Author Topic: BtB '76 (Read 11866 times)

fishbulb · « **Reply #30 on:** November 04, 2009, 08:11:34 PM »

Oh, how I loved this show. It's the only B&E show that I have a real fondness for. Tom Kennedy was always my favorite host, and I also taped and kept that great theme music - my favorite ever. It looks like I wasn't the only one blown away by the theme.

That Don Guy · « **Reply #31 on:** November 04, 2009, 09:38:55 PM »

[quote name=\'tvmitch\' post=\'229693\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:27 PM\']Agreed with most everyone else, aside from the bonus-game-just-to-have-one, this was a fun show. Kennedy and Barry both hosted it well.[/quote]

Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?

-- Don

Don Howard · « **Reply #32 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:04:42 PM »

[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'229872\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 09:38 PM\']Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?[/quote]
It did not.

golden-road · « **Reply #33 on:** November 04, 2009, 10:06:59 PM »

[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'229872\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 10:38 PM\'][quote name=\'tvmitch\' post=\'229693\' date=\'Nov 2 2009, 01:27 PM\']Agreed with most everyone else, aside from the bonus-game-just-to-have-one, this was a fun show. Kennedy and Barry both hosted it well.[/quote]

Did the daytime version ever have a bonus round?

-- Don
[/quote]

Nope; the daytime show had a "straddling" format.

ChuckNet · « **Reply #34 on:** November 17, 2009, 11:54:39 PM »

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'229860\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 05:50 PM\']

Quote

And yes, the theme song is glorious. That was the clincher for buying the TV game themes CD.

Agreed on the theme. Unfortunately the version included on the CD wasn't in the best of quality.
[/quote]

Funnily enough, I recieved a 45 dub of the theme on casette a good 3 years before the 2nd GSN CD was released (this is the version that was circulating on websites, etc. during that time), and despite the noticable vinyl crackle/hiss, it sounds MUCH better than the CD copy...go figure!

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

Casey Buck · « **Reply #35 on:** November 18, 2009, 12:05:25 AM »

I have a pretty good version of the BTB theme on my site.

1984Gameshowsfan · « **Reply #36 on:** November 18, 2009, 03:51:58 PM »

[quote name=\'BobbyLankford_83\' post=\'229865\' date=\'Nov 4 2009, 04:40 PM\']The last time I saw Silverman, was on a TV program, can't remember what it was, but Fred has lost a hell of a lot of weight due to diabetes, forcing him to give up martinis. And I guess he gave up the Salem cigarettes he xhain smoked going back to his days at CBS .

Did you know that Silverman worked at WGN-TV Chicago from 1960-63? (He also breifly worked at WGN's sister station,WPIX-11 in NYC before going to CBS). At Chicago's Very Own Channel 9, he gave WGN viewers The Bozo Show, Family Classics with Frazier Thomas, Garfield Goose (not to be confused with Garfield The Cat in the funnies) and The Ray Rayner Show. These shows would later get national exposure when WGN went up on satellite on Halloween 1978 joining WTCG-17 Atlanta (later WTBS and now plain old TBS) as a superstation.[/quote]

I didn't know that he worked at WGN and WPIX; as much as game show fans give him grief for cancelling BTB 76, he's cool in my book(even though I like game shows as much as everyone else here does) because he helped get one of my favorite tv shows on the air: Scooby Doo, spefically Scooby Doo Where Are You? There's info about this online but here's the basic cliff notes version: Silverman while he was on a flight from New York to Los Angeles after pitching Scooby Doo with another name which the network didn't like, heard the line Scooby Dooby Doo in Frank Sinatra's song Strangers in the Night, he then decided that Scooby Doo would be the perfect name for the main character of the show and as the saying goes The Rest Is History

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #37 on:** November 18, 2009, 05:14:10 PM »

Quote

Funnily enough, I recieved a 45 dub of the theme on casette a good 3 years before the 2nd GSN CD was released (this is the version that was circulating on websites, etc. during that time), and despite the noticable vinyl crackle/hiss, it sounds MUCH better than the CD copy...go figure!

I knew it was from vinyl because I heard the crackles...but a 45...wow! As a cut on a vinyl LP it wouldn't surprise me, but it was almost unheard of to release game show themes on 45s.

