The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: gamed121683 on September 15, 2021, 11:42:11 PM
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As we all know, reruns of Whew! are back on TV again thanks to Buzzr. Because of this, it got me to thinking...How did this show with an unpronounceable name become a bit of a cult favorite in game show-dom to begin with? Some research let me to two possible results:
1. According to the show's Wikipedia page (Take it with a grain of salt, I know), "Whew! did particularly well among children during the summer of 1979, an audience that it lost when those children returned to school that autumn; this audience, later known as Generation X, is what gave the show its later cult following despite its absence from reruns."
2. Randy Amasia's website from back in the day probably brought on that "OMG, I totally forget about that show!" feeling to those '70s kids (now '90s adults) browsing the page. Heck, maybe it brought on curiosity to those younger wondering what the big deal was all about.
Any other reasons for Whew's cult following? Is their any validity to the aforementioned two?
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I would say Randy's search for his appearances kept the show alive. I saw the show while in college and I thought it was okay, but too fast for the hausfraus it was designed for.
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1. According to the show's Wikipedia page (Take it with a grain of salt, I know), "Whew! did particularly well among children during the summer of 1979, an audience that it lost when those children returned to school that autumn;
I don't remember reading that on Wikipedia until recently - I don't think it's been there that long. When I read it, it was the first I'd heard of that. It could be correct, but since the show was cancelled in May, 1980, why not just keep it on over the summer months to see if that happens again? They could have delayed Alice reruns a few more months.
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For me, it was Randy's website and appearance on the show that piqued my interest. I was born after the show ended, so I never saw it until getting a copy of Randy's episode in a tape trade in the late '90s.
The entry in the EoTVGS also piqued my curiosity. After reading the description of Whew! (what a completely ridiculous format!), it easily became one of the top 3 shows I wanted to see.
And Jimmy is right - the show stands out because is such a different pace than most any other game show of that 1979-80 era. It was up against Hollywood Squares, and adjacent to High Rollers. It was really the only fast-paced network quiz show at the time.
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1. According to the show's Wikipedia page (Take it with a grain of salt, I know), "Whew! did particularly well among children during the summer of 1979, an audience that it lost when those children returned to school that autumn; this audience, later known as Generation X, is what gave the show its later cult following despite its absence from reruns."
I want to put validity into this statement. I was a kid at the time (six years old) but loved the show so much that after my return to school it was must watch TV when I was home on days off.
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"Absence makes the heart grow fonder" -- or, if you prefer, "abscess makes the fart go Honda."
We tend to want what we cannot have ... and until just recently, Whew! was one of those things we couldn't have, made all the more tempting by the few circulating episodes out there. And it's a game format that's never been "reinvented for the 21st century" (even if it should!).
Interestingly, though, other "cult" shows once thought mostly "lost" -- MGHS and Narz Concentration, for example -- seem to have lost their "coolness" factor after they were "found" and became widely available. Other than the rare or unusual event, we really don't talk much about them anymore.
Going off into wild speculation here, if the entire run of The Magnificent Marble Machine (another format that's never been rebooted) suddenly became available, it might get a week's worth of "Oh wow!" and a breezy article on Buzzfeed ... but then, like the other titles that have magically appeared, it would just become part of the Buzzr wallpaper and occasional forum chat. And we'd do a few posts about how seriously flawed it was, and that would be that.
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I don't remember reading that on Wikipedia until recently - I don't think it's been there that long. When I read it, it was the first I'd heard of that. It could be correct, but since the show was cancelled in May, 1980, why not just keep it on over the summer months to see if that happens again? They could have delayed Alice reruns a few more months.
I was going to make a comment about that blurb on Wiki awhile back. If VCRs were more widely available back then (and assuming said blurb has any veracity to it) would that have 'saved' the show or was it still destined to be cancelled one way or the other?
