more Cable/PBS based. Oh wait!! Disney's College Bowl with Dick Cavvet is one. It aired late at night and I think I saw atleast two episodes. hmm what else... The Dream League and Sports on Tap both on ESPN. ( I guess Chris Berman's Boardwalk basball would fit the list).
If we're going with ESPN game shows, Designated Hitter is on the top of my list. ISTR it never had a consistent time slot and that ESPN aired it at the weirdest hours. The Dream League had a couple of seasons and a decent time slot (4:30 PM Eastern or thereabout), while Sports on Tap was on at 6 PM, back when SportsCenter was half an hour. And it didn't feel like it was trying too hard to be cool. And it had good personalities like Charley Steiner.
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If we're going with ESPN game shows, Designated Hitter is on the top of my list. ISTR it never had a consistent time slot and that ESPN aired it at the weirdest hours. The Dream League had a couple of seasons and a decent time slot (4:30 PM Eastern or thereabout), while Sports on Tap was on at 6 PM, back when SportsCenter was half an hour. And it didn't feel like it was trying too hard to be cool. And it had good personalities like Charley Steiner.
I liked Dream League, and I remember the 4:30 timeslot, but I also remember it airing on an irregular basis (if it wasn't interrupted by live sports). There was another one from fall-1994 called Perfect Match. It had a pretty convoluted format IIRC, but I wanna say it was similar to Tomarken's Wipeout.
The annoying thing about so many of ESPN's game shows is that they air for a very short period of time, then they just fade off into...well, obscurity. I think 2-Minute Drill and Stump the Schwab may be the few exceptions.
/Apparently there were more game shows in the mid-90s then I remember
//Mostly on cable
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I liked Dream League, and I remember the 4:30 timeslot, but I also remember it airing on an irregular basis (if it wasn't interrupted by live sports). There was another one from fall-1994 called Perfect Match. It had a pretty convoluted format IIRC, but I wanna say it was similar to Tomarken's Wipeout.
Not really. There was a board of twelve answers and the contestant had 30 seconds to match the questions asked by Ken Ober to the answers on the board. Two men played, two women played and the winner of each played a final board where a clean sweep won a prize of some note.
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Interesting fact about Designated Hitter: It was produced by The William Carruthers Company (of Press Your Luck fame). Even the buzz-in sound reminded me of PYL.
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An episode of Information Please from a run that I've found no sources for: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=information+please&p=2&item=B:27161
Well, I can help you here. It's from the version the EOTVGS references, a 1952 summer series. The Encyclopedia just isn't quite as accurate for that listing is all. The episode hosted by Russel (one 'l') Crouse aired live on August 10, 1952.
Except, based on content, it doesn't seem like it could have been from the 1952 version (http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13702&st=0&p=164873&hl=crouse&fromsearch=1&#entry164873)
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If we're going with ESPN game shows, Designated Hitter is on the top of my list.
I remember seeing the format in EOTVGS when I first got the book, and really dug it. It's certainly up there in obscurity because it ran for only a short time (and as you said, in odd time slots) plus, there's virtually no episodes around. The best I've done is a clip of it in a montage from a guy on YouTube who's been on many shows (including the aforementioned Perfect Match with Ken Ober).
-Jason
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An episode of Information Please from a run that I've found no sources for: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=information+please&p=2&item=B:27161
Well, I can help you here. It's from the version the EOTVGS references, a 1952 summer series. The Encyclopedia just isn't quite as accurate for that listing is all. The episode hosted by Russel (one 'l') Crouse aired live on August 10, 1952.
Except, based on content, it doesn't seem like it could have been from the 1952 version (http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13702&st=0&p=164873&hl=crouse&fromsearch=1&#entry164873)
Cool. I have no memory of my detailed response from 2007, but I was using the same book to identify the Crouse episode. The August 10 episode (number 7 of 13) features the same panelists and host mentioned on the Paley link, so I just figured that had to be it. Without having seen it, some of the things you mention (1951 date, no viewer submissions) would strongly suggest it was a pilot or some other sort of test, though no mention of such a thing appears in the book.
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Interesting fact about Designated Hitter: It was produced by The William Carruthers Company (of Press Your Luck fame). Even the buzz-in sound reminded me of PYL.
Yep, the announcer was Rick Stern, the AD on both DH and PYL.
Tyshaun
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is fandango obscure enough?
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I remember catching Inspiration, Please! on a religious channel in the early 1990s. Not being a religious person I didn't watch it more than once or twice, but I think the bonus prize was a trip to a holy site.
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I remember catching Inspiration, Please! on a religious channel in the early 1990s. Not being a religious person I didn't watch it more than once or twice, but I think the bonus prize was a trip to a holy site.
Oh, yeah; I remember that show...it was on the Oddysey Channel back in the '90s (I remember seeing it in 1997, but only once at my grandma's house). Its prize was a trip to the "Holy Land" (i.e., Jerusalem), but that was the grand prize. You had to win a tournament in order to get it, and I can't remember if you got anything for winning one of the earlier rounds. But, you're right; very religious-themed.
The definition of "obscure" definitely has been blurred for me thanks to this group, GSN, and YouTube, but I thought the old PBS game show Think Twice fit here nicely. A very nice quiz game, but it only had 13 episodes, and I think was PBS' only attempt at a non-kids game show. The only way I saw it was my PBS station reran it for a very short time during the day right after Carmen Sandiego.
Anthony
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Ah, the joys of being really, really old...I can remember watching Alumni Fun with Clifton (or Kip to his close friends) Fadiman in '64, and Make a Face was a big fave during 1st grade lunchtime in '61.
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Ah, the joys of being really, really old...I can remember watching Alumni Fun with Clifton (or Kip to his close friends) Fadiman in '64, and Make a Face was a big fave during 1st grade lunchtime in '61.
I saw a show while on vacation in Washington DC. All I remember was that it was sponsored by American Cyanamid. Could that have been Alumni Fun?
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I saw a show while on vacation in Washington DC. All I remember was that it was sponsored by American Cyanamid. Could that have been Alumni Fun?
Very good! It was indeed sponsored by Cyanamid, as I recall, and also had a really silly animated opening and theme. I think there were two panels of three celebrities, and each panel was made up of alumni of the same university.
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I remember catching Inspiration, Please! on a religious channel in the early 1990s. Not being a religious person I didn't watch it more than once or twice, but I think the bonus prize was a trip to a holy site.
Guessing it wasn't Mecca. :)
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is fandango obscure enough?
I would say no, considering it aired on a national cable network for six years and was fairly popular too. Now if it was on a local channel in Nashville, sure.
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For me the most obscure game show I can remember in the 1970s, was Monty Hall's "It's Anybody's Guess".
I would go to great lengths to watch every game show on TV at least once when on summer vacation just to see what they looked like, and for the life of me I never remember seeing that show on TV. I don't remember the NBC affiliate in Cleveland pre-empting or time-shifting anything on the daytime schedule. And it wasn't until I saw a clip of the show on YouTube several months back when I even knew about the show.
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While on a road trip in the summer of 1974, we came within signal distance of Ottawa's CJOH-TV. They had a show on every evening called Top Dough. To my pre-teen eyes I thought it was neat, but don't remember much about it now, other than it had 3 contestants and was some sort of question and answer game. In some old Canadian TVGuides I have, I've never seen it listed on any other station. Must have been a local show only.
Oddly enough, around the same time Dennis James' re-do of Name That Tune premiered on NBC. I remember watching the premiere on the same trip and my mother commented "that show's so old!" So I guess I've got two from the same trip!
Never saw Top Dough again but watched Name That Tune whenever home from school, plus Kennedy's once-weekly evening version.
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I had seen one episode of The Greater Baltimore Baffle, airing on WJZ-TV, Baltimore, during the fall of 1979. It was a trivia-based show asking three contestants to answer questions and identify locations relating to the city.
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Around 1980-81, my sister appeared on a quiz show called It's Elementary on WPLG TV-10 out of Miami, hosted by one of my favorite radio personalities of all
time, Jim Hummel, better known as Rick Shaw, who at the time was at WAXY-106 in Ft. Lauderdale. (I'm assuming this format was packaged to other markets as well.)
The show was a fair test of the students' math, spelling and grammar skills between two elementary schools, and the main game was pretty straightforward, but as I remember, at the end of each round, Rick handed one student from each school a StormTrooper Blaster-type gun and escorted them to a "planetarium" to rack up extra points for their school. As Rick asked the questions, the students would zap what they thought was the correct answer coming out of the sky. If they were correct, their bodies lit up on the screen, but if they were wrong, they would "vanish" from the screen, squiggly lines and all.
