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The great glut of games of 1975 began its very gradual but eventually very telling wane at 4:28pm on this date thirty years ago (11/26/1975).
Up to now, usually when a game show was cancelled, there was some mollification as that meant a new game would quite likely premiere in its time period or at least in some vacant spot on the daytime schedule created by this cancellation.
But when You Don't Say was pulled its replacement was The Edge Of Night having just moved over from CBS.
The expansion of As The World Turns to a full hour of compelling drama was not so terrible as the thirty minutes it inherited was courtesy of the move of The Edge Of Night.
However, Give-N-Take was dumped to make way for reruns of All In The Family.
Mercifully, 3 For The Money was discontinued two days later to allow for the temporary 1-hour format granted to Wheel Of Fortune so at least a game took its spot on the NBC grid.
Soon further soap opera length extensions and sitcom reruns would displace our beloved games. Sanford And Son, Chico and the Man, The Jeffersons, Alice, Diff'rent Strokes and others.
I kept the local pin store in business when Break The Bank was sacrificed for One Life To Live and General Hospital to become 45-minute shows as I continually stuck those pins in Fred Silverman voodoo dolls.
How did we get to that lowly state? Programmers who detested games? Petitions by misguided soap opera fans? How? I ask.
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Ratings and relationships probably were the culprit. ABC more than likely wanted the P&G business, thus EON. As far as BTB, though it was highly rated in total viewers for the season, it was not as highly rated as the NBC or CBS soaps in the 2:30 slot. ABC probably thought it could wound "The Doctors" with the in-house production OLTL and keep the audience all the way till 4 by starting GH at 3:15. If you've already missed a quarter hour of the competing show, there is less of a desire to switch channels. CBS blinked by moving MG. Then came Luke and Laura and the rest is history. I don't think there was an animus towards game shows per se, but there was a desire for younger demos.
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There were a bunch of really, really awful games out there at the time. Does anyone seriously want to see Give 'n' Take, the 1975 version of You Don't Say, or Blank Check again, save for us hardcores?
I'll note again here that the ratings for Break the Bank in the 1976 are based on the first three weeks the show aired. I suspect they dropped after that -- otherwise someone would have found a slot for the show.
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[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 26 2005, 09:29 PM\']There were a bunch of really, really awful games out there at the time. Does anyone seriously want to see Give 'n' Take, the 1975 version of You Don't Say, or Blank Check again, save for us hardcores?
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Surely a few more than wanted to see the great Diamond Head Game in 1997-98 when GSN pulled it out of mothballs.
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Right, Zach...and don't call me Shirley.
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[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 26 2005, 09:29 PM\']There were a bunch of really, really awful games out there at the time. Does anyone seriously want to see Give 'n' Take, the 1975 version of You Don't Say, or Blank Check again, save for us hardcores?
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Oh, come now, Curt. Being rational takes all the fun out of it. ;-)
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If you ask me, ABC started the decline back in June of 1975 when they replaced Blankety Blanks with Brady Bunch reruns.
Here's how the scenario should have played out: ABC keeps its Brady repeats until September of '75, and then replaces them with Blankety Blanks. Then, that show gets the ax in late December, ABC moves Showoffs to the former Blanks time period, and The Neighbors is slotted into the latter's time period.
This lasts until April of 1976; when Showoffs is replaced by Happy Days repeats, and The Neighbors is replaced (as it would actually be) by Break the Bank '76.
Agree or disagree?
Cordially,
Tammy Warner--the 'Suzanna Williams of the Big Board!'
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If I had been ABC, I would have given "The Big Showdown" another 26 weeks at noon in place of "Showoffs," especially after Larry Blyden died. Reason? "Jeopardy" did well in that slot on NBC and I really liked that show. The YDS! revival would not have occurred and "Ryan's Hope" would have gotten the 4pm slot while "Split Second" would have gotten some more time at 12:30. I'll go with Tammy's idea regardng the BB's. I would have put "Edge of Night" on at 2:30 (assuming P&G would allow competition with ATWT) in December, moving Rhyme and Reason to 11:30am. "Showoffs" would probably go in for LMAD at 1:30, after adequate prep time for Bobby Van. "The Neighbors" probably wouldn't have happened had I programmed ABC.
