The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: BrandonFG on March 28, 2023, 10:09:36 PM
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I’m thinking more along the lines of something you only read about in the EOTVGS and always wanted to see, but if you waited all summer for a premiere only to be disappointed, I’ll allow it.
As a child I was obsessed with Bullseye, having seen the pictures of the impressive set in the EOTVGS, then getting to download clips and the theme song on various sites. When I finally watched the show, it was intriguing but lacking. Maybe it was because the first episode I watched had celebrities but it felt like Joker’s Wild tried to make the Fast Forward category its own show, then ironically slowed it to a crawl.
Your turn!
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I remember that reading about Battlestars on David Livingston's old website piqued my curiosity, and when I finally saw an episode years later I thought it was OK but not as interesting as it sounded on there.
EDIT: For your second category, Temptation is the prime example.
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As a child I was obsessed with Bullseye, having seen the pictures of the impressive set in the EOTVGS, then getting to download clips and the theme song on various sites. When I finally watched the show, it was intriguing but lacking. Maybe it was because the first episode I watched had celebrities but it felt like Joker’s Wild tried to make the Fast Forward category its own show, then ironically slowed it to a crawl.
I guess I can count that one too. If I remember, the first ep. I saw of that didn't have a bonus round, so I guess that didn't help (and only reinforces your claim re. the pacing).
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As far as the."waiting for the premiere" side: by far, the 2001 edition of Card Sharks tops my list. I was so excited to see that one of my favorites as a kid was coming back, and then...
As for the "I read about it so I have to see it" side: this one is a toughie because I got back into my fandom largely because of the fansites so many people made in the early 2000s. And a lot of them were about what I expected, be they good or bad. But if I'm going to pick one, I've probably gotta go with (apologies to Kris Lane and his awesome page on the subject) Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak. I just didn't like the format, outside of the bonus round.
I have to give an honorable mention to Double Talk, because of just how.little there was to the game. The bonus round, again, to me was the only redeeming factor.
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As a child I was obsessed with Bullseye, having seen the pictures of the impressive set in the EOTVGS, then getting to download clips and the theme song on various sites. When I finally watched the show, it was intriguing but lacking. Maybe it was because the first episode I watched had celebrities but it felt like Joker’s Wild tried to make the Fast Forward category its own show, then ironically slowed it to a crawl.
I guess I can count that one too. If I remember, the first ep. I saw of that didn't have a bonus round, so I guess that didn't help (and only reinforces your claim re. the pacing).
You remember correctly. I was surprised GSN would use such an episode for the Feast of Favorites.
As far as premieres, I’ll add CS01 to the list. I initially liked Temptation but that wore off pretty quickly.
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You remember correctly. I was surprised GSN would use such an episode (of "Bullseye") for the Feast of Favorites.
You know, that's probably where I saw it.
The mention of CS '01 earlier reminded me that the Joel McHale reboot was somewhat of a letdown for me.
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I’m thinking more along the lines of something you only read about in the EOTVGS and always wanted to see, but if you waited all summer for a premiere only to be disappointed, I’ll allow it.
I'll give you one of each.
Read About It: Remote Control. I never saw it on an actual television - it was canceled when I was one year old. Kris Lane's site made it sound hilarious, and I also spent many an hour playing a version of the DOS computer game downloaded from whatever abandonware site. When the advent of sites like Youtube finally allowed me to watch a few episodes...I would never saw it was bad, but it mostly just felt like a weird 80s relic. Ditto Fun House - sites like The Fun House Factory made it sound great, but when I finally found it on Youtube, I had to constantly repeat to myself "It's 1988...it's 1988..."
Waited Months For The Premiere: The 2021 Legends Of The Hidden Temple on CW. Again, I would never call it bad - it was watchable and it was cute and it made me nostalgic - but it wasn't worth the 25-year wait* for a part of my childhood to come back. Even Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge was better.
*I'm not counting the 2016 TV movie. If I must give an opinion on it, again, it was watchable and it was cute and it made me nostalgic.
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I remember eagerly anticipating Temptation and Merv Griffin's Crosswords back in 2007. Both left me going "eh, it's okay".
Ditto with Save To Win, which got me intrigued due to being a new daytime network game show. Found it to be kinda dull, especially when I realized the "smart shopping" mentioned in the opening spiel was nowhere to be found. The bonus round being straight-up stank-ass luck right out of a lottery game show didn't help matters.
In all three cases, I figured I'd give them time to find their footing. I was rewarded with three big raspberries for my trouble.
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What comes to mind first is the "Scrabble" revival and "Scattergories" in 1993.
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I would say Match Game 1998
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The Million Second Quiz. Ryan Seacrest 's bete noire.
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Caesars Challenge felt like lots of window dressing for a banal game I wasn’t good at. It wasn’t until later in life that I started to appreciate it.
Most of the Family Channel ‘96 block, and the two USA originals Quicksilver and Free 4 All.
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Going back quite a ways, but the first thing that came to mind for me was The Magnificent Marble Machine. School had just ended a couple weeks prior and NBC was running a lot of promos for this show. I couldn't wait until it finally came on, but remember being kind of unimpressed when I saw it.