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"Absence makes the heart grow fonder"
Precisely. As with the examples in this thread, once we've been given access to the "treasure trove," we've discussed the individual episodes and realized that perhaps the show wasn't quite the Holy Grail we'd thought. And this goes back a long way--remember how excited we once were when the CBS episodes of The Joker's Wild hit GSN for the first time?
I remember liking Whew! when it was first on, but it wasn't appointment television. (It aired when I was a junior and senior in high school, which was an exceptionally busy period in my life--I'm not sure I was aware of the addition of celebrities until Christmas 1979.)
I'm not sure Magnificent Marble Machine, even if a pile of episodes were found, would ever get anything more than a "what the hell is this?" from most people.
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That Gen-X blurb caught me off guard too. And maybe kids liked the cartoonish elements like the animated intro, the sound effects, or the villains and set, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single person outside of this forum refer to the show, esp. from that generation.
I say this as a member of a “Xennials” (Gen-X + millennials) FB group. Of all the obscure pop culture mentioned, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Whew!
/Hmmmm
//Just got an idea…brb
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Whew! just may be the deepest, most intriguing game show format that ever made it to air. The front game mixes trivia, humor, strategy and psychology all in near-equal measure.
In other words, it's an absolutely perfect show for game show nerds and fans of games in general...but just a bit too complicated and frantic for the average daytime TV viewer in 1979. A perfect recipe for cult status.
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Now that Burt Sugarman is open to negotiation, how about "Celebrity Sweepstakes" :)
The only "Holy Grails" I want now are the Don Lipp/Ron Greenberg duo from ABC.
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Precisely. As with the examples in this thread, once we've been given access to the "treasure trove," we've discussed the individual episodes and realized that perhaps the show wasn't quite the Holy Grail we'd thought. And this goes back a long way--remember how excited we once were when the CBS episodes of The Joker's Wild hit GSN for the first time?
I remember liking Whew! when it was first on, but it wasn't appointment television. (It aired when I was a junior and senior in high school, which was an exceptionally busy period in my life--I'm not sure I was aware of the addition of celebrities until Christmas 1979.)
I think a large part of it for me is nostalgia. I guess we all have fond memories of certain things from when we were kids and would like to experience them again. Whew is a show that was different from most others, and was really kind of cool - from the game play, set, frantic pace, theme music (still among the best of all time IMHO). I really enjoyed what I saw in summer of 1979, but because of school starting up again in September, I never really saw that many other episodes, besides a few at exam time, Thanksgiving break, Christmas break and probably 1980's spring break. Then it disappeared way too quickly.
When game show reruns started to become a big thing, we saw shows like Let's Make A Deal, Match Game, Pyramid, Feud, etc. over and over (and before anyone says anything, I realize those were the most popular shows and most likely gaining the network the most money), but where were the shows like Whew! It seemed destined to remain in our faint memories - other than the dozen or so episodes that circulate.
CBS Joker's Wild was anticipated because it gave me a chance to see some of what I missed first time around. The 72-73 episodes may have been much slower, but it was neat to see how the whole thing started. IMHO, what GSN should have done after the first few weeks was jump ahead - probably to summer 1974 episodes and beyond. Those episodes were much faster paced and more to what most people likely remembered.
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In other words, it's an absolutely perfect show for game show nerds and fans of games in general...but just a bit too complicated and frantic for the average daytime TV viewer in 1979. A perfect recipe for cult status.
That was part of the problem. While most of us here seem to love the show, I can understand why the average viewer would be confused by it. It does move very quickly and at the end of a round, most people might think "what just happened?" There wasn't time to fully appreciate the humor. It's one of those shows you have to pay really close attention to in order to appreciate it and most housewives (daytime TV was still primarily aimed at them at the time) didn't have the time to devote to it.
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Now that Burt Sugarman is open to negotiation, how about "Celebrity Sweepstakes" :)
The only "Holy Grails" I want now are the Don Lipp/Ron Greenberg duo from ABC.