Eric Paddon · « **Reply #38 on:** March 20, 2011, 01:50:36 AM »

I've been transferring my 1997 GSN recordings to DVD recently (we would have gotten the entire run if GSN hadn't aired it only once a week on Sunday nights!) and I've detected one flaw in the show that I don't think was ever corrected even by the time of the syndicated version. More than once, I notice how Tom keeps asking a celeb to repeat his answer before he turns to the contestant and in each case it's always the celeb who gave the "false" answer, because Tom evidently doesn't have what the "false" answer is on his card so he feels this need to check again (or else he's trying to guard against the celeb having given a "false" answer that doesn't match the one he has on his card). The problem is that this always gives away what the "false" answer is to the contestant and sure enough each time this scenario happens where Tom is asking a celeb to repeat him or herself, the contestant always knows to go the other way.

It might have helped if the celebs could have had monitors or something they could consult to verify what the "true" and "false" answers were (we even had one instance where both celebs failed to give the correct answer and the question had to be tossed out) in the tradition of what the celebs on "Battlestars" had several years later. That way, Tom wouldn't have any doubt about what was said and there wouldn't be these cases of inadvertent tip-offs to the contestant on which one to pick.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #39 on:** March 20, 2011, 02:02:18 PM »

I noticed that too. I also noticed that the celebrities did seem to have some sort of information in front of them because you can almost always see them looking down just before they give the answer. Maybe each celebrity had the right answer but the first celebrity called on had the option of giving it or not(?), then the other celebrity had to make something up.

I, too, am disappointed GSN never gave us the whole run. I keep hoping that somehow it will appear on their schedule again, but it doesn't look too hopeful does it?

Vahan_Nisanian · « **Reply #40 on:** March 20, 2011, 02:05:18 PM »

Sorry to repeat myself, but I remember Mark Odor (he posts here as modor) on the GSN boards saying that ratings for BTB '76 saying that ratings were very poor by the end of its brief.

He's also not a fan of B&E, and even though it's objective, he said that because it was a B&E game, it had 0% meat to it.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #41 on:** March 20, 2011, 02:09:04 PM »

Quote

Sorry to repeat myself, but I remember Mark Odor (he posts here as modor) on the GSN boards saying that ratings for BTB '76 saying that ratings were very poor by the end of its brief.

That's not true. I believe it was Jimmy Owen who posted ratings from Variety here a few years ago that showed BTB had strong ratings for its entire network run. Same for Rhyme and Reason which was also cancelled around the same time.

Vahan_Nisanian · « **Reply #42 on:** March 20, 2011, 02:16:04 PM »

Well, even with that said, it's highly doubtful that BTB '76 will ever come back to GSN, let alone any B&E shows, especially with the majority complaining about how poorly they've held up. I never judge an old show by today's standards, I just enjoy it for what it is.

I heard in another thread from Jamie Locklin titled "Find one episode" that TJW and TTD were never big hits on GSN, and because of that, they never acquired Bullseye. If they weren't, then how come they were on GSN for such a long time? Because they didn't have anything better to put on?

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #43 on:** March 20, 2011, 02:57:39 PM »

It's also been stated that the '70s What's My Line and To Tell the Truth didn't get very good ratings either, and those also ran for years. I think they always had Bullseye but just never found a place on the schedule for it. There were rumours that only 80 episodes had been converted, but I'm not sure if I really believe that. Even if it were true, they could have used in on weekends for a while back then.

chrisholland03 · « **Reply #44 on:** March 22, 2011, 10:39:38 PM »

Quote from: gameshowlover87 on March 20, 2011, 02:16:04 PM

I heard in another thread from Jamie Locklin titled "Find one episode" that TJW and TTD were never big hits on GSN, and because of that, they never acquired Bullseye. If they weren't, then how come they were on GSN for such a long time? Because they didn't have anything better to put on?

I'll speak to the early days of GSN and leave the rest for somebody else (in advance, I'm reserving the right to faulty memory -- it was almost 17 years ago). When the network started up, they did not have all of the masters for the shows they had clearance to air. My understanding is they started converting what they had in hand to DigiBeta (which was a year old at the time) about 9 months prior to launch.

For those of us day 1 viewers, the first year was a bit repetitious-- but it was so awesome we didn't care. On memory, I remember seeing the same 6 month block of shows 3 times through before they gave us more eps. Even more memorable were the commercials - only by repetition. Sony/Tony Bennett singing 'In Other Words'. The PSA commercials for sunblock and AIDS. The Nutri-Nail / Wash N Curl Shampoo commercials. And the great original GSN commercials.

As far as Bullseye, when I last visited GSN in '97 (or was it '98...I can't remember) they had converted two L cassettes of episodes, one of which was the first week. GSN never aired the first episode because it had tracking issues -- the tape traders out there are probably familiar with that episode -- it made its way to the trading rounds courtesy of someone at GSN.

Author Topic: BtB '76 (Read 11866 times)

fishbulb