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Going back quite a ways, but the first thing that came to mind for me was The Magnificent Marble Machine. School had just ended a couple weeks prior and NBC was running a lot of promos for this show. I couldn't wait until it finally came on, but remember being kind of unimpressed when I saw it.
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There wasn't enough action at the machine. I thought it would be good to have letter targets to spell words, instead of the main game, which was ok, but belonged on another show.
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One of my earliest game show memories was seeing the promos for Hit Man and getting pretty excited due to NBC promising us "video game action" and 6-year-old me thinking we'd see video games on TV... only to find out it was a memory based quiz which virtually had nothing to do with arcades or gaming. Great set and music but still don't know why they thought that'd be a good combo at the time.
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix. I probably just had too-high of hopes for this one. Lots of things about this revival seemed 9/10's of the way there. The set, the crummy theme, the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh. But the core of the game was there. It may seem more underwhelming now that we have Strahan's Pyramid which, to me, is leaps and bounds better.
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Ditto on Temptation.
If I had a Mount Rushmore of disappointment, Card Sharks 01, Temptation, and Celebrity Name Game would have been the first three I would put on it. The first two were just bad copies of two treasures of my youth, and even though I did eventually warm to CNG later on I still think it could’ve been so much more than it turned out to be.
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I remember seeing MG '98 and CS '01 and thinking what letdowns they were. LMAD hosted by Billy Bush took a good show and ruined it.
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I remember seeing MG '98 and CS '01 and thinking what letdowns they were. LMAD hosted by Billy Bush took a good show and ruined it.
no he didn’t. Billy Bush was a bright spot in a mishmash of ideas.
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I was eager for It's Your Chance of a Lifetime and Paranoia back in 2000. But in the end, m'eh.
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix. I probably just had too-high of hopes for this one. Lots of things about this revival seemed 9/10's of the way there. The set, the crummy theme, the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh. But the core of the game was there. It may seem more underwhelming now that we have Strahan's Pyramid which, to me, is leaps and bounds better.
I agree. The Pyramid just felt like a game that was incomplete, like putting gold paint on a rusty screen door. The set was spartan, they didn’t do a particularly good job casting celebrities, adding $5,000 to the Winners’ Circle for a perfect round was a quirk I found to be unnecessary, and they just seemed to be phoning it in the whole time. You really can’t do that and expect people to tune in, especially to a version of a game so many of us grew up watching.
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I was eager for It's Your Chance of a Lifetime and Paranoia back in 2000. But in the end, m'eh.
I always felt that Paranoia was a good show on the absolute worst network for it to be on. Another show that qualifies for me was Wintuition. Good idea, but as interesting as watching paint dry, and apparently Marc Summers agrees.
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I always thought Headline Chasers was going to be a current events based show. I was rather disappointed to find out it was Wheel of Fortune without the wheel.
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I always thought Headline Chasers was going to be a current events based show. I was rather disappointed to find out it was Wheel of Fortune without the wheel.
1985-86 was a weird time in that you had a bunch of Hangman clones: Wheel, Scrabble, HC, $1M Chance of a Lifetime and I'm prolly forgetting at least one more.
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I always thought Headline Chasers was going to be a current events based show. I was rather disappointed to find out it was Wheel of Fortune without the wheel.
1985-86 was a weird time in that you had a bunch of Hangman clones: Wheel, Scrabble, HC, $1M Chance of a Lifetime and I'm prolly forgetting at least one more.
In fairness, that was the peak of Wheel's popularity in syndication & Vannamania, was it not? So it was more like a Hangman bandwagon.
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I remember seeing MG '98 and CS '01 and thinking what letdowns they were. LMAD hosted by Billy Bush took a good show and ruined it.
MG '98 was a disappointment for sure. I can still remember at the Cleveland GSC when we had Jay Wolpert as a phone guest when he said there will be 5 Celebrities instead of 6, those in attendance looked at each other with WTF looks all around. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
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This one admittedly doesn't quite count because I vaguely remember watching an episode in first-run, but I recently looked up an ep. of 2-Minute Drill on YouTube and was thoroughly underwhelmed. Kenny Mayne just wasn't the right kind of guy to host a game show; his dry humor too often came across as dismissive and disinterested. The question-readers would frequently stumble over their words, which put the contestants at an unfair advantage depending on who they picked. One question-reader for the ep. I saw was Colin Mochrie; while he read the material just fine, it was a very strange decision to bring on someone who has no connection to sports and is known for improv comedy for a role with no room to be funny.
Bringing Mastermind across the pond to find the ultimate sports trivia nerd was a brilliant move...but the execution left something to be desired.
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Another vote for Temptation. Meanwhile, as far as an "oldie" goes - finally seeing two Barry & Enright productions from the 50s - High-Low and Dough-Re-Mi - both were bummers. High-Low was weird and sounded totally scripted, and Dough's one note at a time play was agonizingly slow. Neither was as exciting as I hoped for.
