The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: xavier45 on April 25, 2012, 12:46:30 PM
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Most of the interviews with Roger are usually about The Price Is Right, but this one went on to talk about another show he worked on, Match Game. In this interview he talks about the shows success and then why he believes the show met its demise in 1982. He also goes into detail about Why he wasn't a fan of Gene Rayburn, and his thoughts on Richard Dawson. I have to say, I'm kind of surprised at what he said about Gene.
http://sb2tlopg.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/interview-with-roger-dobkowitz-pt-2/
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Neat insights. The one thing I disagree with was his remarks about editing the show. I'm actually with Ira Skutch on that one. When GSN was airing both the syndicated run and the CBS version, I got curious and watched the CBS episodes with a stopwatch for a week. Generally, about two minutes of each episode was total silence.
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Gene cheated on Helen?!?! It's a wonder she stuck with him.
And nothing on Charles? The only scandalous thing about him was he had just as big an ego as Richard did; only Charles never would own up to it.
I rest my case.
Cordially,
Tammy
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I rest my case.
Which was what, exactly?
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In addition to all the interesting things about the show, I didn't know that "cue cards" was that new a term!
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I appreciate Roger's candor in his recollection of Gene Rayburn.
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I appreciate Roger's candor in his recollection of Gene Rayburn.
C'mon, don't leave us hanging. What else have you heard?
\There's nothing more absolutely delicious than 40-year-old gossip.
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“well, I guess there’s a reason these cards are called “idiot cards”"
Information was dispersed.
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Any interview that uses three of my Youtube clips gets a thumbs up from me!
Bias aside, good interview and it's nice that the interviewer remembered that Roger was once a minor backstage celebrity on the show and got some questions in about his experiences there.
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I appreciate Roger's candor in his recollection of Gene Rayburn.
C'mon, don't leave us hanging. What else have you heard?
About Gene Rayburn, not terribly much. I appreciate that Roger didn't whitewash him. From others who worked on MG (Ira, Bobby, Jake, Elliot) I've never heard much dirt.
\There's nothing more absolutely delicious than 40-year-old gossip.
Let's make it 35 years. Please don't age us prematurely.
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Very interesting, but also somewhat surprising facts about Gene. I agree with Adam that editing made sense, esp. if they wanted to get more game time. Although a lot of (drunken) banter was cut, what always gets me about the later eps. was how jarring the edits were. Almost haphazard in a way.
I also agree that a lot of chemistry went bye-bye when Richard did. McLean and Bill Daily were good substitutes, but it just wasn't the same. I do wonder how long Roger expected the show to continue, either with Richard or without the flaws he noted...9 years is a hell of a run, and the show simply ran out of steam by 1980.
I don't think tighter writing or cast chemistry would've changed that; they wrote, what, 10-15 Showcases for a week's worth of daytime and nighttime TPiRs, probably less if there was only one skit per episode? Compared to a good 10 riddles per show on MG, and I could see how burnout could happen.
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I'm not sure I agree with Roger's theory on repeating material. Who's going to remember a MG question from 4 - 5 years prior, aside from a few characters familiar to us here?
There were preserved in a MG office the green 3" x 5" index cards containing the questions used in New York.
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What Roger could also be talking about, besides re-using questions, is that if you were a daily watcher, they often had questions that would result in certain answers that were repeated.
In the early run, they had a few questions about "Dirty Dan", and quite frequently the panel would say "manure". Whether they anticipated that or not, they realized that "manure" would be THE answer no matter what when referring to Dirty Dan, and stopped writing those questions. I don't recall any questions about Dirty Dan after '73.
I remember a question that resulted in the same answer within the same WEEK, whether it was intentional or not. During MG 77, one of the questions was something like "The head of the firing squad said 'The condemned prisoner has been given one last request and we MUST honor it. During the execution, he wants us ALL to wear BLANKS" Of course, the definitive answer was BLINDFOLDS.
Later on that week, they had a similar question. "The condemned prisoner said 'My wife is WONDERFUL... for the execution later on today, she knitted me a BLANK." Again, the definitive answer was BLINDFOLD.
Of course, there were many questions that would get the response "tinkle" and "boobs". They stopped questions of that nature sometime in the '78 run. I'm not saying those questions were THAT frequent, but enough to be milked for the first 5 years.
Another thing, whenever there was a question about someone "losing his/her BLANK", quite frequently "virginity" or some variation of that was said.
Despite the repetitive nature of some of the questions, what made the show work was the strength of the panel and Gene.
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I'm not sure I agree with Roger's theory on repeating material. Who's going to remember a MG question from 4 - 5 years prior, aside from a few characters familiar to us here?
There were preserved in a MG office the green 3" x 5" index cards containing the questions used in New York.
One of the show's writers told me that questions were NEVER reused. But I think the show could get away with it.
