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3/13 Blockbusters on GSN

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clemon79:
[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Mar 9 2004, 09:30 AM\'] Apparently the ratings ain't too awful.
 [/quote]
Yeah, and most television viewers are idiots, what's your point? C'mon, you started this, don't dodge the question by saying "well, lots of people watch it, so it must be good." Tell me what it has that Blockbusters doesn't.

(I'll start: A ditzy co-host, a Chyroned game board (yawn, though I admit there isn't much way around it in this case), a broken scoring system slapped on in an effort to self-contain a show that wasn't originally, and a bonus game that can often be more than a little anticlimactic.)

--- Quote ---But not exactly a candidate for the top twenty game shows of all time.
--- End quote ---
Then we agree to disagree (hey, what's new), because I'm pretty sure it would make my Top 20 rather comfortably.

Jimmy Owen:
Great theme, great host, great game.  I also liked the computerized Rafferty version with the new theme, so the game was the constant that proved the show was solid.  I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but I would schedule my classes at Michigan around the show.  I would get up for 8 am classes, watch the clock for a couple hours and make sure I was at the dorm's TV lounge by 10:30 to watch the show (usually I was the only one there) and rush to get back to class around 11:05.  This routine ended in April of 82 with the show but the dorm got cable in early 83 and soon thereafter there were crowds of kids in the lounge all the time to watch this newfangled MTV.  No more game shows in the lounge :(

CaseyAbell:
Well, okay, if you insist. But first, since when are most television viewers idiots? My guess is that most television viewers have just as much good sense as television viewers Casey Abell and Chris Lemon...if not more.

Anyhoo, Lingo offers the best play-along value of any game show I've seen, with the possible exception of Jeopardy. At least, it gets me talking to the screen more than any show except the Trebek epic. The scoring system is  well designed to allow comebacks and tight games, especially since they went to five and sometime six puzzles in the first round for the third season. The bonus round is very fast-paced and ranks well in the history of the genre. Not quite the Winner's Circle, but not very far away. (It's anti-climactic no more often than the last twenty seconds and the post-mortem of the Winner's Circle are anti-climactic.) The icon host keeps things light but doesn't step on the gameplay.

The routine trashtalk about Stacey has been hashed over so often on the GSN boards that it's hardly worth another look. She handles some bookkeeping and smooths transitions between puzzles and on the judging decisions. I don't mind her at all, but her role is so minor that complaints about her always strike me as not so much wrong as just beside the point. She certainly hasn't affected gameplay in the third season.

By the way, since you put Blockbusters in your top twenty, I'll give you my Select Score:

Match Game
Lingo
Family Feud
Jeopardy
Millionaire
Pyramid
Wheel of Fortune
Russian Roulette
I've Got a Secret
Newlywed Game
Cram
Greed
Win Ben Stein's Money
You Bet Your Life
Love Connection
Scrabble
Remote Control
Dating Game
Name That Tune
Beat the Clock

Easy to see that my tastes run toward quizzers, interview shows, word games and stunt shows. Comedy is always helpful, which means Match Game and Family Feud get in, though they don't quite fit into any of these categories. FWIW, I voted the top dozen for the recent GSN Feast of Faves, and saw six come home winners.

My biggest blind spot is probably shopping games, which leads to my biggest heresy, the omissions of TPiR and LMAD. No offense to Messrs. Barker and Hall, who ran (and run) these shows as well as anybody's ever run any show. But relentlessly shopping for bargains and deals has never fascinated me in real life or video life.

aaron sica:
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 9 2004, 11:55 AM\'] No more game shows in the lounge :( [/quote]
 I remember having my lunch break from 11-12 back in '95 when I was in college...If I got to the TV lounge first, TPiR would go on, if not, there was a large group of people watching The Jerry Springer Show.....

TPiR actually did attract a good amount of people if it was on....Which may have attributed to the fact that another talk show (The Jenny Jones show) aired at 10 on the same station...

SRIV94:
[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Mar 9 2004, 11:19 AM\'] I remember having my lunch break from 11-12 back in '95 when I was in college...If I got to the TV lounge first, TPiR would go on, if not, there was a large group of people watching The Jerry Springer Show.....
 [/quote]
The student union was where I got my first exposure to PYL (a few weeks after Randy had appeared--which I never saw because the Indianapolis CBS affil only cleared PYL during "standard" time).  Granted, I didn't think much of it--but I was so used to watching $otC in that time slot anyway that I let that cloud my judgement.  Pretty soon I realized it was a neat little game (I had never seen SECOND CHANCE, so I had no basis for that comparison).  But given the choice in my dorm room, I usually watched $otC.

Thank G-d Springer's show wasn't on in those days--I don't think any game show would have been on the student union television opposite him.

EDIT:  And to bring this back to the topic of BB, I always considered BB very underrated myself.  Good play-along value, great host.

Doug -- soon to celebrate 400 posts (last time I'll be writing that)

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