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Bringing Mastermind across the pond to find the ultimate sports trivia nerd was a brilliant move...but the execution left something to be desired.
I loved 2MD (whenever I could find it), but ESPN always seemed to treat its game shows like an afterthought. If I’m not mistaken, that was their longest-running game show, which says a lot.
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Bringing Mastermind across the pond to find the ultimate sports trivia nerd was a brilliant move...but the execution left something to be desired.
I loved 2MD (whenever I could find it), but ESPN always seemed to treat its game shows like an afterthought. If I’m not mistaken, that was their longest-running game show, which says a lot.
Stump the Schwab technically ran longer, unless you don’t regard the ESPN Classic exclusive fourth season.
But as you brought up, you want an afterthought? Season three aired at SIX IN THE MORNING.
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If I lived in Australia (and having watched the episodes on YouTube), I would’ve definitely said The Price Is Big W (aka the 2012 TPIR reboot, which was basically one nightly infomercial for their Walmart); in the UK: their recent Supermarket Sweep reboot, which failed to recapture the same kind of magic Dale Winton left behind.
/Leslie Jones owns Rylan anyway
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But you didn’t live there.
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The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
-Dan
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I guess MG ‘98 would count for me. I wasn’t really plugged into the online game show community at the time and don’t know who, if anyone, carried it in my market. So by the time I’d read up on it, its reputation was already intact. But I’m willing to watch nearly any game show at least once, and can usually find something of interest or entertainment value in it. MG ‘98 was the rare show that I turned off just a few minutes into the episode.
As for shows I saw in real time, I’ll add Al Roker’s run of Celebrity Family Feud. Al seems like a congenial fellow on the Today Show, but his persona really didn’t fit Feud. That said, he didn’t have a very long run at the helm, and even some shows that went on to be legendary now seem a little rough in their first dozen episodes or so. Al was never going to be the showman that Steve Harvey is, but I’ve wondered if he could have grown more into the Feud role if he’d had a bit longer to do so.
Read About It: Remote Control. I never saw it on an actual television - it was canceled when I was one year old. Kris Lane's site made it sound hilarious, and I also spent many an hour playing a version of the DOS computer game downloaded from whatever abandonware site. When the advent of sites like Youtube finally allowed me to watch a few episodes...I would never saw it was bad, but it mostly just felt like a weird 80s relic.
To each their own, but personally it was almost the opposite for me. I grew up in a conservative home where MTV was not exactly banned, but certainly not encouraged, so I didn’t see the show until years later. When I did see it, I really liked it and thought it would have been my family’s kind of show for the most part. I also showed an episode or 2 to my mom, and she liked it.
I will say, though, my family & I are geeks for both music and classic TV. If someone is neither of those, I can see where RC might not have much appeal.
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Read About It: Remote Control. [...] I would never saw it was bad, but it mostly just felt like a weird 80s relic. Ditto Fun House - sites like The Fun House Factory made it sound great, but when I finally found it on Youtube, I had to constantly repeat to myself "It's 1988...it's 1988..."
I appreciate the honesty. Are you saying they both gave off heavy "you had to be there" vibes?
-Jason
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As a child I was obsessed with Bullseye, having seen the pictures of the impressive set in the EOTVGS, then getting to download clips and the theme song on various sites. When I finally watched the show, it was intriguing but lacking. Maybe it was because the first episode I watched had celebrities but it felt like Joker’s Wild tried to make the Fast Forward category its own show, then ironically slowed it to a crawl.
Your turn!
I was 6 when Bullseye premiered. A new game show, from the same people who did TJW and TTD? Sign me up!! However, once I watched it, I found myself cheering for 1 or 3 question contracts. I hated the 5 question contracts as I thought that was entirely too long. And, more often than not, they were the 5 question contracts. Tried to watch it again after 30+ years....Still boring with 5 questions.
As for underwhelming shows........I was excited for "Scattergories". To this day, it's the only game show where I have been so bored watching it that I fell asleep.
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The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
-Dan
This. As I keep saying, it was slow where it should be fast, and fast where it should be slow. As such Joel didn't have much to do.
I had my hopes up as it wasn't CS2001, of course, and back to traditional Card Sharks, but...yeah.
I had an open mind about each version of current Family Feud, think I was only let down by Anderson and Harvey (yes, really...)
Kinda cheating, but when I heard CBS was bringing back Password, I was like cool. Then stuff leaked about how Million Dollar Password was played, etc. and little by little I tapped out. Best thing about it was the Betty episodes.
I should have known what I was getting from Snoop Dogg, but didn't like his TJW similarly.
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Read About It: Remote Control. [...] I would never saw it was bad, but it mostly just felt like a weird 80s relic. Ditto Fun House - sites like The Fun House Factory made it sound great, but when I finally found it on Youtube, I had to constantly repeat to myself "It's 1988...it's 1988..."
I appreciate the honesty. Are you saying they both gave off heavy "you had to be there" vibes?