I've been wondering about Celebrity Sweepstakes for some time now. Does anyone know with any certainty that more than just the four or five episodes we know about still exist? If so, are there enough for a repeat run?
Re the ABC shows, IIRC wasn't it reported that most of Money Maze still exists but is in bad quality? Haven't heard much about the status of Big Showdown.
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Absence does sometimes make the heart grow fonder, but actually, I’m liking “Whew!” *more* now that I’m seeing its wheels turning day by day, rather than the isolated episodes or runs of single champions that we had earlier. Charging seems tougher than blocking, especially when a new contestant faces an established champ, but it’s all the more satisfying when the charger wins.
Re: other shows with previously limited availability, the Narz “Concentration” has become a top favorite of mine. It has great hosting, fairly challenging puzzles, and a high level of play-along value, which are among the factors I value most in a game show. Granted, the prizes aren’t overly lavish and there are no returning champions, but those aren’t overly important to me.
MG-HSH has a certain level of visual appeal (and a fine theme song), but since both parts were done better elsewhere (with real chemistry among the panelists), it’s not priority viewing for me. Maybe my opinion will adjust itself over time.
Other “absent” shows that I think would be rediscovered gems, if a cache should ever resurface, include the original “You Don’t Say,” “Eye Guess,” ABC “Password,” “Three on a Match,” “Split Second,” “Gambit” and more. And I’m enough of a word game devotee to hope something of “Snap Judgment” turns up.
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For me, I think it was because it was something different, with so many individual game show elements that sucked you in. Plus, it was definitely ahead of it's time.
From the host (I always loved watching Tom Kennedy shows in the 70s) to the music, the set, the comic book feel to it all, and most importantly, the rapid-fire pace the show went when the clock was running. I can't think of too many other shows from that time frame that had used all of those elements together in one show.
3 years after Whew, there were two other shows that came out that were just as alluring as they had a lot of the collective Whew elements (mentioned above) in their shows: Hit Man (another Jay Wolpert convoluted show) and Press Your Luck, which also had a cult following.
Maybe Whew, like some of the classic cartoons airing on TV at that time, were designed to be entertainment for both kiddos and for adults, but for totally different reasons. I could care less about the questions, strategies and inside jokes when I watched it as a kid. But now that I am watching it 40-odd years later, I'm watching the shows in a different light and am seeing things that completely went over my head back then.
Another show that I think has achieved cult status is The Big Showdown, which also had gameplay and strategy that no other game has replicated...and should.
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That was part of the problem. While most of us here seem to love the show, I can understand why the average viewer would be confused by it. It does move very quickly and at the end of a round, most people might think "what just happened?" There wasn't time to fully appreciate the humor. It's one of those shows you have to pay really close attention to in order to appreciate it and most housewives (daytime TV was still primarily aimed at them at the time) didn't have the time to devote to it.
I'm reminded of Police Squad! getting axed after 4 episodes, with an executive from ABC explaining that the problem was "the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it." Worked out a little better for them in the long run than it did for this show, of course. But yeah, this game has a ton of moving parts, unique rules, an unusual question structure with clever writing, and a frenetic pace that even the board and sound effects operators had some trouble keeping up with sometimes. I can understand completely why it was not long for this world.
I agree that my couple weeks' worth of viewing have changed my view of the show from "intriguing obscurity" to "legitimately good show." The question writing is fun, smart, sometimes makes my brain scramble, and is occasionally bawdy in a way I can't believe was airing at 9:30am in 1979. I'll be watching every episode Buzzr airs for sure. That said, my go-to descriptor of Whew! as "advanced studies" in the world of game shows still stands.
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It’s a clever show, and I’m surprised I left it off either of my Top 50 lists. I know I hadn’t seen an actual episode by 2006, but that had to have changed by 2016.
