The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Jimmy Owen on December 31, 2003, 07:12:44 AM
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The post on hosts driving to work got me thinking what a typical day must have been like for a NYC game show host in the '60s. Some hosts got up early (Hugh Downs, Bill Cullen) to make it in for their morning general-interest tv or radio show. Some went in a little later because of the Broadway play they were in or maybe they had to play sidekick on a late night talk show (Gene Rayburn, Ed McMahon). Maybe grab a coffee or a bite to eat between shows. For some reason, I always envisioned Gene walking into 30 Rock at about 3:55pm, doing a breezy half-hour of MG and walking out precisely at 4:25pm.
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And, of course, there was Hugh Downs before spending most of the day at NBC, doing Concentration in the AM and Jack Paar's show in the PM.
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[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 07:32 AM\'] And, of course, there was Hugh Downs before spending most of the day at NBC, doing Concentration in the AM and Jack Paar's show in the PM. [/quote]
Wasn't Hugh Downs also doing the Today Show and 20/20 at the time?
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 02:43 PM\'] [quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 07:32 AM\'] And, of course, there was Hugh Downs before spending most of the day at NBC, doing Concentration in the AM and Jack Paar's show in the PM. [/quote]
Wasn't Hugh Downs also doing the Today Show and 20/20 at the time? [/quote]
According to IMDB, he left "Today" in 1971. 20/20 wasn't until the late 70s.
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[quote name=\'gameshowguy2000\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 02:43 PM\'] [quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 07:32 AM\'] And, of course, there was Hugh Downs before spending most of the day at NBC, doing Concentration in the AM and Jack Paar's show in the PM. [/quote]
Wasn't Hugh Downs also doing the Today Show and 20/20 at the time? [/quote]
Nope. For six years, he was helming both the Today show and Concentration. 20/20 he anchored while also doing the PBS series Over Easy.
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Gene Rayburn did five Match Games per day back in that era.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 03:40 PM\'] Gene Rayburn did five Match Games per day back in that era. [/quote]
As someone naive enough in the late 1970s to think that these shows were actually, well, live, I could understand Jimmy's envisionment (if that's not a word, sue me ;-D)--it'd be nice if I could recall the revelation that wised me up to the fact that they weren't. So what was the last regularly scheduled daily game show that was actually done live instead of doing five in one day, anyway?
Doug -- Happy New Year!
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Although he wasn't a GS host at the time, Grant Tinker's book "Tinker in Television" describes Allen Ludden as being a busy man as far as local NY celebs went in the 50s, hosting a morning chat show on WABC, playing sidecick on a WPIX mid-afternoon talk show, and then hosting a local Bandstand-type show later in the afternoon.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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And Gene and Bill did Monitor on the weekends.....Ed McMahon did it for a couple of years too.