-Jason
It seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I guess so. Again, I'm not calling either show bad. Had I been born maybe six years before I was and been able to watch them on TV as a kid, I probably would have loved both and have lots of nostalgia for them now.
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Read About It: Remote Control. [...] I would never saw it was bad, but it mostly just felt like a weird 80s relic. Ditto Fun House - sites like The Fun House Factory made it sound great, but when I finally found it on Youtube, I had to constantly repeat to myself "It's 1988...it's 1988..."
I appreciate the honesty. Are you saying they both gave off heavy "you had to be there" vibes?
It seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I guess so. Again, I'm not calling either show bad. Had I been born maybe six years before I was and been able to watch them on TV as a kid, I probably would have loved both and have lots of nostalgia for them now.
I don't think it's an unpopular opinion per se, it's just not been voiced here, which is why I welcome it. I think your last sentence gets at something a lot of fandoms tend to gloss over -- the power of WHEN you got into something. The reason we probably haven't heard "Remote Control was eh" is because most people who talk about the show were probably fans of it during first run.
For better or worse, I was a kid who didn't like stuff that openly pandered to me. While Fun House is just before my time, when I finally caught up with it in subsequent years, I thought it was trying too hard to be cool. Double Dare was more in the sweet spot for me, and looking back, they discovered rather quickly (IMO) that trying too hard wasn't going to work for them. They seemed to aim more for making themselves laugh, and it worked all the same.
-Jason
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Bullseye was literally the earliest audio-visual memory I recall from my childhood, and I loved watching the reruns as a kid too. As an adult, my issue is with the end game that especially dragged on when the contestants tried for the 10-spin jackpot.
I'd still like to see reruns pop up again somewhere, though.
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I should have known what I was getting from Snoop Dogg, but didn't like his TJW similarly.
I feel the opposite. I rather enjoyed Snoop’s take on The Joker’s Wild and if there was any show that benefitted from extra chrome, as I’ve said at least once before, that was it. Snoop Got It.
With that said, there were at least one or two things I had problems with that I just couldn’t ignore. I don’t know what purpose Jeannie Mai served, especially considering a) TJW never needed a co-host and b) she sucked at it just as well. (YMMV.) Either way, cutting her out of the production was for the better.
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The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
-Dan
(apologies for double post)
See, I just thought he was another piece in the morass that was the Card Sharks revival. The pacing sucked, the extra chrome sucked, the hosting was extremely meh. Wanted to like it, didn’t.
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For me, that would have to be TJW 1990. The first format was mind boggling for me. I watched, and I thought... wait a minute... three players, buzzers, dollar figures instead of categories...and ONE Joker?! this ISN'T the TJW I remembered! I did kinda like the bonus game but the notion that you could only win ONE prize made it a bit cheap.
Then they made some tweaks with the format. Categories on the wheels, three jokers... it felt a LITTLE more like the classic game, but everything else remained the same. Still, I liked it enough to keep watching. Pat Finn said on Wink's site, regarding the pilot, that he had shot another pilot where he was joking around with the players more, and Richard Kline advised him not to do so. I'd like to see that pilot to see the approach Pat originally had. Kline would have similar orders for Gene Rayburn on Break the Bank, and it was very evident Gene didn't like that at all.
Another show I thought was underwhelming upon first viewing... Doug Davidson TPIR. It just felt... too different. However, today I have a very different opinion on it. If you can put aside the classic game that Barker did for years, I think Doug's version now wasn't really so bad. Doug was consistent, looked like he was having fun, and he was able to bring out the good in some contestants. In some ways i think he was better than Drew. The showcases also had that Wolpert flair (Jay Wolpert produced, of course) that I think the current version as well as Barker's later years lacked.
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Ooh, fun topic! I actually have answers for both questions:
Shows I read about but was really underwhelmed to see:
Double Dare (Trebek): I first read about this in the EOTVGS, and it looked like an intriguing show; isolation booths? Alex? Big money? I'm there! I finally got to see it when it was a Faux Pause Pick on GSN, and ended up...meh about it. I liked the bonus round (and still do), but the main game just doesn't do it for me.
Play the Percentages: I never got to see this show when it was on USA, but read about it in the EOTVGS. YouTube made it possible to see it when I was in grad school, so I watched an episode from both versions (couples and individuals). Other than getting some chuckles out of Geoff and Judge Von Erik, the game itself was pretty boring. Even a massive jackpot win just wasn't that exciting. This is one show I've honestly never really had any inkling to go back and watch more of, in either format.
Shows I looked forward to premiering but was underwhelmed:
Temptation and Crosswords were my immediate answers, but I'm going to give the edge here to Crosswords. By all measures, Crosswords *should* have been more successful, but a broken game format, robotic host, and bonus round wins that just didn't really seem all that exciting did in my excitement for the show pretty quickly. Somebody on this group was kind enough to record the first 4 aired episodes for me on a DVD, and while I'm thankful to have had that, I was way less excited about Crosswords after seeing it than Temptation. Honestly, if Crosswords was People Puzzler, I probably would have watched it almost every day.