Anyway it’s definitely a fun show, but I also understand why it didn’t last longer. Like most Jay Wolpert shows, it was a little TOO clever for its own good. If I’m alive in 1979, I dunno if I’m watching this or “Hollywood Squares”. I still think it’s ripe for revival, but I think it would have to be streamlined a bit, unfortunately.
/And it would need a new title
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/And it would need a new title
Gridlock?
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/And it would need a new title
Charge! The All New Whew?
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Anyway it’s definitely a fun show, but I also understand why it didn’t last longer. Like most Jay Wolpert shows, it was a little TOO clever for its own good. If I’m alive in 1979, I dunno if I’m watching this or “Hollywood Squares”. I still think it’s ripe for revival, but I think it would have to be streamlined a bit, unfortunately.
/And it would need a new title
I personally have never been a big fan of games that were light on game play and relied heavily on celebrities (Match Game, HS, and to a much lesser extent Pyramid) so Whew! would've easily been the move. Jay's shows are ones that would be great party games, but just never really translated over to TV and the casual viewer.
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/And it would need a new title
Charge! The All New Whew?
I’d seen Charge! suggested a few times and I like that. Gridlock could work, or even Blocked! At least those titles offer a better idea than simply Whew!
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The end game of Rodeo Drive was a variation of the Gauntlet of Villains to an extent.
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/And it would need a new title
Several years ago, I was tinkering with a Whew!-like game in podcast form. The title I gave it was Mistake Prone. (I would still like to try the podcast, but I have enough on my platter right now.)
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Jay's shows are ones that would be great party games, but just never really translated over to TV and the casual viewer.
I never thought about this, but that's great way to put it.
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Jay's shows are ones that would be great party games, but just never really translated over to TV and the casual viewer.
I never thought about this, but that's great way to put it.
With some modifications, of course, I could definitely see Whew! as a party game. I don't know if you could do that with Blackout, though.
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Maybe not easily done in person, but Blackout could be done easy enough as an online multiplayer game.
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Well, to pick up a popular meme, how about Block or Charge?
Although I don't think it has long-term life, I definitely see it being rebootable for a short run. It certainly could take advantage of technology for refreshing the board, and the charger doesn't have to go offstage while the blocks are being made. For a fast-paced game, the interstitial parts are amazingly slow. I don't think the frenetic pace can be maintained for a whole half hour or hour, but the swings are too much.
I also think it's possible to play first-to-3 games (and maybe a modified short-charge playoff against the villains' blocks for a 2-2 game) when you play the games back-to-back.
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I also think it's possible to play first-to-3 games (and maybe a modified short-charge playoff against the villains' blocks for a 2-2 game) when you play the games back-to-back.
Of course you'd probably need to resort to a player vs. villains extra round if someone wins 3-0, to keep the stretching to a minimum.
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No, you wouldn’t. There are ways around that.
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I also think it's possible to play first-to-3 games (and maybe a modified short-charge playoff against the villains' blocks for a 2-2 game) when you play the games back-to-back.
Of course you'd probably need to resort to a player vs. villains extra round if someone wins 3-0, to keep the stretching to a minimum.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking just to keep the time budget somewhat aligned. Of course, I am still mentally anchored in the live-to-tape gameplay, rather than excessively stretching or hacking. But there could be other ways around it.
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“Anybody who wins in a 3-0 sweep will get to run the Gauntlet twice for up to $100,000 in cash.” Maybe instead of a 2-2 tie being a shootout the players could form a team and split the money.
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Whew! was exhilarating for the players but the audience (housewives) had to work to keep up, which is why it didn't last beyond the summer of '79. You can't make the audience work too hard to keep up with your game.
It had clever writing but it went by too fast for the audience to savor. Take away the clock from the main game and you might have something. I'm not going to ask Jay if he ever ran it thru without a clock but he should have. The end game was a blur but it only lasted for what, 60 seconds? You'd wind up with a show like password; the main game is not timed but the end game is. Agreed that it had great music.
