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3/13 Blockbusters on GSN

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joshg:
[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'Mar 9 2004, 10:51 AM\']What about that Croton watch?  :-)[/quote]
Forgot about that... I treat it as a collector's item. Granted, it was sent to me in a bubble-wrap envelope, but it's not something everybody has. So with that said, I'll be putting it up on eBay later today ;-)

JOSH

PeterMarshallFan:
I've always scratched my head as to why people love Cram so much. To me, it's a disorganized mess of rounds stolen from different shows [1st round from Talk About, with honorable mention to Double Dare for the wheels; 2nd round, Shop til you Drop] Any show that has to have its model do a phone sex parody to promote it should have never left the drawing board, IMO. If you like the show, fine, but I just can't believe anyone ranking it as one of the 20 greatest game shows of all time.

Now, here's mine. Load your cannons, Casey, you're gonna LOVE this. :-)

1. Hollywood Squares
2. Match Game
(2.5. Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour)
3. Bullseye
4. The Price is Right
5. Tic Tac Dough
6. Starcade
7. The Joker's Wild
8. Cross-Wits
9. Go!
10. Concentration
11. Password Plus/Super Password
12. Card Sharks
13. Name That Tune
14. Press Your Luck
15. Break the Bank '76
16. Spin-Off
17. $xxx,xxx Pyramid
18. Play the Percentages
19. Scrabble
20. Whodunnit? (now who remembers THIS show?)
Honorable Mention: 21, (Super) Millionaire, Sale of the Century


--- Quote ---But first, since when are most television viewers idiots?
--- End quote ---

When The Batchelor became a hit.

Jay Temple:
I just wanted to point out one other good thing about Blockbusters.  It's impossible to have a tie.  It doesn't matter how stupid the contestants are;  as long as someone eventually gets each space that's called for, eventually someone will make their connection.

CaseyAbell:
Different strokes. I can't believe anybody ranks Bullseye as the third best show of all time. That would make WinTuition the second best. Or maybe the first best.

If I have to choose between the slapstick and silliness of Cram or the sheer snooze of Bullseye, it's not a hard decision. Unless I really need a nap.

Also hard to see why PYL gets in but Whammy doesn't.

And finally, Feud, Jeopardy and WoF have to get in someplace. But if I can have heresy by excluding TPiR...

What the hey. Difference of opinion makes the horse race. This list, by the way, mostly confirms my cynical definition of a classic. It also plays pretty well into that hilarious post the Kid made a few days ago on the GSN board: "The Theory of Game Show Classicivity."

jcompton:
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 9 2004, 08:21 AM\'] It's a pretty routine quizzer, kinda slow, not particularly suspenseful. Mr. Cullen still launches a zinger or two, but the gameplay just sort of moseys along. An okay time-filler on GSN weekends but hardly a gem of the genre, IMO. [/quote]
I think the show is quite underrated.

You have a game board that provides more intrigue and possibilities than, say, a Tic-Tac-Dough setup, without being so complicated that you can't pick it up easily (connect red to red, white to white... it's all sitting right there, they even politely flash the relevant colors when somebody scores.)

You have a moderately interesting concept (solo vs. family pair) that gives the players and the host something to talk about. This concept was arguably a failure as it was pretty clear that the solo player had an advantage most of the time, but a good concept nonetheless.

I don't think it was terribly slow-moving. Maybe not a lightning pace, but you could get through a game in four questions, and the back-and-forth slugfests could be quite entertaining. The guaranteed winner was also a very nice touch. And the money really wasn't bad at all.

And while the 10/20-time winners on Blockbusters maybe don't get the same adulation as Jeopardy Super Duper Grand Masters Of Ultimate Maximumness, I personally got a kick out of watching the players at the top of their game steamroll the opposition time and time again. And it didn't require 30 minutes of watching Jeopardy to get there, another big plus in my book.

For the "students of the genre", there's a lot of value as well...

- the gameboard itself, a neat and (usually) smooth-running hack of the analog era
- A set design that's a little dynamic, but cleverly keeps Cullen in one place
- strategies for "experienced" viewers to rant about (such as "no, you dolt, you should have taken T! You'd have had three opportunities to win then!")

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