Anthony
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I remember getting very excited when USA started plugging The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough in the early 90s, thinking it would be the Barry/Cullen and Martindale/Caldwell versions. That was a disappointment.
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I too was crazy about the Snoop Dogg TJW at first, but gave up a few episodes into it as the lengthy questions were a letdown.
The same can be said with the Hollywood Squares portion of the MGHS Hour; what did it for me was no Secret Square round (which should’ve been a jackpot starting at $5,000 and increasing by $1,000 if not picked) and no bluffing.
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no Secret Square round (which should’ve been a jackpot starting at $5,000 and increasing by $1,000 if not picked) and no bluffing.
Which stands a good chance to overshadow the Suprr Match at even its base value.
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I remember getting very excited when USA started plugging The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough in the early 90s, thinking it would be the Barry/Cullen and Martindale/Caldwell versions. That was a disappointment.
I might’ve been the exact opposite. Those two versions came on at 1-2 am where I lived so when I finally got to see them a few years later, I was a little excited. At 11, I liked most game shows and didn’t remember enough about the originals to be able to compare just how inferior the reboots were.
I too was crazy about the Snoop Dogg TJW at first, but gave up a few episodes into it as the lengthy questions were a letdown.
Is it really TJW if the questions weren’t wordy? :P
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I remember getting very excited when USA started plugging The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough in the early 90s, thinking it would be the Barry/Cullen and Martindale/Caldwell versions. That was a disappointment.
Yes, to say the least. My main gripe with TJW '90 was the format. My main gripe with TTD '90 was the host.
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Going back quite a ways, but the first thing that came to mind for me was The Magnificent Marble Machine. School had just ended a couple weeks prior and NBC was running a lot of promos for this show. I couldn't wait until it finally came on, but remember being kind of unimpressed when I saw it.
This. It was the summer of pinball, with this on television and Tommy in the theaters, but I was bored by one and confused by the other.
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I too was crazy about the Snoop Dogg TJW at first, but gave up a few episodes into it as the lengthy questions were a letdown.
I really wanted to like the Twenty One revival, but those isolation booths completely ruined it.
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I just hope I don’t have to add SPLIT SECOND to this list.
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I remember getting very excited when USA started plugging The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough in the early 90s, thinking it would be the Barry/Cullen and Martindale/Caldwell versions. That was a disappointment.
Yes, to say the least. My main gripe with TJW '90 was the format. My main gripe with TTD '90 was the host.
I honestly could get over Patrick Wayne as host to watch an episode of TTD90. My gripe is more with the way the game worked out.
The only thing they seemed to get right was the shuffling of the categories being stopped by the contestants. And even that had to come with that annoying screeching…whatever the hell you wanted to call that. Don’t know what was worse, that or the original series’ music bed.
I get that they wanted to give out more money but why reset the pot after every tie? That was something I thought was one of the bigger selling points of Tic Tac Dough, where if you have two players who are really solid trivia players going back and forth and the pot keeps building and the tension rises and you wanna see who’s going to crack first. (Man that was a lot to get out.) You don’t really get that as much with the way they did it, because you’re starting from zero and it doesn’t feel to me like you’re engaged as much. It’s like they did all that work and now they’ve gotta do it all over again, possibly for less money than the previous tie game’s pot was assuming they get it over quick?
And it’s never a good sign when you jigger the bonus round to have the possibility that no matter what you do, you can’t win unless it’s by total accident.
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The first one that came to mind when I read the subject was 1990 ABC Match Game. Something about the timed rounds turned me off.
Honorable Mention: 1970s-era Masquerade Party (Richard Dawson) - I was excited when I saw it mentioned in the TV Guide Fall Preview, only to discover that none of the stations I could get on TV picked it up; the closest I came to seeing it was when a brief audio clip appears in an episode of The Odd Couple. Anyway, decades later, I finally saw an episode (the one on Wink's Vault, I think), and...meh.
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A few come to mind
Card Sharks with Joel Mchale my two problems with the show was, Joel Mchale hosting he look like he didn't want to be there and the show dragged.
Weakest Link with Jane Lynch. I hated the silly question writing. The bantering before the contestants reveal who they voted for. The set has way too much going on it looks like a room full of led lighting.
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I too was crazy about the Snoop Dogg TJW at first, but gave up a few episodes into it as the lengthy questions were a letdown.
I really wanted to like the Twenty One revival, but those isolation booths completely ruined it.
For me, it wasn't the isolation booths that ruined it; it was the way the gameplay was handled. For example, a contestant would be told that their opponent had just missed their third question, which of course meant that the contestant realized that all they needed to do was to answer a 1-point question to win. Also, I think that the host told the contestants when the opponent had 21, so they would always choose the value needed to get to 21 themselves, as anything else meant that they would lose the game.
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I too was crazy about the Snoop Dogg TJW at first, but gave up a few episodes into it as the lengthy questions were a letdown.
I really wanted to like the Twenty One revival, but those isolation booths completely ruined it.
