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Your hottest game show takes
Jeremy Nelson:
-LeVar Burton hosting Jeopardy became a thing because one person said it on Twitter, and the general populace rallied around it not because it was a good idea, but because it was the right thing to say at the time. It was a mostly performative measure that flopped because those same people retweeting and pushing for him to get a shot at bat didn't show up with their remotes when it actually counted.
-If Jeopardy is going to be a sport, I think it should act as such. Every week, give me four new players who play in four heats with one odd person out a day. Top 3 winners play Friday for a flat cash prize and a spot in the Jeopardy Playoffs. Winner of the playoff gets $1 million.
--- Quote from: Chelsea Thrasher on January 14, 2025, 11:09:56 PM ---And although I think Garry was the better host in the 70s, if you really press me, my favorite version of TTTT is the 1980 version.
--- End quote ---
Contrary to popular belief, I think the Anthony Anderson-led run was a fantastic show. A little over the top at times, but it was a nice change from the very buttoned up social affairs of earlier versions. What's more, I think the smartest thing that version did was turn the format around to make the celebrities the contestants by scoring their correct guesses. It's much easier to do this on a one-hour show, but it was such a clever move.
Also, a lot of these hot takes are lukewarm and somewhat agreeable. YMMV, but maybe it's because we've become a more understanding, less confrontational bunch over the years, which isn't a bad thing.
chrisholland03:
--- Quote from: Jeremy Nelson on January 15, 2025, 11:21:03 AM ---
Contrary to popular belief, I think the Anthony Anderson-led run was a fantastic show. A little over the top at times, but it was a nice change from the very buttoned up social affairs of earlier versions. What's more, I think the smartest thing that version did was turn the format around to make the celebrities the contestants by scoring their correct guesses. It's much easier to do this on a one-hour show, but it was such a clever move.
--- End quote ---
We share a hot take on this one. It was consistently an enjoyable hour for me.
SamJ93:
I'm not sure if disliking the Match-Up rounds from MG90 is still a popular opinion around here or not, but having the chance to revisit the show courtesy of Buzzr, I find myself coming around on them a bit. I initially wrote them off as being too luck-based and lacking in humor, but ultimately they're an extension of the main conceit--testing whether the contestant is on the same wavelength as the celebs, with the added pressure of having to make snap judgements. And honestly, a lot of the time it's pretty obvious which option a celeb will choose (e.g. if the choice is between, say, CAROL SINGING or CAROL BURNETT, you know which one Vicki Lawrence is going with) and savvy contestants ought to pick up on that.
JasonA1:
--- Quote from: TimK2003 on January 15, 2025, 10:35:39 AM ---You know darn well in the current TV world where nearly all 30-minute non-network reruns are aired back to back for at least one hour at a time, the alternate unaired version with the specific 30-minute intros/outros will never see the light of day in reruns.
--- End quote ---
What did/does GSN run when they air Strahan Pyramid? Full hours or the half-hour edits?
To answer your other question: with all the stopping and starting in modern production, it's not any harder to film for both cuts. The production company ends up with the choice of hours or half hours they can sell later, all for a few minutes of work on the front end.
-Jason
Chelsea Thrasher:
Here's a few more of varying degrees of spiciness and 'deep cut-ness':
* John Davidson's version of Hollywood Squares is by far the best iteration of that format, not even close, and the closest any other version gets to it in quality levels is the last two years of Bergeron's version. Giving Squares a variety show makeover makes the series fun and unpredictable in a way that makes watching it - even decades after the fact - way, WAY less of a chore than any other version. I loathe Marshall-era HS almost as much as Match Game (see previous), and in general I think the first four years of the Bergeron run in particular haven't aged well, not because of offensiveness or anything, just that the jokes often aren't really that funny but it has nothing else to fall back on. (Also, I'm fine never seeing the 'You Fool' stuff again).
* Bill Rafferty is the best host of every single show he's ever hosted. Which doesn't say much for Every Second Counts, but I'll take him over Jim, Bob, or any of the others on Card Sharks, and I actually prefer him on Blockbusters to Bill Cullen (or to Bob Holness if we loop in non-US versions). Other versions are arguably better overall, but Rafferty hosts it just a hair better. Would have loved to see him have to deal with the family pair gimmick. Rafferty on Blockbusters also produced one of my favorite funny moments: Early in the run, Bill gets frustrated by all of the "Helpful Hints from Mary Ellen" questions and at one point goes on an extended thing making fun of the repetition of those questions. Sure enough, the next question he draws is one, at which point the audience, Bill, and the contestants have one of the most sincere and hearty (but not overdone) laughs I've seen on a game show.
* GSN's April Fools 2003 host swap stunt is charmingly eccentric, but also exposes a major flaw in the channel's productions circa that era (2002-04). Every. single. show. that swapped hosts was improved with the host change. To a one (albeit to various degrees). Graham Elwood's shtick made Whammy way more interesting, Marc Summers was PERFECT for Cram which desperately needed the proverbial straight man, Kennedy's snark and edge is SO much more suited towards the otherwise wallpaper paste-like Wintuition that it made the show interesting for the very first time, Mark L. Walberg's "extremely competent game show host with a slightly mean edge" is pitch perfect for Friend or Foe. Lastly, Todd Newton hosted Russian Roulette like he'd been doing it for 10 years. It's great TV, but it speaks to a bigger flaw of that era when every single show they produced got better when they changed the hosts for laugh.
* Scattergories in 1993 was a charmingly good show that deserved way, way longer than it got.
* Elizabeth Banks is PYL's best host, even though I prefer the half hour format.
* Bob Barker should have taken his victory lap in 2001-02 then left after Price's 30th season - and I will forever believe the main reason he stuck around (besides cash) those last few years was because his ego demanded he first first keep going into his 80s (2003), then get the "50 years on TV" thing by sticking around to December 2006. It's not a coincidence that latter one is when he retired. Many of his episodes from the last ~five years are just genuinely bad. The degree to which I hate Rich Fields as an announcer has some bearing in that as does the stuff that went down with Janice, Kathleen, and Paul Alter, but honestly? After around season 30 Bob just isn't able to be consistently 'on' in host mode anymore and until the adulation comes in for his retirement year he's just a crochety cantankerous old asshole who can't host a fraction as well as he used to and has run out of patience or the ability to improvise as well when things go sideways.
* Related: Firing Roger Dobkowitz is the single best production decision that The Price is Right has made since 1972, even if it took a couple of years to get to the good part in the aftermath. The calcification of that show into the fixed form it held from the late 80s into the first year of Drew's run rests largely upon Roger when it isn't Barker, and the show is orders of magnitude better since the early 2010s than it was at any point since the 80s. (The host's also a way better person which helps, but the producer changes had a massive amount to do with why Price with Drew is good).
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