Who owns Whew! now and who sold it to them? Apparently some combination of Burt Sugarman and Bud Austin (nee Harold Augenblick) owned it originally.
I was shopping a show to CBS at the same time Jay was developing Blackout. Barbara Hunter and Mike Brockman opted for Jay's magnificent creation. How did that work out for you, guys? I also shopped my show (call it The New Say When!!) to Larry Hovis (who was a really nice guy). He loved it and asked NBC to reconsider their rejection of it, to no avail. I showed it to ABC and they were clueless. Ira Skutch saw it and called it "ingenious" but it ultimately went nowhere.
MG/HS Hour had problems with panelist bookings. People at MGP knew it at the time. Many panelists were nobodies at the time and they're still nobodies nigh onto 40 years later. Lots of soap-opera actors, even from soaps on CBS! Nedra Volz was their one success story.
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“Anybody who wins in a 3-0 sweep will get to run the Gauntlet twice for up to $100,000 in cash.” Maybe instead of a 2-2 tie being a shootout the players could form a team and split the money.
When the show was cancelled in May 1980, I was hoping that it might show up in one of the checkboard prime access slots that fall. Although most shows were expanding to five-nights-a-week at that time, there still we a few of those once-weekly shows in production. I was trying to figure out how it would work as a stand-alone show, with the extra five minutes having to be accounted for. This idea is not bad. Play a first to 3 with the scenario you just described. If it's a tie, there probably wouldn't be enough time to play another round plus a guantlet, so splitting the winnings make sense.
$100,000 was given away on those syndicated shows (Name That Tune for one) from time to time back then, and other shows also used that tie scenario where the players split the pot ($25,000 Pyramid if there was a tie in the last game). How many times would someone have had two successful gauntlet runs anyway?
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There was a lot of activity at NATPE 80. Metromedia alone had 5 strips in contention. Jack Narz, Art James also were busy. Tom did two NTTs a week, both Squares and Feud went to five days a week, the Barry and Enright trio, Ward TTTT, Hackett YBYL, the Barris shows could have continued, etc.
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... the Barris shows could have continued...
I thought Barris' name was mud in 1980 because of 3's a Crowd.
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$25k was a life altering amount of money for the average 1979 person. I don't see where raising the stakes to $100k adds anything substantively, other than ensuring the writers generate fewer gauntlet wins.
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I was imagining the Gauntlet for $50,000 were it played today to keep it in line with the ABC prime time stuff.
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... the Barris shows could have continued...
I thought Barris' name was mud in 1980 because of 3's a Crowd.
He decided to Chuck it all, but the other shows were still in demand.
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MG/HS Hour had problems with panelist bookings. People at MGP knew it at the time. Many panelists were nobodies at the time and they're still nobodies nigh onto 40 years later. Lots of soap-opera actors, even from soaps on CBS! Nedra Volz was their one success story.
Too many soap actors to be sure, but seeing it now, I'm surprised how well the panels worked during the Match Game portion, especially given the dead fish in the 4th chair. Definitely on Nedra. Leonard Frey wasn't even famous during his five minutes of fame, but was pretty funny. The new people breathed life into it, and I think Rayburn did a great job bringing them into the proceedings.
I realize the ratings weren't very good, but that time slot was poison. Given some of the garbage NBC was running at that point, a Match Game half-hour in the mornings was worth a shot.
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MG/HS Hour had problems with panelist bookings. People at MGP knew it at the time. Many panelists were nobodies at the time and they're still nobodies nigh onto 40 years later. Lots of soap opera actors, even from soaps on CBS! Nedra Volz was their one success story.
I realize the ratings weren't very good, but that time slot was poison. Given some of the garbage NBC was running at that point, a Match Game half-hour in the mornings was worth a shot.