For me, it wasn't the isolation booths that ruined it; it was the way the gameplay was handled. For example, a contestant would be told that their opponent had just missed their third question, which of course meant that the contestant realized that all they needed to do was to answer a 1-point question to win. Also, I think that the host told the contestants when the opponent had 21, so they would always choose the value needed to get to 21 themselves, as anything else meant that they would lose the game.
Call me crazy, but I think Kevin might have been being sarcastic.
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Indeed. I was discussing this very notion with him.
A game show without an isolation booth is like a car without wheels!
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Addressing Don’s points:
To your first point, I don’t seem to remember any of that happening. I know Maury told the champion if their opponent reached 21, but that was after the question was chosen. I remember at least one episode where the challenger reached 21, but the champion didn’t choose a question that would’ve tied the match.
If I also remember correctly, if one contestant struck out, the other contestant was only forced to play their question if they could also strike out with a wrong answer outside of the one time Maury screwed it up and revealed the info.
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There was one game where Maury flubbed and revealed to somebody that his opponent had struck out. The opponent ran with it, played a one point question and got what amounted to a gift. The opponent, having struck out, could lay no foul claim, though maybe the incoming contestants could, since a double wipeout could be advantageous to fresh meat.
We are making the point that criticizing a show for an integral mechanic comes off as doofy; not that the poster will listen to us. There’s a difference between I didn’t like it and I was prepared to like it but for X.
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Never mind the point that wordy questions and Barry & Enright quizzes tended to go hand in hand; ergo, shouldn’t surprise anybody who watched the original Joker’s Wild that Snoop’s version had the same vibe.
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And then, there was Big Deal (aka Extreme LMAD); if it wasn’t for those football overruns, I would’ve gotten right into it after only a couple episodes.
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So again, that’s not that Big Deal was underwhelming,but was outside sources tha5 kept you away.
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To your first point, I don’t seem to remember any of that happening. I know Maury told the champion if their opponent reached 21, but that was after the question was chosen.
Perhaps you're right - what I may have been (mis)thinking was, a contestant was told (after choosing a question) that their opponent had reached 21, so they now knew that they should bring in their "expert" as there was no need to save them for another question in that game.
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Can I offshoot this just a bit and say Trader Bob and the Phone Home Game? Watching them on the retro channel (frequently it seems) exposes them as a bit.....dull? Trader Bob looked neat but basically becomes anticlimactic and Bob's fairly consistent DON'T SHOW THE PRICE all the time is annoying. Phone Home sounded creative but playing it out there's nothing there. Good interaction to have an at-home player, but still.
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Snoop’s Joker’s Wild was terrific in a lot of ways. Snoop was pretty good, the set was fantastic and I didn’t think the more involved questions were so bad. I didn’t like the less involved questions that were way too easy. I’m not sure how to handle three jokers without them ending the game, and here they came up too often. Seeing promos, I admit I was excited to see how dice would enter in, but bleah.
Whammy! was a big disappointment. I didn’t like the first round (the third player had such a huge advantage), the prizes were cheap and the double whammies were just stupid especially when they don’t surprise the contestant.
The new Split Second has disappointment written all over it.
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The new Split Second has disappointment written all over it.
Can folks please let an actual episode air before making hot takes? I’m seeing this complaint way too often when there’s only been a handful of short clips from the show.
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Classic Concentration...no mechanical game board and a less than enthusiastic Alex Trebek.
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Taskmaster US. That's it. That's my answer.
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On paper, Just Men! seemed like it was a good idea. Betty White as a game show host and since she won an Emmy for it it had to have been a good show hurt solely by time slot. In actuality, it came off as dull.
The EoTVGS second edition made The Last Word and its set seem a lot better than it was given it was a dull and warmed over hangman variant I have zero recollection of from first run.
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix. I probably just had too-high of hopes for this one. Lots of things about this revival seemed 9/10's of the way there. The set, the crummy theme, the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh. But the core of the game was there. It may seem more underwhelming now that we have Strahan's Pyramid which, to me, is leaps and bounds better.
Shoot Strahan's version is MILES better than Donnymid and Mikeymid combined!
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix.........the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh.
The show itself was forgettable but I actually did like the 7-for-7 bonuses being worth $5,000 being added to the Winner's Circle pot, plus $500 for the contestant each time it happened. Made for a nice little consolation if you don't get to play the WC.
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix.........the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh.
The show itself was forgettable but I actually did like the 7-for-7 bonuses being worth $5,000 being added to the Winner's Circle pot, plus $500 for the contestant each time it happened. Made for a nice little consolation if you don't get to play the WC.
Agreed - mediocre show top to bottom but that was a great rule.
I'm in the camp that says the format for 70s Pyr (one lose and done) was bad, but the 80s version wasn't much better.
My idea? Take Classic Concentration's two strike loss format. Lose 2 and leave. Then, money ladder the Winner's Circle. First time, 10K, Second 25K, Third 50K, then 4th (and future until you win it) 100K. There. Now you have a daily $100K Pyramid that rewards good players, and doesn't penalize an off-game (like one with a shitty celebrity partner), without throwing obscene money around.