With me being in middle school at the time I thought this was the silliest, cheesiest game show ever, but my sister loved every minute of it! :)
And with that, I'm into the triple digits with # of posts. :)
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You want "obscure?" I'll give you "obscure," right here! 2nd Honeymoon (http://mysite.verizon.net/reszuh21/2ndhoneymoon.html)
Cordially,
Tammy
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Talking about obscure game shows, one obscure game show is NFL Trivia game that aired during football season as well as Sports SnapShot hosted by Jimmy Cefalo. And the BET game shows. Family Figures, as well as Tell me something good and Pressure Cooker. By Glow in the Dark Productions who would go on and produce History IQ.
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For me the most obscure game show I can remember in the 1970s, was Monty Hall's "It's Anybody's Guess".
The only thing I remember about this show was it had a very similar open to TPiR. The opening shot was of the audience applauding with cascading lights framed the screen.
Add the syndicated Anything You Can Do to my list of obscure game shows. It was Beat the Clock with sexism.
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There was a game show on Animal Planet of all channels, it was called "You Lie Like A Dog" It was basically "To Tell The Truth" with pets.
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You want "obscure?" I'll give you "obscure," right here! 2nd Honeymoon (http://"http://mysite.verizon.net/reszuh21/2ndhoneymoon.html")
Someone get a mop before she starts *[color="#FF0000"]SWAK![/color]*-king all over the joint.
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To answer your question...hmm...the best I can really think of is NY Wired, which was the New York Lottery's attempt at a game show. Don't know if that's the kind of stuff you're looking for.
Ah yes, I remember that show, being excited for what I thought would be more or less a local version of Illinois Instant Riches... and being disappointed at how incredibly lame it was. Instead of contestants playing for themselves, you had lottery retailers playing for money to be split between three "cheering sections" in the audience — and only half the money went to them; the other half went to various educational charities and schools across New York. Plus way too much of the show's time was devoted to constant segments showcasing how lottery money helps schools instead of actually playing the games.
One somewhat recent, national show I think fits into the realm of obscurity is "Zig & Zag: Alpha Dog Challenge" which ran on Animal Planet in the late 90s. From what I remember, it was kind of like That's My Dog with teams of dogs that had specialized skills (police dogs, swimming dogs, etc.) participating in events that involved their particular skills, and then their scores translated into the leading team having a head start in an obstacle course relay race at the end. I think many if not all of the dogs on the show appeared regularly. I wish I'd had the foresight to record some episodes because there's surprisingly little about it on the Internet — there's no video or pictures of it anywhere as far as I've found.
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When I was on vacation with the family in Quebec one summer in the mid-1980s, we saw a French-language game show called Le Québec à la carte which, as best I could tell, was a Q&A show about Quebec culture and history. If I remember correctly, instead of having normal numeric scores, the contestants' scores were shown as advancing down the St. Lawrence River. The "scoreboard" showed the entire province, though, which made for a lot of empty space.
Haven't been able to find anything about it on the Internet.
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I had seen one episode of The Greater Baltimore Baffle, airing on WJZ-TV, Baltimore, during the fall of 1979. It was a trivia-based show asking three contestants to answer questions and identify locations relating to the city.
Sounds similar to So You Think You Know St. Louis? Local celebs tried gave their answers, and two contestants tried to chose the correct one, if it was even offered. I still laugh at the prize structure: The winner got $100; the loser, $75.
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The Battle of the Video Games was definitely an obscure 1980s entry...
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Without having seen it, some of the things you mention (1951 date, no viewer submissions) would strongly suggest it was a pilot or some other sort of test, though no mention of such a thing appears in the book.
To end the hijack, and to bring in two points not mentioned in my 2007 posting:
Hint that it might have been a pilot/test: IIRC, you can see crew setting up under the opening title card.
Hint that there might be more to it: The program ends with a title card plugging John Mason Brown as next week's host and Cornelia Otis Skinner as next week's third panelist. This feels awfully precise for a pilot.
On that note, two unaired pilots to add (though it may be cheating):
I Predict, or, when Monty met Ron: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=I+Predict&p=1&item=B:59500
The Great Showdown, for those who like Robert Q. Lewis and/or mahjong: http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Robert+Q+Lewis&p=1&item=B:52323
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Hint that there might be more to it: The program ends with a title card plugging John Mason Brown as next week's host and Cornelia Otis Skinner as next week's third panelist. This feels awfully precise for a pilot.
The pilot for The Face Is Familiar, hosted by Jack Clark, mentioned Eydie Gormé and Alan King as the guests for "next week". Jack referenced "our maiden voyage", implying it was the premiere, but also asked "What did you do over the Summer?"...implying it was supposed to be a Fall '65 entry but got pushed to midseason.
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There was a show in the mid-late 50s called Giant Step which had something to do with students crossing a gameboard to earn money towards a college scholarship.
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One of our local stations did a high-school quiz bowl for a year in the 60s - it was on channel 5, so the name of it was:
"Five High."
Ulp.
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There was a show in the mid-late 50s called Giant Step which had something to do with students crossing a gameboard to earn money towards a college scholarship.
I have one episode of Giant Step, and unless there was a format change at some point, it's much more of a quizzer like The $64,000 Question. The students have to answer multi-part questions to move up to the next "step." There's no gameboard, but they're standing on a platform that raises them closer to Bert Parks' eye level.
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If we're going with ESPN game shows, Designated Hitter is on the top of my list. ISTR it never had a consistent time slot and that ESPN aired it at the weirdest hours. The Dream League had a couple of seasons and a decent time slot (4:30 PM Eastern or thereabout), while Sports on Tap was on at 6 PM, back when SportsCenter was half an hour. And it didn't feel like it was trying too hard to be cool. And it had good personalities like Charley Steiner.
That's the One I'm thinking of. Thank you sir!
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I remembered someone once posted a contestant montage featuring a guy who was on both Designated Hitter and ESPN's Perfect Match. After doing a little digging, I found the clip (http://"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZEgRBhXji4"). His name is Billy Baker, and he made the rounds on quite a few mid-90s cable game shows.
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I remembered someone once posted a contestant montage featuring a guy who was on both Designated Hitter and ESPN's Perfect Match. After doing a little digging, I found the clip (http://"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZEgRBhXji4"). His name is Billy Baker, and he made the rounds on quite a few mid-90s cable game shows.
What about ESPN Trivial Pursuit, which lasted a week on (you guessed it) ESPN in 2004?
Brian
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When Millionaire first came out, there was (I believe) a Canadian game show called the "Million Dollar Word Game". I've always wanted to see that one.
You really don't. :) This aired on "America One" here in the states; a 'packager' (for lack of a better term) to smaller, UHF-powered stations. I wanted to punch the host, the contestants were idiots, and I rarely saw someone make it to the prize level (level 10, I believe), let alone try for the million.
A show that is somewhat obscure was one hosted by Greg Lee. I think it was called Nitro! and aired on some station that aired two-hour chunks of various, obscure cable channels. I remember the set featured a beat-up car on it and the bonus round was played for a TV.
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What about ESPN Trivial Pursuit, which lasted a week on (you guessed it) ESPN in 2004?
There were a couple in the 2000s as well. That one, along with Teammates, which was basically The Newlywed Game with (wait for it), professional teammates. The 2000s were kinder by allowing 2-Minute Drill and Stump the Schwab to get a couple of seasons.
MTV's had a few obscure ones as well...one that comes to mind is Kidnapped c. 2002, which was actually a pretty fun show.
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starrcade,anyone/
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starrcade,anyone/
Sorry, what? The original question was obscure. Starcade isn't exactly the darling of the genre, but I would venture the guess that most of us have heard of it, and most of the most have seen it at some point.
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starrcade,anyone/
Why would anybody want to watch WCW?
Now if you were referring to Starcade, that's different. It's got an official website (http://"http://www.starcade.tv") with many episodes available for viewing, so it's not really obscure.
(EDIT: Didn't realize the username was in fact an indication of how these posts were made. I feel like a total jerk.)
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And considering Starcade has aired in reruns fairly recently on G4, I think that disqualifies it even further.
One more time for the folks at home: just because you never saw it and it was short lived, it doesn't mean it's obscure. I didn't see Match Game 98, but I don't consider it obscure. Going back to toetyper's first post- wouldn't 10 Seconds be a better example? Disappeared in a year after following up two long running shows and not as widely remembered as the other two.
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Why would anybody want to watch WCW?
Now if you were referring to Starcade, that's different.
Way to make fun of the guy who's typing with his feet.
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I always wondered why toetyper doesn't get one of those talk-to-type things. Would make things a whole lot easier for him.
(Not picking on ya, toetyper, or trying to sound like a prick, but I gotta imagine it ain't easy to type with your foot fingers. Maybe I over think it but I gotta imagine there's some contorting of the body involved. I do kinda admire you in a way- you don't let your situation get you down. Bless your heart for that. I mean it.)
