Newspapers.com

[carlisle96]

Hey, gang

Is everyone familiar with a website called Newspapers.com? I have a feeling many are after seeing the posts about celebrity panel lists on certain shows. But if you haven't seen it, it's a pay site, but well worth it. It has thousands and thousands of newspapers from around the world. Not only can you look at papers from the day you were born, it's a great resource for fans of game shows past. So, if you type in "Jackpot" and the years 1974-1975, you'll see TV critic reviews, profiles of Geoff Edwards, articles from contestants about their experiences on the show, and routine stuff like press mentions of its debut and cancellation. I also found an interview with John Barbour on his side of how and why he was bounced from "The Gong Show." Until now, I've just heard Chuck Barris's story.

 I have no connection with newspapers.com except for recommending it to others.

[BrandonFG]

I was always fascinated by the microfiche archives at the local library, so this is one of my favorite rabbit holes. It’s also helped me fill in a few childhood memory gaps from when I lived in Dallas. Well worth the $20 a month.

[Matt Ottinger]

I am a huge fan of Newspapers.com.  It has been (and continues to be) indispensable in my I've Got a Secret research, and for almost anything else that needs to be researched. I would sooner give up my Netflix subscription (roughly the same price) than my Newspapers one.

So, if you type in "Jackpot" and the years 1974-1975, you'll see TV critic reviews, profiles of Geoff Edwards, articles from contestants about their experiences on the show, and routine stuff like press mentions of its debut and cancellation.

This however is an extremely bad example of what its amazing search engine can do.  If you just type in "Jackpot" and the years 1974-1975 you will get 383,803 hits, including everything from an obituary of someone born in Jackpot, Idaho to various payout results at the Detroit Racing Club.  The search engine can't read your mind.  It's going to give you every single instance it can find of what is a very common word.

What you have to do is create search choices with uncommon words that will still give you what you want.  For example, add "Geoff" to "Jackpot" and you've immediately dropped down to 12,316 hits.  Do "Geoff Edwards" (in quotes) and it drops to 5,074, all of which are likely to be about the game show.  Of course, the vast majority of those is going to be daily TV listings, the bane of anybody trying to do deeper TV research.  It's a great tool, but like any tool, its greatness depends largely on how you use it.

[carlisle96]

I typed Jackpot NBC and it took me right to the game show and TV listings without all the fat

[Matt Ottinger]

I typed Jackpot NBC and it took me right to the game show and TV listings without all the fat

Sure.  You narrowed the search by adding "NBC".  You didn't mention that in your original post.

[carlisle96]

I didn't think about it because I used to do such research as part of my job... I was just giving an example of what you can find on newspapers.com. If you type, let's say Magnificent Marble Machine 1975-1976, you won't get 300,000 hits. It'll cut right to the chase.

[Matt Ottinger]

If you type, let's say Magnificent Marble Machine 1975-1976, you won't get 300,000 hits. It'll cut right to the chase.

Much better example.

[gamed121683]

If you type, let's say Magnificent Marble Machine 1975-1976, you won't get 300,000 hits. It'll cut right to the chase.

Surprised it didn't read "TILT!"

[clemon79]

If you type, let's say Magnificent Marble Machine 1975-1976, you won't get 300,000 hits. It'll cut right to the chase.

Much better example.

Good luck searching Google for information on Password.

[aaron sica]

Good luck searching Google for information on Password.

I had many, many more problems searching for information on Go.

[Mr. Matté]

You should see the crazy things that showed up when searching for that Bill Anderson/Sarah Purcell show.

On-topic, I used to like newspapers.com a lot more when you can easily get a crappy OCR version of articles for free. Even free snippets of articles done by others (mostly by Wikipedians) are behind paywalls today.