But hey, that's just my idea.
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I'll toss GSN's 2012 revival of Pyramid into this mix.........the added "oh hey you gave a clue with 4 vowels in the word so you won a blender" style add-ins were all bleh.
The show itself was forgettable but I actually did like the 7-for-7 bonuses being worth $5,000 being added to the Winner's Circle pot, plus $500 for the contestant each time it happened. Made for a nice little consolation if you don't get to play the WC.
Agreed - mediocre show top to bottom but that was a great rule.
I'm in the camp that says the format for 70s Pyr (one lose and done) was bad, but the 80s version wasn't much better.
My idea? Take Classic Concentration's two strike loss format. Lose 2 and leave. Then, money ladder the Winner's Circle. First time, 10K, Second 25K, Third 50K, then 4th (and future until you win it) 100K. There. Now you have a daily $100K Pyramid that rewards good players, and doesn't penalize an off-game (like one with a shitty celebrity partner), without throwing obscene money around.
But hey, that's just my idea.
When Pyramid returned to CBS, they (IMO) fixed the contestant longevity rule for the better by going with the highest non-bonus $$ winner at the end of the show. Whoever won the most in regular game money came back (unless they won the $25k), but both players returned if they tied in winnings.
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But that’s Matt’s point—they really didn’t, if one partner was way better than the other that $25,000 was staying with Bob Stewart.
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Classic Concentration...no mechanical game board and a less than enthusiastic Alex Trebek.
Can we throw revealing the natural match on a wild card pairing into that as well?
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I certainly would
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I can see why people who watched the original Concentration would like it that way, but having grown up with Classic Concentration, revealing the natural match made absolute sense to me. This might apply to a lot of stuff we hold sacred, because we saw it on the original version of a show, that's actually a toss-up as far as show quality goes. FWIW, my wife vastly prefers Classic Concentration to Jack Narz Concentration, as well.
-Jason
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If I were to rip any changes to Concentration over the years, it would be calling three numbers on games during Narz’ version.
The changes for Classic streamlined the show. Knocking out a row of boxes was smart, and I can’t say that I missed seeing the abandoned halves of natural matches pop up.
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Then, money ladder the Winner's Circle. First time, 10K, Second 25K, Third 50K, then 4th (and future until you win it) 100K. There. Now you have a daily $100K Pyramid that rewards good players…
That’s what $20,000 Pyramid did and penalized good players by paying the lowest prize for nailing it on the fewest trips.
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I think Matt is saying the prize increases whether you win or not and you stay on as long as you win the front game, so think Jeopardy ‘78.
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I think Matt is saying the prize increases whether you win or not and you stay on as long as you win the front game, so think Jeopardy ‘78.
Correct. I mean, you can force them to win first to advance up the money ladder, but what's the point ? Move em along quicker for better payouts. It's not like $100K now doesn't have mo' money syndrome .
I never, ever, understood the premise of making a player win 3 games to go for the $20K prize, especially when it meant retiring once you won $10 or $15K.
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My mom loved the original Concentration, and I remember her not being a huge fan of the car game on CC. I do remember her once telling me she once got a puzzle with only one square revealed - "A penny saved is a penny earned".
Back to the original topic at hand, I think TNPiR94 falls under that category for me. I absolutely loved the 1985 syndie version (it was, and still is, quite awesome to see a different host at the helm plus I've always been a huge Tom Kennedy fan) but I thought 94 strayed too far from the concurrent daytime version for my liking.
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My mom loved the original Concentration, and I remember her not being a huge fan of the car game on CC. I do remember her once telling me she once got a puzzle with only one square revealed - "A penny saved is a penny earned".
Back to the original topic at hand, I think TNPiR94 falls under that category for me. I absolutely loved the 1985 syndie version (it was, and still is, quite awesome to see a different host at the helm plus I've always been a huge Tom Kennedy fan) but I thought 94 strayed too far from the concurrent daytime version for my liking.
I would've loved to see TNPIR94 kept the bidding rounds. I thought Doug did a good job hosting the show he looked like he was having fun hosting. Tom Kennedy did an amazing job hosting the show there was an interview of him and he briefly talked about hosting and learning the games.
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Can I offshoot this just a bit and say Trader Bob and the Phone Home Game? Watching them on the retro channel (frequently it seems) exposes them as a bit.....dull? Trader Bob looked neat but basically becomes anticlimactic and Bob's fairly consistent DON'T SHOW THE PRICE all the time is annoying. Phone Home sounded creative but playing it out there's nothing there. Good interaction to have an at-home player, but still.
I felt the exact same way about the trio of "lost" pricing games--Finish Line, Shower Game, Telephone Game--that hadn't been seen since first run, until Winc. posted video clips of them in 2014. Finish Line was just awkwardly executed with the way Bob was forced to stall for time while the gate moved down the track. Shower Game was barely even a game, and Telephone Game was just boring as hell.
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I never, ever, understood the premise of making a player win 3 games to go for the $20K prize, especially when it meant retiring once you won $10 or $15K.