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WEWS-TV 5 aired A Local Game Show, "Quick As A Wink" from September 14, 1964 to March 12, 1965..Hosted by Don Webster, who had been brought in from CHCH-TV 11 Hamilton, Ontario to host The Big 5/Upbeat music show from 1964-71. Webster later hosted a TV Bingo Game, Dialing For Dollars, Bowling for Dollars, It's Academic/Academic Challenge and was the main weatherman for many years..No episodes of "Quick as a Wink" have surfaced, unfortunately
Those of you from Ohio, If you can find a way to get a Cleveland Public Library Card, It offers free home access to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Archives in PDF files from 1845-1991, with all stories, pictures and ads..Great research tool..
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A friend who lurks here e-mailed me to suggest a different way of looking at this question. Rather than local shows, which are by their very nature obscure to the rest of the country, or recent, short-lived shows that frankly, every single one of us remember, a truly obscure show would be one for which no video or audio evidence survives. I'm thinking that list would be somewhat small, and probably not include anything from the mid-seventies to the present.
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A friend who lurks here e-mailed me to suggest a different way of looking at this question. Rather than local shows, which are by their very nature obscure to the rest of the country, or recent, short-lived shows that frankly, every single one of us remember, a truly obscure show would be one for which no video or audio evidence survives. I'm thinking that list would be somewhat small, and probably not include anything from the mid-seventies to the present.
True Matt: I was going by people referring to Baltimore and St. Louis shows..I would venture to say that there are none of the Game Show Forum folks in Cleveland would remember Quick As A Wink, especially since it lasted about 13 weeks..That said, your friend makes an excellent point
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a truly obscure show would be one for which no video or audio evidence survives. I'm thinking that list would be somewhat small, and probably not include anything from the mid-seventies to the present.
We've talked about what exists and what (likely) doesn't a few times in the past, but it's not something that's been brought up recently. I'm not sure if there's a definitive list somewhere or not in one of those old threads, but if we're listing series with no known video or audio is available, I'll start with a few off the top of my mind:
Snap Judgement
Sale of the Century ('69-73 version)
It's Your Move (Jim Perry version)
We could also list shows which currently haven't turned up in the trade curcuit, which might mean nothing exists from them:
Baffle comes to mind
Feel free to add...
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Feel free to add...
The friend who suggested this line of discussion (and who would be in a pretty good position to know, BTW) mentioned two short-lived ABC daytimers: Make a Face and Window Shopping. Interestingly, both have home versions, so at least there's that much tangibility.
Without going through the EOTVGS and making a list, I'm only coming up with two more from the seventies: The Saturday morning show Runaround, and a syndicated version of It Pays to be Ignorant (actually a scripted spoof of game shows). I watched Runaround every week. I only saw It Pays to be Ignorant once. Can't remember the details of how (must have been while traveling), but I remember it being very funny to a 13-year-old. And yes, the original Sale of the Century would be very high on my wish list. I have memory of the syndicated version with Joe Garagiola playing with married couples, but not of the daytime show. Either would be awesome.
I've been fortunate between UCLA and the various Paley Centers and visits to the homes of collectors-who-must-not-be-named that I've had the chance to see some pretty rare stuff, so I can tell you with confidence but without details that there is a Baffle. There is also a Wizard of Odds.
No one ever found a complete episode of Spin-Off, did they? Just a few scenes in promos, and the vague awareness that the master tapes are still around?
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That Shoppers' Casino game would fit under the "no audiovisual proof that exists" rule, would it not? As I said elsewhere, Google's barely even heard of it.
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No one ever found a complete episode of Spin-Off, did they? Just a few scenes in promos, and the vague awareness that the master tapes are still around?
Spin-off hasn't made it into the hands of collectors.
I was scouring for Showdown with Joe Pyne and Fractured Phrases with Art James for years...no trace of either of them.
Pretty sure Double Exposure isn't known to be around, and I believe that People Will Talk is gone too, although I want to say that I have a faint recollection of reading that an episode of the latter was around somewhere.
Dream Girl of '67 seems to be gone too...
--Jamie
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Dream Girl of '67 seems to be gone too...
The "Dream Girl of '67" would probably be about 67 now, and not much of a dream anymore....
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That Shoppers' Casino game would fit under the "no audiovisual proof that exists" rule, would it not? As I said elsewhere, Google's barely even heard of it.
Not quite. Jason mentioned at the top of the thread he's seen an episode, and I've seen the show listed on one or two tape trading lists. That's definitely A/V evidence.
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WEWS-TV 5 aired A Local Game Show, "Quick As A Wink" from September 14, 1964 to March 12, 1965.
I was seven years old when this aired and I remember it vividly. Four contestants watched a blank screen. Whenever a picture would appear on the screen for a split second, the player who buzzed in first won $5 in the first round, $10 in the second round. The winners from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday would face-off on Friday.
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MTV's had a few obscure ones as well...one that comes to mind is Kidnapped c. 2002, which was actually a pretty fun show.
I remember it too, with VJ-reject Dave Holmes. You had three friends, one was "kidnapped", and the other two had to answer questions and do stunts to raise enough points (or money on occasion) to "free" her and win a big prize. Otherwise all three had to perform some humiliating task.
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Sadly taking a trip out of the neat and/or 70s realm, there was a kids game show Discovery aired at one time (late 90s IIRC) called "Zap It." It was a rather quiet and generic quiz with a remote control nomenclature. Contestants chose channels for questions, and could "rewind" or "fast forward" with their remote to gain advantages. Here's more information (http://"http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Discovery_Kids_Zap_It!"), but having seen a show or two when it aired, I'm not surprised or miffed at the lack of circulating episodes. They used the rather odd mechanic of a wrong answer (or unsuccessful stunt) giving the points to each of your opponents.
-Jason
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MTV's had a few obscure ones as well...one that comes to mind is Kidnapped c. 2002, which was actually a pretty fun show.
I remember it too, with VJ-reject Dave Holmes.
I only caught a segment once, but I remember the really neat eggcrate display - big numbers, and staggered, to fit a ransom note-type feel.
-Jason
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...but if we're listing series with no known video or audio is available, I'll start with a few off the top of my mind:
Snap Judgement
Here's an opening on audio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spdDnQWj3Dg
There was also an audio recording of a Big 5 playing on YouTube at one point. Archival Television Audio, Inc. (http://"http://www.atvaudio.com") holds the August 19, 1968 episode (also on audio).
Jason mentioned at the top of the thread he's seen an episode [of Shopper's Casino], and I've seen the show listed on one or two tape trading lists. That's definitely A/V evidence.
By all accounts, the episode in question aired September 8, 1987...and I've heard that the commercials are just as bad.
While I'd love for it to be on YouTube, I'm pretty sure I know why it isn't -- nobody wants to be the one who uploads it.
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Sadly taking a trip out of the neat and/or 70s realm, there was a kids game show Discovery aired at one time (late 90s IIRC) called "Zap It." It was a rather quiet and generic quiz with a remote control nomenclature. Contestants chose channels for questions, and could "rewind" or "fast forward" with their remote to gain advantages. Here's more information (http://"http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Discovery_Kids_Zap_It!"), but having seen a show or two when it aired, I'm not surprised or miffed at the lack of circulating episodes. They used the rather odd mechanic of a wrong answer (or unsuccessful stunt) giving the points to each of your opponents.
Better than what I remember about the show---which was, that it seemed quite lame. Of course, I was a few years older than the key demographic by that time.
There was another kids' show I remember called "Scramble", hosted by an ex-NFL player whose name I'll have to find out.....[ETA: Randall Cunningham, says this page (http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Scramble)]
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So George Schlatter has most, if not all, episodes of "Laugh In" preserved on tape. Does anyone know if the game show spinoff "Letters To Laugh In" was preserved on tape by Schlatter as well?
Granted it didn't last as long as it's parent show, nor was it as good, but one would wonder if George made an effort to keep his other work from the NBC bulkers?
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WEWS-TV 5 aired A Local Game Show, "Quick As A Wink" from September 14, 1964 to March 12, 1965.
I was seven years old when this aired and I remember it vividly. Four contestants watched a blank screen. Whenever a picture would appear on the screen for a split second, the player who buzzed in first won $5 in the first round, $10 in the second round. The winners from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday would face-off on Friday.
Thanks for that memory..BTW, I miscounted..It was a 26 week series rather than 13..
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MTV's had a few obscure ones as well...one that comes to mind is Kidnapped c. 2002, which was actually a pretty fun show.
I remember it too, with VJ-reject Dave Holmes.
I only caught a segment once, but I remember the really neat eggcrate display - big numbers, and staggered, to fit a ransom note-type feel.
-Jason
In fact...:
http ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb_-PViuAnw
http ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv2m4kKSEbo
http ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MevdutC-_io
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Until I read of its original host's death, I had never heard of the Massachusetts quiz bowl show "As Schools Match Wits" - it was actually cancelled a few years ago but is now back on the air since '07 or so. "As Schools Match Wits" premiered the same year that "It's Academic" did, 1961.