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I would have put "Edge of Night" on at 2:30 (assuming P&G would allow competition with ATWT)
No, they wouldn't...one rule was that P&G soaps on competing networks could not air opposite one another, which is why the original plan (following ATWT's hr expansion) to move EoN back to its former 3 PM slot was vetoed (Another World was airing there on NBC), thus leading to the eventual idea of moving EoN to ABC.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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[quote name=\'calliaume\' date=\'Nov 26 2005, 10:29 PM\']There were a bunch of really, really awful games out there at the time. Does anyone seriously want to see Give 'n' Take, the 1975 version of You Don't Say, or Blank Check again, save for us hardcores?
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I gotta tell ya - "Blank Check" was a very intriguing battle of wits (it wasn't really ESP, truth to tell), especially when the checkwriter was trying to outguess the challenger on the fourth number (thousands digit) on the check. Do you go low, or high?
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[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Nov 27 2005, 08:18 PM\']
I would have put "Edge of Night" on at 2:30 (assuming P&G would allow competition with ATWT)
No, they wouldn't...one rule was that P&G soaps on competing networks could not air opposite one another, which is why the original plan (following ATWT's hr expansion) to move EoN back to its former 3 PM slot was vetoed (Another World was airing there on NBC), thus leading to the eventual idea of moving EoN to ABC.
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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4 pm had P&G's EoN against P&G's "Somerset" on NBC, but maybe it wasn't as big of a deal than it would be with one of their major soaps.
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Nov 27 2005, 07:35 PM\']4 pm had P&G's EoN against P&G's "Somerset" on NBC, but maybe it wasn't as big of a deal than it would be with one of their major soaps.
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Wasn't the officially sanctioned time for SOMERSET 1PM ET (I seem to recall that NBC routinely fed shows for a 1PM ET/12N Everywhere Else showing with a refeed at 4PM ET/3PM EE for affiliates who ran local news at 12N EE)?
Doug
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The "official" time for "Somerset" was 4, but a lot of stations ran it at 1.
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[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'Nov 27 2005, 08:18 PM\']
one rule was that P&G soaps on competing networks could not air opposite one another, which is why the original plan (following ATWT's hr expansion) to move EoN back to its former 3 PM slot was vetoed (Another World was airing there on NBC), thus leading to the eventual idea of moving EoN to ABC.
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Then how did Another World go up against all or part of ATWT for AW's last two decades on the air? P&G must have changed the rule at some point.
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I'll note again here that the ratings for Break the Bank in the 1976 are based on the first three weeks the show aired. I suspect they dropped after that -- otherwise someone would have found a slot for the show.
I'm sure Jimmy posted some ratings for later in "Break the Bank's" run and they were high all the way through.
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I gotta tell ya - "Blank Check" was a very intriguing battle of wits (it wasn't really ESP, truth to tell), especially when the checkwriter was trying to outguess the challenger on the fourth number (thousands digit) on the check. Do you go low, or high?
I gotta agree. Maybe these shows weren't up to today's "Jeopardy" or "Millionaire" standards, but to my young eyes they were fascinating when they were originally on and I'd like to see more of them. It was a thrill to see the third episode of the actual series that just hit the trading curcuit. I seem to vaguely remember the rules changing later in the run (I think Curt alludes to this on his page), and I'd certainly like to know how - I can't remember and can't figure out how they did.
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And it must be pointed out that it was game show lover Lin Bolen who made the call to expand "Another World" to an hour, thereby setting in motion the expansion of more soaps to an hour and effectively shunting game shows to the morning hours, since conventional wisdom was that soaps didn't work in the morning.
And it also has to be remembered that this was about the time the other networks joined ABC in paying more attention to demographics--and then, as now, game shows skewed ancient, with an influx of little kids during the summer months when they were off from school.
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And it must be pointed out that it was game show lover Lin Bolen who made the call to expand "Another World" to an hour, thereby setting in motion the expansion of more soaps to an hour and effectively shunting game shows to the morning hours, since conventional wisdom was that soaps didn't work in the morning.
Too bad NBC didn't consider that before they canned Blockbusters and Battlestars so Texas could be moved to 11 AM...if that show couldn't compete w/one of TV's top soaps (General Hopsital, which it orig. aired opposite), why would it be able to compete w/one of TV's top game shows?
Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")
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However, Give-N-Take was dumped to make way for reruns of All In The Family.
Yes, and it was on this date 30 years ago (12/1/75) that "All in the Family" joined CBS's daytime lineup at 3 p.m., forcing "Match Game" and "Tattletales" back to their original 3:30 and 4 p.m. slots. Although "Showoffs" would air it's last episode before the end of the year, these were pretty well the last moves in a wild and interesting year for game shows.