Well, let's see if I can boil this down into the very simplest language for you:
Bob Stewart was cheap. :)
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And if it took you fifteen times to finally win $20K, you were by then just "rounding up" and losing all the bonus money you'd accumulated along the way which was another sign of cheapness.
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And if it took you fifteen times to finally win $20K, you were by then just "rounding up" and losing all the bonus money you'd accumulated along the way which was another sign of cheapness.
I can't imagine that this ever would have come into play, given you'd have to lose the Winner's Circle at least 40 times, but if your winnings were rounded to $20,000 no matter how long you took, what would have happened if someone managed to collect $20,000 worth of consolation money? Would they retire? Would they get to keep trying to win? Did they just not have a rule, assuming they'd never need one?
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And if it took you fifteen times to finally win $20K, you were by then just "rounding up" and losing all the bonus money you'd accumulated along the way which was another sign of cheapness.
I can't imagine that this ever would have come into play, given you'd have to lose the Winner's Circle at least 40 times, but if your winnings were rounded to $20,000 no matter how long you took, what would have happened if someone managed to collect $20,000 worth of consolation money? Would they retire? Would they get to keep trying to win? Did they just not have a rule, assuming they'd never need one?
Given that $20k was ABC's limit at the time, I imagine they'd retire. And theoretically it could happen as soon as seven shows if each had a $500 big 7 win, two $1,000 perfect-21 bonuses, and two $400 WCs.
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My biggest problem with Davidson's '94 Price was the real potential that nobody would win anything. Even on a day when the real Price is Right has all 6 pricing games lost, no money won during the Showcase Showdowns and a double overbid in the showcases, at least 6 prizes are still being won and given away!
With Davidson's version, all 3 pricing games could be lost and the showcase lost too. Who wants to watch 30 minutes of nobody winning anything at all?
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But here’s the thing about TNPIR that sets it apart: you’re coming right onto the stage and getting a shot at some decent prize. And yeah, the possibility did exist for a show to end up with no winners, but wasn’t there at least one game per show that you really had to eff up in to lose it?
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Who wants to watch 30 minutes of nobody winning anything at all
when you can watch 60 minutes of nobody (https://abc.com/shows/card-sharks) winning (https://www.fox.com/i-can-see-your-voice/) anything (https://abc.com/shows/to-tell-the-truth) at (https://www.nbc.com/the-wall) all (https://abc.com/shows/the-chase)?
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Who wants to watch 30 minutes of nobody winning anything at all
when you can watch 60 minutes of nobody (https://abc.com/shows/card-sharks) winning (https://www.fox.com/i-can-see-your-voice/) anything (https://abc.com/shows/to-tell-the-truth) at (https://www.nbc.com/the-wall) all (https://abc.com/shows/the-chase)?
Slight caveat: At least on the GSN version of The Chase, contestants had their trips paid for, so everyone was technically already "winners". :)
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Naturally....
(https://i.imgur.com/yK5PIfI.png)
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Alright, I for one can now officially add Split Second to this thread's category after catching tonight's premiere, without having seen the preview episode.
Someone else used "m'eh" to sum it up, and I agree with that. The flowing energy just wasn't there for me, and what felt like cheesy scripted laugh-grabbing lines from John between questions didn't help. Cool set though, and I do like how they begin the show with action straightaway. But overall still...m'eh.
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And if it took you fifteen times to finally win $20K, you were by then just "rounding up" and losing all the bonus money you'd accumulated along the way which was another sign of cheapness.
Seemed like the easiest thing to do would be to have the contestants play the entire show, with each WC crack being $10k. Win both WCs, there's a $20,000, it feels earned, and any really good players you have will be off your set in 25 minutes regardless.
The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
-Dan
I thought Joel was part of the problem. His general demeanor isn't a match for a show like that.
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The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
My biggest problem with the show was they tried to force “Deal or No Deal” type dramatic pacing on a show that didn’t need it at all. A pregnant pause for a card somewhere in the middle, then the final card of the game being flipped super fast just looks silly.
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The Card Sharks reboot with Joel McHale was a let down. The set looked great. Joel did the best he could with what he had to work with. It just dragged too much.
My biggest problem with the show was they tried to force “Deal or No Deal” type dramatic pacing on a show that didn’t need it at all. A pregnant pause for a card somewhere in the middle, then the final card of the game being flipped super fast just looks silly.
Exactly. What made CS fun in the 70s and 80s was the pacing: The fast pace (the running of the cards) meshed well with the slow "cool down" (poll questions) pace.
In the McHale Money Cards, not only did the pregnant pauses kill the mood, but the physical moving of the "betting chips" seemed to take forever. Sure, more money was potentially on the line and the winning contestant doesn't get to play another game, but the decision making times should still be consistent with the older versions.
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Put me firmly in the camp of people who thought Joel McHale was a big part of the problem with the CS reboot. Yes, it absolutely had the other problems mentioned above, which I agree with, especially pacing. However, Joel is just one of those people that, no matter what he's on, always makes it about him, to the point of being uncomfortable to watch.