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Pop N' Rocker Game as well as the BET Game Shows including Family Figures
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How about Plugged In, the game show for girls from the early days of the Oxygen network. It was supposed to be a "girl power" quiz show, but it quickly (d)evolved into a stunt show.
It was featured on the This American Life episode "Quiz Show (http://"http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/326/quiz-show")". I've never found any video, but I did see a brief mention on the internet once that speculated part of the problem was that they were casting girls based on looks rather than quiz ability.
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What about Think Twice? Short-lived, weekly, and I don't even think it was carried nationally.
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What about Think Twice? Short-lived, weekly, and I don't even think it was carried nationally.
Well, only in the sense that PBS shows aren't "carried nationally" the way other network shows are. PBS tries to get its member stations behind a common prime time schedule, and Think Twice was part of that schedule for its brief run. However, the locals have more latitude about scheduling or even carrying PBS shows than their commercial counterparts, and certainly there may have been a few more holdouts than usual for an untested game show with an unknown host. Bluntly, an unknown African-American host.
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Who Knows You Best? A then co-worker invited me to the taping of the pilot.
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I was going to suggest The Pennsylvania Game, but Penn State's PBS station still has videos of it and it apparently ran for 10 years, so maybe that's not all that obscure.
I remember that my first taste of Joe Fowler was when he did the hosting for the Family Channel's kids competition series Maximum Drive. It was mostly offroad racing (watersports popped up on occasion), and the teams involved competed throughout the series. Good to know that the ARGO (http://"http://www.argoatv.com/") still exists.
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How about the short lived syndicated Double Dare and Finders Keepers knock-offs Slime Time (not to be confused with Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live), and Treasure Mall. I remember watching a few episodes as a kid, and liked Treasure Mall better than slime Time. According to Wikipedia, they lasted for thirteen weeks back in 1988, possibly because DD and FK were themselves going into syndication that fall.
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What about Think Twice? Short-lived, weekly, and I don't even think it was carried nationally.
Well, only in the sense that PBS shows aren't "carried nationally" the way other network shows are. PBS tries to get its member stations behind a common prime time schedule, and Think Twice was part of that schedule for its brief run.
Would figure. Sometimes you'll see one program on our major PBS station (WNET) one night, and maybe you'll see it again on one of the other two (which are now both ALSO owned by WNET as of a week ago) later in the week. Honestly, I don't remember what the deal was with Think Twice here (I think it was only on one of the stations) but I think Antiques Roadshow makes the rounds on the other stations at least twice a week. (Our PBS station drastically changed its schedule to what appears now to be a close carbon copy of WNET- kid stuff most of the day, Tavis Smiley and Charlie Rose, and a couple other programs it never aired before.)
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Jamey Greek mentioned it already, but I'm going to say ANY game show that aired on BET. I remembered watching a game show called "Tell Me Something Good" that may have used the actual Rufus song as their theme song. At the age of 4 or 5, I remember three telephones behind the players (kinda like that big phone board on Your Number's Up). That's all I remembered from that show. Another BET show was some show (could be Family Figures) that was hosted by Mario and Melvin van Peebles. It was a good show because it aired before The Price is Right would air. I only saw a few episodes of On the Beat (I may put an episode up), and tried to look at Pay it Off, but missed it.
How about Pressure 1/2? Pressure 1 was slightly better than Peer Pressure 2.
Pretty much any game show that was short-lived and never discussed much after that.
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It was a good show because it aired before The Price is Right would air.
Imagine how different the TV landscape would look if programming executives actually applied this logic.
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Clash! was as awesome as it was short-lived. Came in right at the time of the Comedy Channel/Ha! merger.
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My choice would be: Joe Garagiola's Memory Game
Also, an episode of The Movie Game with the alternate opening (i.e., film clips and different music). Ditto for The handful of Who, What, or Where Game episodes that had a different music package (i.e., the think music consisted of light acoustic guitar riffs)
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Pretty much any game show that was short-lived and never discussed much after that.
Well, golly gee, guys, I guess we can just close the thread now -- he's posted the catch-all answer!
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I was going to suggest The Pennsylvania Game, but Penn State's PBS station still has videos of it and it apparently ran for 10 years, so maybe that's not all that obscure.
I remember that my first taste of Joe Fowler was when he did the hosting for the Family Channel's kids competition series Maximum Drive. It was mostly offroad racing (watersports popped up on occasion), and the teams involved competed throughout the series. Good to know that the ARGO (http://"http://www.argoatv.com/") still exists.
Maximum Drive was one of my favorites as a kid, and for the longest time there was little to no information about it online. Now there are several full episodes on YouTube.
Speaking of Joe Fowler, I remember another show he did called Wild West Showdown. It was set in an old West town and the contestants competed in Wild West-themed physical challenges. I only ever remember seeing it once, but I remember recognizing Fowler's voice (he was the announcer).
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Speaking of Joe Fowler, I remember another show he did called Wild West Showdown. It was set in an old West town and the contestants competed in Wild West-themed physical challenges. I only ever remember seeing it once, but I remember recognizing Fowler's voice (he was the announcer).
I recall several short-lived theme competitions like that, which I think were trying to capitalize off of American Gladiators' success. Another obscure one from about 20 years ago was Knights and Warriors, with a medieval setting. I remember watching the first half of this as I was getting ready for work on Sunday mornings in '92-'93.
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How's this for obscure: Back in the 70s, my local PBS station showed a business-themed quiz show. All of the questions were of a business/finance nature. At the end of each episode, the winner got the grand prize - a four-function calculator (this was back when a basic four-banger calc went for about $400, so early 70s). I don't remember the show's name, just that it was business oriented and the winner got a calculator.
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I recall several short-lived theme competitions like that, which I think were trying to capitalize off of American Gladiators' success. Another obscure one from about 20 years ago was Knights and Warriors, with a medieval setting. I remember watching the first half of this as I was getting ready for work on Sunday mornings in '92-'93.
I remember Knights and Warriors too. Aired on Sunday afternoons after WWF Wrestling Challenge on our Fox affiliate (which also carried AG- quite the power combo on Saturday afternoons, with WWF Superstars and American Gladiators comprising a two hour weekend lunchtime block for about six years).
What I seem to remember the most about Knights and Warriors was this really weird and nonsensical final round that had the Warriors zipline across the ceiling and then I think target shooting. Anybody else remember this one?
Another two that come to mind for me in the same vein are Blade Warriors and Beach Clash- one was AG on rollerblades and the other had this really odd format that all I can remember of it was the last event (a half assed in ocean tug of war) and the race event that closed each show.
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RockinRicky - could the PBS show have been You Owe It To Yourself with Allen Ludden? It sure would fit the realm of obscurities.
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One that popped into my head earlier today was a show called "Kwik Witz". It was pretty much "Whose Line is It Anyway?" except there were two teams of improv actors competing against each other and the audience voted after each game who was better. No prizes were awarded to the winning team though, it was all for fun. The show was memorable for me because it was my first exposure to Wayne Brady before he got famous a few years later on "Whose Line". It also had a guy named Jay Leggett who would occasionally show up that I recognized from the final season of "In Living Color". I think even Ryan Stiles played the game a couple times but I would have to double check that.
It was definitely syndicated fare that ran two seasons from '94 to '96 on my (I think) local NBC affiliate airing late Saturday night/early Sunday morning somewhere between 2 and 4am, can't remember the exact time. I do know that it aired closer to 4am in the second season and I would be too tired to stay up for it most of the time. Couldn't tell you who hosted it but I do remember them switching hosts in season 2.
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One that popped into my head earlier today was a show called "Kwik Witz".........
It was definitely syndicated fare that ran two seasons from '94 to '96 on my (I think) local NBC affiliate airing late Saturday night/early Sunday morning somewhere between 2 and 4am, can't remember the exact time. I do know that it aired closer to 4am in the second season and I would be too tired to stay up for it most of the time. Couldn't tell you who hosted it but I do remember them switching hosts in season 2.
1996-98...it was a pretty cheesy show. Here, it aired every Sunday at midnight, also on the NBC affiliate. Somewhere at home I have an early episode on tape.
The first season host was comedienne Andi Matheny, but I can't remember the second season host. I also remember Wayne Brady, and I believe Jm J. Bullock made an appearance or two.
A few more from cable:
-The Family Channel introduced an afternoon block of new games in 1996. There was "The New Shop Til You Drop" (!!!), "Shopping Spree", and a few obscurities by the name of "Small Talk", and "Wait Til You Have Kids". The following spring, a new version of "It Takes Two" with Dick Clark premiered.
-"No Relation", a dull TTTT imitator from FX, c. 1996. Snoozefest.
