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The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: jimlangefan on May 31, 2016, 01:33:01 PM

Title: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: jimlangefan on May 31, 2016, 01:33:01 PM
Harry Friedman now holds the Guinness World Record for producing the most game show episodes.  11,128 to be exact as of March 31st.  This also includes shows he did before Wheel & Jeopardy!  Congrats and continued success Harry!!

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/jeopardy-wheel-of-fortune-guinness-world-record-harry-friedman-1201785370/
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: TLEberle on May 31, 2016, 01:41:28 PM
I saw this yesterday and thought it was curious because wouldn't Mark Goodson be either close or beyond this? It reminds me of when they declared Pat Sajak to have hosted the most episodes of a single series.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Matt Ottinger on May 31, 2016, 02:45:44 PM
I saw this yesterday and thought it was curious because wouldn't Mark Goodson be either close or beyond this? It reminds me of when they declared Pat Sajak to have hosted the most episodes of a single series.

To the degree that it matters, I don't think Goodson was routinely credited as an EP on his shows.

To the degree that it doesn't, these things are almost always self-reported to Guinness and used as cheap publicity stunts for both parties. Verification is not a high priority.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: cmjb13 on May 31, 2016, 03:28:09 PM
Little known Guinness record...

Harry also holds the record for amount of audience members leaving during a taping by a game show producer.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Thunder on May 31, 2016, 05:07:26 PM
...Verification is not a high priority.

There's a 37% chance that some member of this board will claim that the real number is 11,127 because the February 18th, 2002 episode of Wheel of Fortune had to be scrapped because contestants got sickened by diesel fumes in the middle of Round #3
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: MSTieScott on May 31, 2016, 05:20:30 PM
Since this board did such a good job poking holes in the last Jeopardy!/Guinness claim...

What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: TLEberle on May 31, 2016, 05:22:00 PM
There's a 37% chance that some member of this board will claim that the real number is 11,127 because the February 18th, 2002 episode of Wheel of Fortune had to be scrapped because contestants got sickened by diesel fumes in the middle of Round #3
Silly rabbit: Wheel of Fortune wasn't offering diesel-powered cars that week.

/to Scott's question, Pyramid would account for about 2,000 by itself.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Matt Ottinger on May 31, 2016, 06:00:51 PM
What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.

Give him 4,000 for Password and Price at G-T, assuming he was credited with their entire 50s-60s runs.   I don't think he was with TTTT for very long, though I might be mistaken.  My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   A thousand or so for Eye Guess, another thou for Jackpot, a little less for Three on a Match.  That gets us around 9,000, but after that we have a bunch of 65's and 130's and a long way to go.

If someone has a firmer and MUCH higher total for Pyramid, then maybe he's close.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: TLEberle on May 31, 2016, 06:12:47 PM
My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   
There was a method to my madness--I think the figure 1,585 stuck in my head for the 10k-20k run for some reason. Plus you have the 80s and 90s versions, and that's at least another thousand just from that, possibly 2,000 more. All up that's a lot but that's still a fair bit away from even ten thousand.


Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: BrandonFG on May 31, 2016, 06:26:46 PM
My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take. I managed to dig up Kris Lane's old Pyramid archives (https://web.archive.org/web/20040210153030/http://www.xanfan.com/celebrities/index.htm), and when multiplying the number of weeks by five episodes, I got 4,275. Now, take away all the episodes preempted for Watergate or Iran Contra hearings, or whatever holiday parade, and I'd say 4,200-4,250?
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Matt Ottinger on May 31, 2016, 06:55:03 PM
My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take.

Then yeah. We proved Guinness wrong again.  Yay, us!
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: TLEberle on May 31, 2016, 07:02:26 PM
Then yeah. We proved Guinness wrong again.  Yay, us!
Three times! New world record!
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Fedya on May 31, 2016, 07:36:11 PM
Bob Barker would say it's the first time it's ever happened.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: jimlangefan on May 31, 2016, 10:41:25 PM
What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.

Give him 4,000 for Password and Price at G-T, assuming he was credited with their entire 50s-60s runs.   I don't think he was with TTTT for very long, though I might be mistaken.  My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   A thousand or so for Eye Guess, another thou for Jackpot, a little less for Three on a Match.  That gets us around 9,000, but after that we have a bunch of 65's and 130's and a long way to go.