On a similar tack, "Wheel of Fortune" has finally, after 37 years on the air, begun repeating puzzles. I'm sure I was the only one in the room who noticed.
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On a similar tack, "Wheel of Fortune" has finally, after 37 years on the air, begun repeating puzzles. I'm sure I was the only one in the room who noticed.
I always wondered what took them so long. In their case, they could simply add a word or two, since they love gratuitously wordy puzzles.
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On a similar tack, "Wheel of Fortune" has finally, after 37 years on the air, begun repeating puzzles. I'm sure I was the only one in the room who noticed.
Just for fun, which one did you notice?
Also, I'd be willing to bet that this wasn't a practice started that recently.
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On a similar tack, "Wheel of Fortune" has finally, after 37 years on the air, begun repeating puzzles. I'm sure I was the only one in the room who noticed.
I always wondered what took them so long. In their case, they could simply add a word or two, since they love gratuitously wordy puzzles.
It has been a policy on Wheel for some time that a puzzle can be used three times before it is "retired." I don't remember where I originally learned this, but I researched it some years back (as in like 10-15 years ago) after I began noticing puzzles I thought I remember being used in the past. If the number of repetitions being seen recently seems to have increased, maybe this rule has been upped to 5 or something.
As for Rayburn, I remember hearing online (I thought it was on here) that his demeanor on set wasn't always reputable. Roger's commments make it look like it was a lot worse than what I had heard before now, but I can't say his comments surprised me.
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There were preserved in a MG office the green 3" x 5" index cards containing the questions used in New York.
A couple of years ago, Dick DeBartolo was selling "original" MG question cards from the NBC run. I bought a couple of sets. They're on white or off-white card stock.
Were the green ones for a separate permanent file, or something?
Minutiae, I know.
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Blame it on Old Man Periwinkle. He was in charge of filing them away, and one day, he forgot where he was and _______ed on them.
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Were the green ones for a separate permanent file, or something?
Maybe they were used on camera?
If the drawing exists for the Lightning Round mechanism, maybe Corey has his dad's drawing for the '60s MG question box or the trilon mechanism or the score roller.
We used to rewrite and reuse puzzles on P+. That was part of Jake's job.
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Another example of a stale/repetitive formula is how everytime a question was Superman related, the answer was always supposed to be a variant of "land on his BLANK" with "S" as in their idea of a pun that after the tenth time wasn't funny at all.
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If the drawing exists for the Lightning Round mechanism, maybe Corey has his dad's drawing for the '60s MG question box or the trilon mechanism or the score roller.
Something I love about that '60s MG question dispenser: It was not mechanical at all. Dick De -- who sat just offstage, behind a curtain -- would attach the card to a clip, which was on the end of a rod. Then he'd push the rod up a track, which led into the box. A mechanical sound effect would be played simultaneously, in the control room.
This comes directly from Dick De.
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I don't think tighter writing or cast chemistry would've changed that; they wrote, what, 10-15 Showcases for a week's worth of daytime and nighttime TPiRs, probably less if there was only one skit per episode? Compared to a good 10 riddles per show on MG, and I could see how burnout could happen.
What also springs to mind for me is that by the early 90s, it seems like they did one of the old stand-bys (train depot, every room in the house, Janice and Kathleen go to the mall) at least a couple of times a month, if not more like weekly.
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As much as a small handful of us might remember some of the more clever Showcases through the decades, I would suggest that the writing for Match Game was a constant necessity, and had to stay at a reasonably high level of quality for the show to work at all. Whereas on Price, the show would have gone on just fine if nobody ever wrote a single humorous Showcase.
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What also springs to mind for me is that by the early 90s, it seems like they did one of the old stand-bys (train depot, every room in the house, Janice and Kathleen go to the mall) at least a couple of times a month, if not more like weekly.
You've now reminded me of the "Prizes related to the word ___" showcases that seemed to be a staff favorite in the late-90s/early-2000s...
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I never heard about Rayburn being unfaithful to his wife. I'm a little surprised, but I'm figuring Roger wouldn't lie about something about this. I can only imagine what he knows about Bob Barker that he might be keeping to himself. He does speak nicely of Tom Kennedy and Dennis James. I wonder if Roger worked on other G-T shows besides TPIR and MG.
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Did Barker ever have a grudge against Dennis James? Just curious.
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I seem to recall him mentioning somewhere that he worked on the 70s version of Now You See It.
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Did Barker ever have a grudge against Dennis James? Just curious.
Why would he need to?
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If the drawing exists for the Lightning Round mechanism, maybe Corey has his dad's drawing for the '60s MG question box or the trilon mechanism or the score roller.
Something I love about that '60s MG question dispenser: It was not mechanical at all. Dick De -- who sat just offstage, behind a curtain -- would attach the card to a clip, which was on the end of a rod. Then he'd push the rod up a track, which led into the box. A mechanical sound effect would be played simultaneously, in the control room.