-And finally, one that I recalled yesterday, and racked my brain to remember: "Bobcat's Big-Ass Show", also on FX, summer 1998. It was heavily promoted, and starred Bobcat Goldthwait. He did quite a few promos with famous game show hosts (Gene Rayburn, Peter Marshall, Wink Martindale). I can't remember much other than it had audience games, a nightclub feel, and two lovely models named "Wing" and "Ding".
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1996-98...it was a pretty cheesy show. Here, it aired every Sunday at midnight, also on the NBC affiliate. Somewhere at home I have an early episode on tape.
I stand corrected. I knew it aired while I was in middle school, guess I got my dates mixed up.
-And finally, one that I recalled yesterday, and racked my brain to remember: "Bobcat's Big-Ass Show", also on FX, summer 1998. It was heavily promoted, and starred Bobcat Goldthwait. He did quite a few promos with famous game show hosts (Gene Rayburn, Peter Marshall, Wink Martindale). I can't remember much other than it had audience games, a nightclub feel, and two lovely models named "Wing" and "Ding".
I saw one episode of this. It came off more variety show than game show to me...and a terrible one at that. Never looked back after that one ep.
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Something which I only knew about when I flipped through my copy of the GSE was No Relation on FX. Here's a link (http://"http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1996_June_10/ai_18371352/") to a news story on it; but I was unable to find anything on Wikipedia. Nor have I ever seen a clip of it.
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What I seem to remember the most about Knights and Warriors was this really weird and nonsensical final round that had the Warriors zipline across the ceiling and then I think target shooting. Anybody else remember this one?
I do; you used a crossbow to shoot moving targets for :30, earning :5 for each hit. Then the team had another :30 (plus :5 per hit) to shoot at the warriors who were moving on ziplines.
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Speaking of Joe Fowler, I remember another show he did called Wild West Showdown. It was set in an old West town and the contestants competed in Wild West-themed physical challenges. I only ever remember seeing it once, but I remember recognizing Fowler's voice (he was the announcer).
I recall several short-lived theme competitions like that, which I think were trying to capitalize off of American Gladiators' success. Another obscure one from about 20 years ago was Knights and Warriors, with a medieval setting. I remember watching the first half of this as I was getting ready for work on Sunday mornings in '92-'93.
If anyone's looking for some info, there's a page on Bother's Bar about it. (http://"http://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?page_id=992") Of note is the fact that the actress who portrayed Lady Battleaxe now plays the football coach on some show named Glee.
Ryan.
/will give week three as a prediction as to when a future revival of Hollywood Squares puts on a Glee retrospective week
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Something which I only knew about when I flipped through my copy of the GSE was No Relation on FX. Here's a link (http://"http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1996_June_10/ai_18371352/") to a news story on it; but I was unable to find anything on Wikipedia. Nor have I ever seen a clip of it.
Mike Rowe was the host. Of course, he has gone on to greater fame as host of "Dirty Jobs." Mike would be good with a "What's My Line" revival--maybe "What's My Dirty Line" to attract young demos.
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Something which I only knew about when I flipped through my copy of the GSE was No Relation on FX. Here's a link (http://"http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1996_June_10/ai_18371352/") to a news story on it; but I was unable to find anything on Wikipedia. Nor have I ever seen a clip of it.
Mike Rowe was the host. Of course, he has gone on to greater fame as host of "Dirty Jobs." Mike would be good with a "What's My Line" revival--maybe "What's My Dirty Line" to attract young demos.
Always liked him - but this was a crap show. I think Dick Clark produced it? Somewhere in my collection I have the first ep on tape. I don't think I've watched it since.
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RockinRicky - could the PBS show have been You Owe It To Yourself with Allen Ludden? It sure would fit the realm of obscurities.
That may be it, I can't find anything on Google or Wikipedia about it. All I get from Google are references to songs with that title and stuff about "You owe it to yourself to eat right/see this movie/read this book/etc". Of course, I only checked 14 pages of Google results. Nothing.
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I did a search on "you owe it to yourself" plus Allen Ludden, and the first link I got was some obscure internet discussion board (http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12410). ;-)
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I did a search on "you owe it to yourself" plus Allen Ludden, and the first link I got was some obscure internet discussion board (http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12410). ;-)
Awesome.
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One that pops into my head from my yute (http://"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVjbf-dHjW0") was called, Time Out for Trivia, and I remember watching it with my dad in what would have been the early to mid 1980s in Shelburne, Vermont (a suburb of Burlington, VT). If memory serves, the show was a live call-in show where there was a host on TV who would ask trivia questions (for some reason, I think it was mostly sports trivia, but I could be wrong), and would invite callers to call in with their guesses. I don't know if there were prizes for every question or not, but I do know that one designated caller per 30-minute (I'm guessing) episode would be eligible to win a (bigger?) prize if they got their question correct. I remember one time my dad called in and he was the designated caller, but failed to answer the question correctly and didn't win the $50 gift certificate to Radio Shack, or whatever the prize was.
About the only other thing I remember is the host would constantly ask, "Who's playing Time Out for Trivia?" as his way of answering the phone for the next caller, who would identify themselves and then attempt to answer the trivia question.
Edit: Heh, so for kicks I Googled the phrase, "Who's playing Time Out for Trivia" and found a Sports Illustrated article from 1988 about the show (here (http://"http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067034/index.htm")). It was broadcast nationwide on cable -- anyone else remember the show?
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Edit: Heh, so for kicks I Googled the phrase, "Who's playing Time Out for Trivia" and found a Sports Illustrated article from 1988 about the show (here (http://"http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067034/index.htm")). It was broadcast nationwide on cable -- anyone else remember the show?
The old FNN (financial news net - a precursor to CNBC) aired it, no? My only knowledge from it comes from TV Game Show magazine doing a write-up on it.
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Edit: Heh, so for kicks I Googled the phrase, "Who's playing Time Out for Trivia" and found a Sports Illustrated article from 1988 about the show (here (http://"http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067034/index.htm")). It was broadcast nationwide on cable -- anyone else remember the show?
The old FNN (financial news net - a precursor to CNBC) aired it, no?
I looked it up about an hour ago, and that seems to be right, on the SCORE Network, which I believe was a FNN subsidiary?
I remember seeing the show on Youtube a few years ago, but couldn't find any clips.
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Edit: Heh, so for kicks I Googled the phrase, "Who's playing Time Out for Trivia" and found a Sports Illustrated article from 1988 about the show (here (http://"http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067034/index.htm")). It was broadcast nationwide on cable -- anyone else remember the show?
The old FNN (financial news net - a precursor to CNBC) aired it, no?
I looked it up about an hour ago, and that seems to be right, on the SCORE Network, which I believe was a FNN subsidiary?
I remember seeing the show on Youtube a few years ago, but couldn't find any clips.
Yeah, FNN/Score was a business during the day, sports after the markets closed network. Sparce production values as I recall.
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The host of "Time Out for Trivia" was Todd Donoho, who always told his callers he was "Tremendous, my friend." He was also one of the TelShop hosts, along with Michelle Roth.
Has anyone mentioned the short-lived spinoff of "Tony Brown's Journal" called "Can You Dig It?". Couples, identified by first name and astrological sign (eerily reminiscent of the song "Float On") played for cheap prizes like love beads.
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The host of "Time Out for Trivia" was Todd Donoho, who always told his callers he was "Tremendous, my friend." He was also one of the TelShop hosts, along with Michelle Roth.
Isn't he (or wasn't he recently) anchoring sports in L.A. (KABC comes to mind)?
And would MINDREADERS qualify for obscure (granted, 1979-80 show, but never seen in reruns--just a YouTube clip or trading circuit video seems to be the only remnants)?
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Isn't he (or wasn't he recently) anchoring sports in L.A. (KABC comes to mind)?
Yes. For a while he hosted a live post-game show after Monday Night Football called, creatively, "Monday Night Live," and they would do a call-in trivia segment much in the vein of TOFT. I am told by people who lived in the area that his phone schtick didn't change one iota.
"To the phones we go...WHO'S playing Monday Night Live?"
"Erm, this is Bob from Inglewood. How are ya, Todd?"
"Tremendous, my friend!"
Made me kinda wish I'd seen it. (Apparently he moved back to Missouri and is doing college sports stuff now.)
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Todd was a sports anchor at WLW-T and then moved to SportsTime, an Anheiser-Busch/Multimedia Productions co-owned ESPNesque sports network. I believe TimeOut For Trivia started with SportsTime as a filler. It shared time with FNN, became SCORE, and then folded when FNN became CNBC and went 24/7. The SCORE folks moved to various regional networks which later became FoxSports_____ (Ohio, Cal, NY, Peoria).