If someone has a firmer and MUCH higher total for Pyramid, then maybe he's close.

Maybe not as close as we think.  He was gone from G-T after Price ended, which would mean he didn't produce Password after 1965.  IIRC, he was gone from TTTT by 1961. 
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Matt Ottinger on May 31, 2016, 11:21:56 PM
Dammit, I blame Scott.  I really had better things to do tonight.

Culled from a variety of sources.  To estimate longer runs, I assumed 250 shows a year, plus an extra 20 per additional month.

More or less chronologically, the Stewart company output:

Eye Guess:  930
The Face Is Familiar:  18
Personality:  571
You're Putting Me On:  130
Three on a Match:  750
Pyramid: 4200 (going with Brandon's number)
Jackpot:  1105
Winning Streak:  130
Blankety Blanks:  50
Shoot for the Stars:  180
Pass the Buck:  62
The Love Experts:  130 (A guess.  Daily syndication, but how many did they make?)
Chain Reaction:  115 (does not include the USA version shot in Canada)
Go:  79
Double Talk: 90

That's 8,540 just as an independent.  There were 2,263 Price episodes and he was there for just about all of it.  That's 10,803 without counting Password or To Tell The Truth.  So yeah. I'm comfortable saying Harry's not quite there yet.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Adam Nedeff on June 01, 2016, 01:29:44 AM
The Love Experts:  130 (A guess.  Daily syndication, but how many did they make?)
I don't have my source article anymore, but when I was researching Quizmaster, I seem to recall coming across an article where Bob indicated that he was on the hook for 195 episodes (39 weeks). That would bring our total to 10,868. BUT...

Quote
There were 2,263 Price episodes and he was there for just about all of it.

Bob departed from TPIR with about a year to go, so subtract 250 from that number, and that brings the best-guess estimate down to 10,618.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: tvwxman on June 01, 2016, 10:10:27 AM
Not to throw more tinder into the fire, but Harry also produced a lot of Heatter Quigley shows, didn't he? Or do I have my job titles wrong.

Squares, High Rollers, come to mind.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Matt Ottinger on June 01, 2016, 10:18:46 AM
Not to throw more tinder into the fire, but Harry also produced a lot of Heatter Quigley shows, didn't he? Or do I have my job titles wrong.

The Guinness story says they took those into account.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: TLEberle on June 01, 2016, 06:22:27 PM
My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take. I managed to dig up Kris Lane's old Pyramid archives (https://web.archive.org/web/20040210153030/http://www.xanfan.com/celebrities/index.htm), and when multiplying the number of weeks by five episodes, I got 4,275. Now, take away all the episodes preempted for Watergate or Iran Contra hearings, or whatever holiday parade, and I'd say 4,200-4,250?
I don't think you take away for the Watergate or Iran Contra stuff because won't those just get moved a day back? What you deduct for is New Year's football, Thanksgiving parades and the like, which would probably get you to the number range that you suggest.

Four thousand episodes of Pyramid is a feat to be lauded.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Otm Shank on June 01, 2016, 10:10:14 PM
Four thousand episodes of Pyramid is a feat to be lauded.
Maybe we could do that by declaring a new world record out of thin air.
Title: Re: Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder
Post by: Unrealtor on June 01, 2016, 11:06:15 PM
My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take. I managed to dig up Kris Lane's old Pyramid archives (https://web.archive.org/web/20040210153030/http://www.xanfan.com/celebrities/index.htm), and when multiplying the number of weeks by five episodes, I got 4,275. Now, take away all the episodes preempted for Watergate or Iran Contra hearings, or whatever holiday parade, and I'd say 4,200-4,250?
I don't think you take away for the Watergate or Iran Contra stuff because won't those just get moved a day back? What you deduct for is New Year's football, Thanksgiving parades and the like, which would probably get you to the number range that you suggest.

Probably depends on how often they tried to get their production weeks and the air weeks back in sync. I remember hearing that the summer and fall of '73 were so bad for pre-emptions that Goodson eventually gave up trying to do it with the early weeks of Match Game and just produced five episodes at a time until it was over.