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Author Topic: Game shows with a cold open  (Read 566 times)

davidhammett

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Re: Game shows with a cold open
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2026, 08:26:19 PM »
Should we count any instance of clips of past winning moments to start the show (e.g., Pyramid, Money Maze) as cold opens?

Matt Ottinger

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Re: Game shows with a cold open
« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2026, 08:41:55 PM »
I just realized, not that this would be on anybody's radar, that for the last few seasons of QuizBusters, WE had a cold open! We would play our first set of ten questions with me standing in the audience section, then I'd throw to a recorded open before taking my usual place.  In a cursory check, I couldn't find an example of it on YouTube.  Most of the episodes that have been posted go back a lot further than that.
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BrandonFG

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Re: Game shows with a cold open
« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2026, 09:01:25 PM »
How about Win, Lose, or Draw? It started with someone drawing and everyone guessing. Bob Hilton announces the title, and Bert reveals the caricatures of the celebrities.
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SuperMatch93

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Re: Game shows with a cold open
« Reply #18 on: April 20, 2026, 09:04:47 PM »
History IQ started with a question before the intro ("...and that's how we play History IQ!"), and some early episodes of GE College Bowl started with a tossup leading into the opening sequence.

Also, GSN Split Second.
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JasonA1

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Re: Game shows with a cold open
« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2026, 09:20:21 PM »
A lot of this is going to be futile, to me, since a lot of the suggestions are not nearly as "cold" as the cold opens of scripted shows. It's hard to categorize game shows as neatly because so many of these examples start with the show's theme music and are part of the show's proper introduction. Not to mention very few game shows have an actual title sequence that takes over the screen in the sense scripted shows have them. So the lines are blurry to begin with. (e.g. I don't think anyone would consider Hollywood Squares in the '70s, or Match Game especially, to have a cold open.)

GSN Split Second ends up in that TTTT-ish category, because an announcer says the show name with no title card, and the host is introduced...THEN we play a question, and THEN we get the title card (but no announcer, no host introduction. Woof.).

-Jason
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