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Todd Donoho is now a published author, writing a book for young children about the University of Missouri...
http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Truman-Todd-Donoho/dp/1932888578 (http://"http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Truman-Todd-Donoho/dp/1932888578")
I remember "Time Out for Trivia," mostly due to the fact that I tried to call in more than once to play. :)
JD
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(Apparently he moved back to Missouri and is doing college sports stuff now.)
Wikipedia agrees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Donoho).
Thanks for the added info, all.
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Jamey Greek mentioned it already, but I'm going to say ANY game show that aired on BET. I remembered watching a game show called "Tell Me Something Good" that may have used the actual Rufus song as their theme song. At the age of 4 or 5, I remember three telephones behind the players (kinda like that big phone board on Your Number's Up). That's all I remembered from that show. Another BET show was some show (could be Family Figures) that was hosted by Mario and Melvin van Peebles. It was a good show because it aired before The Price is Right would air. I only saw a few episodes of On the Beat (I may put an episode up), and tried to look at Pay it Off, but missed it.
How about Pressure 1/2? Pressure 1 was slightly better than Peer Pressure 2.
Pretty much any game show that was short-lived and never discussed much after that.
Oh yeah, I remember "Pay It Off" It's too bad that show got cancelled as Kim Coles was a terrific host, and it was more exciting then most of the game shows you see on all the major networks nowadays.
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The mention of PBS reminded me of a 1982 experiment called "Top of the World." Three contestants were in studios in London, Australia and Miami, answering questions about each others' countries. Somehow the on-the-buzzer round had some sort of built in delay to equalize the satellite transmission time. Great 2001-style opening. For the Grand Final, the Miami and Aussie contestants were flown to London.
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I'll make a brief clarification. That BET game show that would come on in the morning aired within an hour from Price, which meant that I would just switch over to CBS at 10:00.
I remembered three more shows.
One show I watched regularly was "Random Acts of Comedy," more like an improv version of "The Who, What, or Where Game" on Fox Family around the turn of 2000. Hosted by David Alan Grier, a few improv comics would act out the Ws and the contestants buzz in to answer them. I remembered one of the consolation prizes was that Jeep CD radio that would be on other game shows at the time.
Along the lines of "Bobcat's Big Ass Show," there was "Happy Hour" hosted by (I think) Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa on USA around the same time. From the promos I remembered, there were some buzzer games that got me into the show. Unfortunately, like BBAS, it was part game/variety show. I had to wait a while just to see a buzzer game. One game I totally remembered was where the players were shown the insides of candy bars on the monitors under them and the buzzer game was in play. I saw a few of these and wasn't worth it to wait for a (fun) buzzer game.
Another game that was fun to watch was webRIOT on MTV. It's more like those NTN trivia games that takes place in a set where nothing was on the floor and Ahmet Zappa was on a monitor wall the whole time. was fun.
Thousand Dollar Bee?
Again, moreso the shows on cable and syndication.
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The mention of PBS reminded me of a 1982 experiment called "Top of the World." Three contestants were in studios in London, Australia and Miami, answering questions about each others' countries. Somehow the on-the-buzzer round had some sort of built in delay to equalize the satellite transmission time. Great 2001-style opening. For the Grand Final, the Miami and Aussie contestants were flown to London.
We have some info about it here:
http://ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Top_of_the_World
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There was another religious game show called Genesis, it only ever aired once as a pilot on PAX TV, like "Inspiration" it had the grand prize of a trip to holy site, there's more info on here. My link (http://"http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis")
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There was another religious game show called Genesis, it only ever aired once as a pilot on PAX TV, like "Inspiration" it had the grand prize of a trip to holy site, there's more info on here. My link (http://"http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis")
Yes, hosted by Jim McKrell of "Celebrity Sweepstakes" fame. It wasn't very well done, as I recall.
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Pictionary..uh the Kids one with the Judge and the failing mechanics. ( And I mean that in all* aspects)
*not all was fail.
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There was a short-lived American syndicated version of the popular British game show "100%" It was only ever aired in a mere seven stations and didn't even last a full season.
Another short-lived syndicated show was "All About The Opposite Sex" Two teams consisting of 7 men and 7 women competed to see who knew more about the opposite sex, only lasted for two months.
Then there's "Beach Clash"(not sure what channel it was on) where two "hardbodies" competed in beach-themed events for 10,000 dollars and a trip to Hawaii.
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"Beach Clash" was actually syndicated
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Top of the World. I actually got to see this one since the PBS station in South Florida was a co-packager.
http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Top_of_the_World
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Has anyone ever seen "Anything You Can Do."? Lasted from 71 to 74 with Gene Wood and later Don Harron. Canadian production that ABC Films and later Worldvision syndicated to the US. Both WABC and WCBS played it off and on.
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WEWS Cleveland had "Anything You Can Do"..Gene Wood was a good host, but the show wasnt much more than a retooled "Beat The Clock". From what I gather, WEWS only carried the 1971-72 season.
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NBC shows from the early 70s appear to be those which rank quite high on the obscurity list. As far as I know, there is no video or audio from Words and Music and Joe Garagiola's Memory Game, nor has there been much discussion about those shows in the 15+ years I've been on these internets. There are smatterings of audio from Baffle and the original $ale of the Century out there, though those two series aren't nearly as obscure as the first two mentioned.
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NBC shows from the early 70s appear to be those which rank quite high on the obscurity list. As far as I know, there is no video or audio from Words and Music and Joe Garagiola's Memory Game, nor has there been much discussion about those shows in the 15+ years I've been on these internets. There are smatterings of audio from Baffle and the original $ale of the Century out there, though those two series aren't nearly as obscure as the first two mentioned.
It's weird, I think of myself as having been a game show fan all my life, and I would have been ten when Words and Music was on, but I have absolutely no memory of it whatsoever. Granted, there would have been few chances for a schoolkid to have seen it, since it only had a September-February run. I have only the dimmest of memories of Joe Garagiola's Memory Game (which was on for part of the summer of 1971) and Sale of the Century. I actually remember Joe's syndicated Sale a little better.
I hadn't heard that there was audio for Sale, but I have heard that there is audio of Memory Game. I've not had the chance to listen to either one, and I would love to! As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there is at least one episode of Baffle in existence.
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Another short-lived syndicated show was "All About The Opposite Sex" Two teams consisting of 7 men and 7 women competed to see who knew more about the opposite sex, only lasted for two months.
As obscure as that was, GSN actually aired a few episodes of it during their Faux Pause days in the late '90s. I don't think it ever aired in my area when it was in first-run.
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Has anyone ever seen "Anything You Can Do."? Lasted from 71 to 74 with Gene Wood and later Don Harron. Canadian production that ABC Films and later Worldvision syndicated to the US. Both WABC and WCBS played it off and on.
Oddly enough, I remember the Don Harron version quite well. I was surprised to find out Gene Wood ever hosted the show. A few years ago an episode of Gene's version popped up in the trade curcuit. I remember reading that Gene left the show after the first year because he was worried people could get injured doing some of the stunts. I believe the episode we have is one of those episodes in question.
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Has anyone ever seen "Anything You Can Do."? Lasted from 71 to 74 with Gene Wood and later Don Harron. Canadian production that ABC Films and later Worldvision syndicated to the US. Both WABC and WCBS played it off and on.
Oddly enough, I remember the Don Harron version quite well. I was surprised to find out Gene Wood ever hosted the show. A few years ago an episode of Gene's version popped up in the trade curcuit. I remember reading that Gene left the show after the first year because he was worried people could get injured doing some of the stunts. I believe the episode we have is one of those episodes in question.
Probably for evidence in the case. :)
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For funsies, I went back and reviewed the one episode of Anything You Can Do, at least the only one I have. And yeah, it's Beat the Clock, except that instead of an arbitrary clock, a team of men and a team of women each compete in the same stunts and their times are compared to each other. At the end, the team with the lowest total accumulated time is the winner. Also, there's never a visible clock of any sort, so we're left to take the word of Gene and his offstage folks.
The games I saw were maybe mildly embarrassing, but hardly dangerous. Gene left because he had the chance to actually host Beat the Clock, a much higher-profile gig than this one, and every bit as "dangerous".
BTW this episode is Exhibit A as to why Gene is famous as an announcer and not as a host. He's really just this side of inept. He actually crosses over the ineptitude line at the end, when seconds after announcing the winning team, he congratulates the wrong ones.
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Don Harron hosted this show? The man better known as "Charlie Farquharson" of Hee Haw and The Red Green Show fame? Wow, didn't know he hosted AYCD. It's plausible enough since the show was taped in Canada and he's from there (recipient of the Order of Canada). The man's done a lot in his life, but I didn't realize that a game show was one of them.
My market only carried AYCD while Wood was host. It was OK.