I dunno. Match Game was back after just a year off, Hollywood Squares was back after two years off, and it may not have been enough time. The MG questions weren't as salacious as they were in the CBS days; I'm not sure if that was Goodson's decision or NBC's. Booking soap opera stars on game shows makes no sense. And there weren't any familiar faces (i.e. regulars); I don't know who made the most appearances, but even Nedra Volz was in less than a quarter of the episodes. MG didn't really make it in a morning time slot twice; I don't know that NBC would have benefitted by putting it at 11:30 or noon.
That said, booking less famous celebs isn't necessarily the worst strategy (that's kinda how Brett Somers was discovered). A few people have pointed out that the third week of the show was probably one of the best: besides two $30,000 wins, the stars worked well together and appeared to enjoy being there, even if none of them became household names.
And the time slot was a killer; General Hospital was the #1 soap and The Guiding Light was in the top five. But I would think counterprogramming would make more sense; why put a third soap in that slot? (Santa Barbara was on for eight and a half years and never made it above #10.)
Does anybody know what MG/HS's ratings were during its nine months on the air? (And if Whew! drew a lot of kids, did CBS ever consider moving it to an afternoon time slot?)
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I'll have to pull my book, but my recollection is that Santa Barbara didn't get notably different ratings than MG/HS but it did pull a younger demographic.
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I'll have to pull my book, but my recollection is that Santa Barbara didn't get notably different ratings than MG/HS but it did pull a younger demographic.
Probably true. Another problem was that by the end of the run, more and more stations were dropping the show in favor of syndicated fare
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Who owns Whew! now and who sold it to them? Apparently some combination of Burt Sugarman and Bud Austin (nee Harold Augenblick) owned it originally.
Jay Wolpart and Burt Sugarman still own the show. John Ricci, Jr. and Wink Martindale are their representatives. I truly believe that they are trying to get the show revived.
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Probably true. Another problem was that by the end of the run, more and more stations were dropping the show in favor of syndicated fare
And in some cases, some stations (like WBRE in Scranton-Wilkes-Barre) stopped carrying MG/HS and didn’t carry SB when it premiered. In WBRE’s case, it opted for cartoons (the market didn’t have an independent, and was less than a year away from getting one).
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MG/HS wasn't carried by WHO in Des Moines but we got it on cable from KWWL in Waterloo and briefly on new indie KCBR 17 (now Fox 17 KDSM). While on the subject of who owns "Whew!", does anyone know who owns the rights to the Nicholson-Muir library?
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As far as I know the show never aired in reruns, so I wouldn't be surprised if the estate still owns the show.
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MG/HS wasn't carried by WHO in Des Moines but we got it on cable from KWWL in Waterloo and briefly on new indie KCBR 17 (now Fox 17 KDSM). While on the subject of who owns "Whew!", does anyone know who owns the rights to the Nicholson-Muir library?
Not sure but "The New Howdy Doody " has been on MeTV recently
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While we’re on the topic of reruns… An oddball situation/question that’s been on my mind:
Whew! ended its run shortly before I was born, but I remember as a kid, probably 1985 or thereabouts, a cable company tech doing some work at our house. While he was working, the TV was running a game show with, as I recall, arrows & stop signs during the two-player rounds, then an end game with cartoony villain 2D cutouts. I’ve been enamored with game shows for as long as I can remember and knew most of the big 80s hits, but I had never seen that show. As a young kid I was also into cartoons and traffic signs, so this show would have been right up my alley. I could never find it on TV again in those days, though. I didn’t really do tape trading, but when I found circulating Whew! episodes on YouTube, I had a real sense of, “I’ve seen this show before.”
So I’ve wondered: Did it have a brief rerun package in syndication, even in limited markets? Or was it maybe a test feed the cable guy had that just happened to be running Whew!? Or is my brain having a total “Shazam starting Sinbad” block here?
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Interestingly, though, other "cult" shows once thought mostly "lost" -- MGHS and Narz Concentration, for example -- seem to have lost their "coolness" factor after they were "found" and became widely available. Other than the rare or unusual event, we really don't talk much about them anymore.