This comes directly from Dick De.
Exactly correct. And the mechanical sound effect that was played was that of an electric cash register (for the kids, that's like the one used on TPiR's Grocery Game). And that comes directly from Mark G.
Randy
tvrandywest.com
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I never heard about Rayburn being unfaithful to his wife. I'm a little surprised, but I'm figuring Roger wouldn't lie about something about this. I can only imagine what he knows about Bob Barker that he might be keeping to himself. He does speak nicely of Tom Kennedy and Dennis James. I wonder if Roger worked on other G-T shows besides TPIR and MG.
Mr. Rayburn was very fond of women, and that included women other than his wife, during her life and following her passing. And that came directly from Gene R.
Randy
tvrandywest.com
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the mechanical sound effect that was played was that of an electric cash register (for the kids, that's like the one used on TPiR's Grocery Game). And that comes directly from Mark G.
That was for the rotating panels in front of the players that said "MATCH". I don't think the question box had a sound effect. Gene would simply pull the card out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6DBUZerig&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLF0D49640C1E89065
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What also springs to mind for me is that by the early 90s, it seems like they did one of the old stand-bys (train depot, every room in the house, Janice and Kathleen go to the mall) at least a couple of times a month, if not more like weekly.
You've now reminded me of the "Prizes related to the word ___" showcases that seemed to be a staff favorite in the late-90s/early-2000s...
Ugh, those were awful. The worst I can remember was prizes related to the word spot, and for the final prize the script was "...and finally, behind the door you'll spot a brand new car!" Pretty obvious they weren't even trying at that point.
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I seem to recall him mentioning somewhere that he worked on the 70s version of Now You See It.
Indeed he did. He is listed sixth on the list of six people mentioned under the heading Production Staff.
Source: The credit crawl on the NYSI episode where Rosemary broke the $17000 jackpot.
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I never heard about Rayburn being unfaithful to his wife. I'm a little surprised, but I'm figuring Roger wouldn't lie about something about this. I can only imagine what he knows about Bob Barker that he might be keeping to himself. He does speak nicely of Tom Kennedy and Dennis James. I wonder if Roger worked on other G-T shows besides TPIR and MG.
Mr. Rayburn was very fond of women, and that included women other than his wife, during her life and following her passing. And that came directly from Gene R.
Randy
tvrandywest.com
There was this motel in Encino....
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWdNUfdioD8
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There was this motel in Encino....
Where girls from Genoa pleased Geno.
Once vino was drank
They'd blank on his blank
Til Carlo would shout "Tempo fino!"
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There was this motel in Encino....
Where girls from Genoa pleased Geno.
Once vino was drank
They'd blank on his blank
Til Carlo would shout "Tempo fino!"
If this were Facebook this would get a "like."
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On a similar tack, "Wheel of Fortune" has finally, after 37 years on the air, begun repeating puzzles. I'm sure I was the only one in the room who noticed.
Looks like this happened on Wednesday night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGlJv0v3xFo&feature=share%27%2C%29
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There was this motel in Encino....
Where girls from Genoa pleased Geno.
Once vino was drank
They'd blank on his blank
Til Carlo would shout "Tempo fino!"
Thread over. Someone wanna get the lights on the way out?
/bravo!
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The "production staff" were people hired only for taping days at the low, low rate (IIRC) of $25 per day plus a catered lunch. They were not on the show's payroll as salaried employees of the show. Writers ("editorial staff"), researchers, contestant coordinators, producers, directors, EPs, "creative consultants", etc. were on the show's payroll. Announcers and models were considered daily hires (per diems) and were paid scale. Emcees made whatever they agreed upon with Mr. Goodson, or in the case of Bob Barker, the network. We also used G-T employees who held AFTRA cards as stand-ins for rehearsals and they were paid AFTRA scale.
To the best of my knowledge, Roger was not on the MG payroll but was a per-diem studio P.A. If he was listed on the credits of NYSI as being on the production staff, he was also a per-diem studio P.A. for that show.
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Of course, there were many questions that would get the response "tinkle" and "boobs". They stopped questions of that nature sometime in the '78 run. I'm not saying those questions were THAT frequent, but enough to be milked for the first 5 years.
Forgive me, but I couldn't let this unintentional funny go by the wayside.....
The reference to boobs followed by "milked" was just too good to ignore!
Very disappointing things to learn about Mr. Rayburn I must say. He did have an ego, that much was certain, but I never realized how cheap he was, or how surly he could become off the air, at least as told by Roger. There are always 3 sides to a story, side 1, side 2, and the truth, which usually lies someplace in between.
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I know I heard somwhere that Gene got hepatitis. Maybe that's how he got it - fooling around with other women. IIRC, David Letterman was talking about it while he was interviewing someone. Rayburn's hepatitis came up as a subject of discussion, for whatever reason.
Ahem. (http://"http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/bowling-turkey-hi.png")