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Don Harron hosted this show? The man better known as "Charlie Farquharson" of Hee Haw and The Red Green Show fame? Wow, didn't know he hosted AYCD. It's plausible enough since the show was taped in Canada and he's from there (recipient of the Order of Canada). The man's done a lot in his life, but I didn't realize that a game show was one of them.
My market only carried AYCD while Wood was host. It was OK.
Check davidgleason.com and search the Broadcasting archives for an ad for the show picturing Harron as host in the 7/2/73 issue. Page 9.
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Also, there's never a visible clock of any sort, so we're left to take the word of Gene and his offstage folks.
Actually there is a clock, but most of it's covered up by the time code counter.
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Actually there is a clock, but most of it's covered up by the time code counter.
Face, meet palm. Sorry about that.
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two come to mind that even Google searches reveal little on but I do recall seeing:
"TeleQuest"- Actually still have a clip on VHS somewhere. Q&A game with a play from your phone for $$ element. Ran at about 2am here.
"Ten Pin Alley"- Ron Ely hosted bowling show. I actually liked this a lot, had some clever games within the show.
Also, did anyone ever see "Majority Rules"? I have never seen a clip online or even heard from anyone who has seen it. Sounded like a big budget show but two stations?
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Back in 2008, ABC had a very short-lived dance themed game show called "Dance Machine" It only lasted for 3 episodes before getting the ax due to terrible ratings(I it got even worse ratings then "Set For Life" did).
The American syndicated version of "Every Second Counts" is mostly forgotten compared to the British version.
ABC Family had a short-lived variety game show called "Dance Fever" it was hosted by Eric Nies with MC Hammer, Carmen Electra and Jamie King as celebrity judges.
Surprisingly enough, The Travel Channel once had a game show called "The Great Getaway" It was their only such attempt.
Before Pat Bullard hosted the Card Sharks revival, he had a syndicated game show called "Hold Everything!" It looks and sounds pretty awful if this page is any indication http://gsgarbage.clw83.com/holdeverything.htm
Another short-lived ABC show was "The Big Moment" where a family member had one week to perform a certain task-like memorizing Pi to the 100th decimal, answering 10 questions on the movie "Ghost" Identifying 12 flavors of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream while blindfolded, etc. It was pretty fun and Brad Sherwood was a great host.
USA Network had a pilot called "Grill Me" which was basically Jeopardy with food categories, and it had celebrity contestants Dweezil Zappa, Susan Olsen and Kistoff. St. John playing for charity.
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Also, did anyone ever see "Majority Rules"? I have never seen a clip online or even heard from anyone who has seen it. Sounded like a big budget show but two stations?
Hosted by Marc Summers and Arthel Neville - test ran in New Orleans - wasn't a bad show...never knew why it didn't launch nationally. Apparently the ratings in NO were pretty decent. I've got one on tape somewhere.....Mid 90s...around the same time "Debt" was test ran in a few markets too, no?
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Also, did anyone ever see "Majority Rules"? I have never seen a clip online or even heard from anyone who has seen it. Sounded like a big budget show but two stations?
Hosted by Marc Summers and Arthel Neville - test ran in New Orleans - wasn't a bad show...never knew why it didn't launch nationally. Apparently the ratings in NO were pretty decent. I've got one on tape somewhere.....Mid 90s...around the same time "Debt" was test ran in a few markets too, no?
Fall 1996, I believe, so Debt was still in first-run on Lifetime at that point.
I remember reading about a contestant call, and being pretty disappointed that Norfolk didn't pick it up.
Erik Estrada incident notwithstanding, with Pictionary '97 be considered obscure?
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I did mention the 1989 version with Head of the Class' Brian Robbins that's more obscure than the Alan Thicke Version. Try searching for Pictionary Game Show. And as you said, You'll see more "FALCON PONCH!!" than anything else...
/I'm sorry for that.
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Another short-lived ABC show was "The Big Moment" where a family member had one week to perform a certain task-like memorizing Pi to the 100th decimal, answering 10 questions on the movie "Ghost" Identifying 12 flavors of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream while blindfolded, etc. It was pretty fun and Brad Sherwood was a great host.
It has been playing on Radio-Canada for four years, although the last time I saw it, they had changed to a more serious tone in S4 as opposed to the light atmosphere of the first three seasons.
I very nearly ended up on the show... unfortunately there was a scheduling issue with one of my teammates and thus we couldn't make the audition. Shame! Ah well.
I did however go to a taping... having been to several tapings in my lifetime I have to say this was one of the most exciting. One game required players to recall trivia questions which we in the audience couldn't see... so we had no idea of the progress. However, when they won, the host proclaimed "You did it!" and the roof got blown off.
R.
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Hold Everything was little more than Dan Enright's attempt to repackage an equally obscure game he produced in Canada, All About Faces - which had a short syndicated run in the states with host Richard Hayes. This and All About The Opposite Sex were Dan's last shots at post-Barry success. I think those were still listed as Barry & Enright Productions - though a couple of years later, I get a letter from Susan Stafford in an envelope marked Stafford-Enright Productions. He left us not long after that.
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Another short-lived ABC show was "The Big Moment" where a family member had one week to perform a certain task-like memorizing Pi to the 100th decimal, answering 10 questions on the movie "Ghost" Identifying 12 flavors of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream while blindfolded, etc. It was pretty fun and Brad Sherwood was a great host.
It has been playing on Radio-Canada for four years, although the last time I saw it, they had changed to a more serious tone in S4 as opposed to the light atmosphere of the first three seasons.
I very nearly ended up on the show... unfortunately there was a scheduling issue with one of my teammates and thus we couldn't make the audition. Shame! Ah well.
I did however go to a taping... having been to several tapings in my lifetime I have to say this was one of the most exciting. One game required players to recall trivia questions which we in the audience couldn't see... so we had no idea of the progress. However, when they won, the host proclaimed "You did it!" and the roof got blown off.
R.
Both were versions of "The Moment of Truth," a British show hosted by singer Cilia Black. Ran for four series from 1998 to 2001 on London Weekend Television. (Thanks, as always, to UKgameshows.com.)
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Another short-lived ABC show was "The Big Moment" where a family member had one week to perform a certain task-like memorizing Pi to the 100th decimal, answering 10 questions on the movie "Ghost" Identifying 12 flavors of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream while blindfolded, etc. It was pretty fun and Brad Sherwood was a great host.
It has been playing on Radio-Canada for four years, although the last time I saw it, they had changed to a more serious tone in S4 as opposed to the light atmosphere of the first three seasons.
I very nearly ended up on the show... unfortunately there was a scheduling issue with one of my teammates and thus we couldn't make the audition. Shame! Ah well.
I did however go to a taping... having been to several tapings in my lifetime I have to say this was one of the most exciting. One game required players to recall trivia questions which we in the audience couldn't see... so we had no idea of the progress. However, when they won, the host proclaimed "You did it!" and the roof got blown off.
R.
Both were versions of "The Moment of Truth," a British show hosted by singer Cilia Black. Ran for four series from 1998 to 2001 on London Weekend Television. (Thanks, as always, to UKgameshows.com.)
Which in turn came from the original Japanese format "Happy Family Plan".
R.
/credit where credit is due!
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There was another religious game show called Genesis, it only ever aired once as a pilot on PAX TV, like "Inspiration" it had the grand prize of a trip to holy site, there's more info on here. My link (http://"http://gameshows.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis")
Yes, hosted by Jim McKrell of "Celebrity Sweepstakes" fame. It wasn't very well done, as I recall.
I actually spoke with Jim on the phone a couple of weeks before this aired. (It was a fluke, and it hasn't happened since. Still, how often did George Takei allow a Trekkie to call?) Anyway, he was excited about this, but they only made one episode (which was an hour for reasons unknown), and he had to have known that Pax had money issues (Reel to Reel Picture Show), so in effect the pilot was being aired. And it wasn't a very good game at that.
Susan Seaforth Hayes was one of the contestants -- not a celebrity guest, just a member of one of the two church groups represented. Her acting history and status on Days of Our Lives wasn't mentioned.
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I actually spoke with Jim on the phone a couple of weeks before this aired. (It was a fluke, and it hasn't happened since. Still, how often did George Takei allow a Trekkie to call?) Anyway, he was excited about this, but they only made one episode (which was an hour for reasons unknown), and he had to have known that Pax had money issues (Reel to Reel Picture Show), so in effect the pilot was being aired. And it wasn't a very good game at that.
Susan Seaforth Hayes was one of the contestants -- not a celebrity guest, just a member of one of the two church groups represented. Her acting history and status on Days of Our Lives wasn't mentioned.
I think Hayes' day job was mentioned, but only briefly. Again, the game was not well done.
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Dueling For Playmates[ and Everything Goes both on The Playboy Channel. Also, NO It Alls a local game show in New Orleans as well as the Indiana version called Hoosier Kniw-It-It-alls. Brandon Tartikoff was involved in both those shows.