I think part of it may also have to do with the fact that we have other, arguably superior* versions of those shows to compare. In two cases, the better-known, arguably superior* versions air beside the lesser-known versions on the same network nearly every day. Not to mention that Classic Concentration was itself a “locked away” show for a time, at least in terms of widespread availability. And while no other version of Hollywood Squares is airing anywhere right now that I can think of, the latest version is still fresh enough in people’s minds that the MGHSH take on Squares is going to seem lacking.
Whereas with Whew!, the shine may eventually wear off, but for now it’s still a “new” rediscovery. And, for the time being at least, we don’t have any other versions of it to make the 79-80 version look better or worse. It stands on its own. And in the context of a network targeting game show geeks, it’s getting to shine as a fine show, in a way that it never did when it was competing for eyeballs on daytime network TV.
(*Arguably, in the case of Narz vs. Classic Concentration at least. I don’t think you’re going to get too much argument regarding superiority on the other two.)
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Compared to some of the primetime game shows that have aired over the last few years, Whew would have a great shot as a revival as it is actually a tamer show than a few of the others. (See: Crush, Candy).
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I dunno. Match Game was back after just a year off, Hollywood Squares was back after two years off, and it may not have been enough time. The MG questions weren't as salacious as they were in the CBS days; I'm not sure if that was Goodson's decision or NBC's.
The salacious thing may have been done to death. I'm not sure how they could have written dirty questions in new ways unless the censors got looser (so to speak) and permitted some new words. The show was funny without them, though.
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“Anybody who wins in a 3-0 sweep will get to run the Gauntlet twice for up to $100,000 in cash.”
That was a really good idea on "Go."
I wonder if they should charge two boards apiece, the one who takes less time wins. No long shots, and the 6th level plays like the others. You always have a four board game and it eliminates the blocker's advantage in winning rounds.
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It's been really interesting seeing celebs who did 80s Pyramid and Super Password turn up on Match Game/ Hollywood Squares!
The different mix of celebrities gives a glimpse of what could have been, not only of what it might have been like if NBC revived only Match Game in 1983, but also what it might have been like if they had a wider mix of celebs on the CBS show.
I think one of the problems of Match Game 7x was that they never really knew how to turn regulars into semi-regulars. It might have been beneficial to rest the regulars from time to time, to keep them fresh and at the same time bring in some new blood.
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I know I'm late to the discussion, and much of the reasons were already given, but I'll succinctly re-iterate several of them:
1. Short lived show (11 months)
2. Until recently, was never aired on TV since it went off the air 41 years ago.
3. Randy Amasia (he single-handedly put the show in the Internet map)
4. Bert Sugarman's long-term reluctance to re-air the show (word was that he wanted a king's ransom to have them aired again)
5. Limited number of episodes available for viewing on YouTube (and of those, most IMO really didn't do the show justice as to how good the gameplay was).
Then, when you factor in that the actual game takes roughly 4 minutes to play (add 2-3 if you want to include the blockers soliloquizing their traps), with humor, knowledge, and strategy being executed within 60-second blocks of time, Whew! was a highly original game with a very unusual format - even if the rules were a bit complicated and it would take a moment to catch on to how the game was played. The cartoon opening, colorful set, Scooby-Doo-ish looking villains with their one-line quips, and fast paced music (thank you Alan Thicke) helped give the show its charm.
I saw the show when it originally aired in 1979-80 (I was 5 years old at at the time; it was appointment TV for me, especially during the summer of '79), and it is definitely appointment TV for me now; as a matter of fact, it is probably one of the very few game shows I've seen in my life that I tune in to watch daily.
In short, Whew's cult status is attributed to the fact that the show is original - and it is actually a very good show; it's just that the declining ratings and CBS really didn't do the show justice, especially when they converted to the celebrity format.