--VH1's Rumor Has It which quizzed contestants on Celebrity Gossip.
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OK, if we're resuscitating a nine-year-old thread, I've got one that I've wanted to know more about for years:
Chooz A Route, which aired locally in Rochester, N.Y., in 1968 on Channel 13. It was played on a big board that was essentially a map of the Rochester area on which the players moved to get somewhere (where?) to win something (what?). Spaces were different lengths, with expressways and freeways obviously moving you faster. (For a city its size, Rochester had a very well developed freeway network by the late 1960s, including a full "inner loop," part of which was recently demolished.) I seem to remember obstacles on the game board such as stop lights -- which, I believe, could be either red or green with changing lights that fascinated Young Me.
Other than that, I don't remember any other details. The only online images I've ever seen are newspaper listings that confirm the 1968 air date, but never any set photos or fuller description of the rules.
Go for it, kids.
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A friend who lurks here e-mailed me to suggest a different way of looking at this question. Rather than local shows, which are by their very nature obscure to the rest of the country, or recent, short-lived shows that frankly, every single one of us remember, a truly obscure show would be one for which no video or audio evidence survives. I'm thinking that list would be somewhat small, and probably not include anything from the mid-seventies to the present.
I got a few that fits that bill right off the top of my head:
"Family Figures" hosted by Melvin and Mario Van Peebles; aired on BET in 1990. If having Sweet Sweetback as a game show host isn't obscure, nothing is.
"Love Between the Sexes" hosted by Harold McCoo and Sherry Carter; aired on BET in 1992
"Get the Hook Up" hosted by Russ Parr, aka Bobby Jimmy and Alfredas; aired on TV One in 2003.
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I remember “Love Between the Sexes” very vaguely. I think it came on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30, after Spencer Christian’s “Triple Threat” revival.
From what I remember, a panel known as the “Peanut Gallery” was divided into two teams, Men and Women. They voted or discussed a date that happened between a couple, and the winning team split $500. Again, vague.
The one thing I do remember was a guy stood up a woman on her date, or didn’t show up to the taping or something, and the co-host (I guess Sherry?) looked at the camera and said “Your check will NOT be in the mail!”, which left everyone howling.
Apologies if these were mentioned. Two more obscurities from 1994: “Sports Snapshot” and “Perfect Match”. SS was hosted by Jimmy Cefalo and aired weekly. I don’t remember much except it was sports trivia and featured a home shopping element where viewers could purchase memorabilia, I’m guessing based on the day’s subject matter. It aired very sporadically here on Sunday afternoons.
PM was an ESPN game* that aired in fall ‘94, and was hosted by Ken Ober. IIRC, it was similar to Tomarken’s “Wipeout”. In round 1, two men competed, in round 2, two women. In the bonus round, they teamed up to play for a trip. I think I got that right.
*/“Obscure ESPN game show” is redundant
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PM was an ESPN game* that aired in fall ‘94, and was hosted by Ken Ober. IIRC, it was similar to Tomarken’s “Wipeout”. In round 1, two men competed, in round 2, two women. In the bonus round, they teamed up to play for a trip. I think I got that right.
*/“Obscure ESPN game show” is redundant
Much like Trivial Pursuit on Family Channel, Perfect Match would take time out from the proceedings* to entreat home viewers to play a version of the game from home with an eye towards a cash prize for the Friday winner. Given that the game play was four rounds of 45 seconds for each semi-final heat, then a final round with a trip prize for matching all of the elements on the board to Ken's clues there was a lot of time for ads and interactive games.
For me the ESPN game shows go: Two Minute Drill, Sports on Tap, Dream League, (field).
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Man, this thread brings back a lot of memories, having seen a handful of these shows, like Telequest, Alumni Fun, and Tell Me Something Good. Some other awfully obscure ones come to mind - an old satellite network ran The Shopping Game, hosted by Art James. A Nicholson-Muir production, this was one of the earliest shows to merge a game show with call and order shopping, before the Home Shopping Game later with Bob Goen. 4 players answered questions to build up a bankroll, which they would use to bid for the items that, after the bidding, would be offered to home viewers. The idea was, since none of the players knew how much money each other had, a player could attempt to bluff a bid, offering more than they had, to win the prize. IIRC, a player's bid could be challenged. Memory fades a bit from there. If I had two Holy Grail shows I'd like to see in this category, it would be Barry & Enrights "High-Low", and Ed Wolf's "Keep Talking". I believe a touch of video exists for both, as "Gilmore Box" has the High-Low open on You Tube, and another famous collector included a tiny clip of the Carl Reiner version in a montage of shows. There's hope. One more oldie comes to mind - a CBS Saturday afternoon kids quiz around the early to mid-60s following all the cartoon blocks called "Do You Know?" Had a vocal theme song.
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Love at First Sight a short-lived dating-relationship show with Jeff MacGregor as host from 1992.
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If I had two Holy Grail shows I'd like to see in this category, it would be Barry & Enrights "High-Low"
Well now, I could arrange that one. Keep an eye out on the video forum page, I coincidentally just re-digitized an episode of this recently.
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And with that, Blanquepage, I thank you very much! Watching it after reading the "Misdemeanors" book mentioned in another post was interesting. Truly appreciate you serving that up.
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Good to see my topic is still getting posts after all these years ;D
Looks like "Pay It Off" has fallen into obscurity as I can only find a few clips but no full episodes, too bad.
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Well, since the thread has been resurrected, here are a few San Francisco local ones I can think of:
California Countdown (mid-1970s, on the local ABC station) - teams of San Francisco bay area elementary/middle school students would answer questions based on California geography. It had a strange format; 16 schools competed, then the 8 winners returned and competed against each other, then those 4 winners came back for the final, which was three rounds - round 1 had two of the schools, round 2 had the other, and the winners met in round 3 for the grand prize, which was usually a (black and white) video camera with tripod and reel-based video recorder. I'm not sure who hosted the first season, but Jim Lange took over after that; I know there was a second and third season (I even remember the two tiebreaker questions in their finals: how far below sea level is Death Valley's lowest point, and how long is San Francisco's longest street?)
Super Bowling (one season, early/mid-1970s, on the local CBS station) - three contestants per day would spin a wheel that landed on a number from 2 to 10 and they had to knock down exactly that many pins on a bowling lane without guttars (a precursor to "bumper bowling"), with 1 ball for 2-5 or 2 balls for 6-10. Whoever was closest to their target chose one of five boxes, which was put at the top of a machine (I'm not sure if it was just a large ramp or there was someone inside that would bowl the ball); one box had a ball, and the number of pins knocked down determined the prize won - there were 10 prizes randomly put on a board, with a car as the top prize. There was also a cash jackpot element for landing on "bonus" on the wheel and knocking down 10 pins with 2 balls.
Junior Champions (first season) / PAL Champions (second season) (early 1970s, Saturday mornings, on what was then the local NBC station) - kids (always boys, and I think there were two divisions, something like 11-12 and 13-14 year olds) competed in sporting events like throwing footballs through a tire, pitching baseballs at a target, shooting basketballs, and running an obstacle course. In the first season, each of ten qualifying shows had six kids (three from each division) from a particular city where they held tryouts (and they aired film highlights of the tryouts); each winner advanced to one of two semi-finals, and each semi-final winner advanced to the final. In the second season, each episode was two teams of two.
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KRON-TV in San Francisco has had some local game shows over the years.
In the mid '60s they had a show called "Pick a Show" emceed by "Mayor" Art Finley. ISTR it ran during breaks in "Bachelor Father". The game board was somewhat like the old WOF board with rotating panels. There were five rows of rotating panels. On each row, the shows for a given night's prime-time lineup were depicted. The top row was Monday, the 2nd row was Tuesday, etc. On each of the five rows, the letters K-R-O-N and the numeral "4" (for channel 4) were concealed. Art would call a home viewer. Starting on the top row (Monday), the contestant would "pick a show". The rotating panel was turned and if a letter appeared, the game continued. If the reverse side of the panel was blank, the contestant lost. The contestant won by picking KRON4 on all five rows.
Now here's the thing. At the conclusion of the game, Art did not expose the panels that had not been picked by the contestant. So if the producer wanted a win, they could have loaded the board so that letters appeared behind all of the panels on all of the rows, thus, the contestant couldn't lose. Because the unpicked panels were not revealed, the audience would have been none the wiser. Or, they could have loaded rows 1 - 4 with all letters and left the fifth row with all blanks. The game was totally rigable. Sneaky.
Prizes were tradeouts with dinner at a local restaurant or merchandise from a local merchant in exchange for an on-air mention. They may have had a way to ensure the restaurant/merchant received a mention even if the game was lost.
ISTR viewers sent in postcards with their phone number. A postcard was drawn at random and I imagine they were called just prior to the break rather than being called on the air (it was live).