Switched to Buzzr for Match Game '77. The first episode featured two ties in a row that took so long to sort out, they never did get to the Audience Match. The episode ended with a request from Richard for Gene's (rather bad) imitation of Louis Armstrong. The next one skipped ahead to the next week, with Jo Ann Harris and Avery Schreiber. Avery ends up falling off a chair after a bad answer, while Richard has more luck helping a pregnant contestant with "__ Edison" in the Head-to-Head.
Headed out after I got organized. I really just needed to run some quick errands. Stopped at the Westmont Plaza first to avoid the swarm of high schoolers that tend to invade the area after classes end for the day. Grabbed Kind granola bars at a totally dead Sprouts. Picked up two bags of nuts, honey, and generic Tums at Target, along with a pretty floral journal. Went past the Library and Haddon Township High School and down the hill to the Westmont Acme. I was mainly there for yogurt, replacement brushes for my electric toothbrush, and a gift card for Lauren's birthday on Thursday. Made a very quick stop at Dollar General on the way home for toothpaste and a birthday card for Lauren.
It really wasn't the nicest day for lingering. While not raining, it was cloudy, cold, and very windy. Even Newton Lake Park wasn't that busy. I dodged a dog walker and heard little kids running around at the playground, but it was mostly pretty quiet. The leaves here are only just starting to turn colors, though they still mostly remain green.
Went straight upstairs when I got home. Had a quick peanut butter and honey and apple lunch while watching the Match Game '77 episode Buzzr skipped earlier on YouTube. The reason Buzzr has never showed this episode and GSN no longer does is a question about how orange juice makes you __. Most of the answers awkwardly skewered anti-gay singer and activist Anita Bryant. Charles even (understandably) refused to answer the question at first.
Put the laundry downstairs, then dug into research on editing and proofreading. Once again, yes, I know these are difficult industries to break into...but what industries these days aren't, particularly for writers? I need to try something. I wish I could figure out where all the entry-level jobs are.
Switched to writing around 5:30. (I also finally remembered to put the laundry in the dryer around this time.) Richard hacks his way through the brush, which Joyce appreciates. The woods are getting darker, and she's getting more worried. There may be a storm. Charles can't help thinking he's seen Richard before, maybe in another lifetime...
Broke for Match Game '79 at 7 and to bring the laundry upstairs. We got many jokes about a rather round little man who collected rhino figures and memorabilia and seemed to be really into it. He even had a figure with him. Alas, he wasn't much of a player. Charles was the only one who ever matched him.
Had dinner with friends, then returned to Buzzr for Trivia Trap. This is one of the three shows they're running for this year's "Bob-tober" marathon, and probably the least well-known today. In the original format, a team of young people and a team of older people played against each other, but by the time of the episodes I saw, they'd switched to two teams of celebrities playing each other. Here, three cast members from the ABC soaps One Life to Live and General Hospital first try to guess true-false questions, then had to figure out which of four answers was correct. The winners had to answer questions to amass $1,000. The bonus round had them guessing questions up a ladder to $10,000.
(I pretty much had to root for General Hospital. My parents loved that show in the 80's. It was the only soap opera my mother ever got into, mainly because she liked Luke and Laura.)
Bob Eubanks is as personable as ever and the trivia itself is enjoyable, but I can see the problems here. The format is too cumbersome, with four very different mini-games to keep track of. I can understand why this couldn't compete with Wheel of Fortune and The Price Is Right and only ran from fall 1984 through spring 1985.
Trivia Trap was far from the only game show to flop in the 1980's. The show that replaced it on ABC in April 1985, All Star Blitz, is basically a cross between Hollywood Squares and Catchphrase. The contestant chose a celebrity and their position on the board. Peter Marshall would ask the celebrity a question...and since this was a Heatter/Quigly show, the question would likely be accompanied by a quip and a lot of banter. If they got the answer, they'd light up a star. Once all four stars were lit, they'd get part of a puzzle. They'd guess the puzzle at this point, or move on until all six monitors were uncovered.
Quips aside, the show was still facing stiff competition from Price and Wheel, and moving it up a half-hour only pit it against Scrabble as well. It didn't help that its lead-in Family Feud was fading fast and would be gone by mid-1985. The show itself died by the end of the year, though it would turn up in re-runs on USA Network later in the decade.
Eubanks didn't do any better by Dream House on NBC in 1984. This revival of the late 60's show has two couples answering true-false questions. Winners could pick up furniture for their new homes between rounds. The champions went on to try to guess the numbers that would open the golden door and reveal their new home. While this one did make good on its promise to provide winners with an actual home (unlike the original 60's show), it just couldn't beat Price Is Right. It made a little over a year before calling it quits. The master tapes were lost in a flood; this celebrity episode with cast members from Diff'rent Strokes is one of the surviving episodes.
USA also ran one of my favorite flops from the 1980's, Hot Potato. Bill Cullen hosted this 1984 Feud imitation that pit two teams made up of co-workers from different occupations against each other - accountants against LA cops in the first half of the episode I have here. Bill would read off a question or a survey, and everyone would have to guess the set number of answers. Anyone who gets a wrong answer is out for that round. The bonus round had them comparing answers to see which was the right one.
I used to love this on USA, and I really wish NBC gave it more of a fair shake. The various groups are hilarious, Bill has a great time with them, and some of the questions are genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, it too went up against Feud, if it wasn't getting pre-empted. I suspect it did far better on USA later in the decade than it ever did on NBC.
Hot Potato wasn't the only flop Bill Cullen hosted during the 1980's. He didn't do much better by Child's Play on CBS the year before. Here, children describe a word in their own unique ways in pre-taped segments. Two adults have to figure out what they're describing. The bonus round has the winner describing a word to five kids (including a young and adorable Brecklin Meyer). Bill apparently enjoyed working with the kids and they can be funny as heck, but the game play isn't all that interesting. CBS would do far better with the show that replaced it, Press Your Luck.
Kids also figured into the syndicated show Starcade. This began as one of the earliest game shows to run on TBS in 1982 before it moved into syndication a year later. The host (Geoff Edwards here) would read a video game-related question. The winner would play a video game that was popular at the time to amass the highest score they could. The challenger would play the same game after them. After two rounds, they had to guess the games showed on a monitor. The bonus round had the champion trying to beat the average score of 20 other players.
This was a lot more fun than you might think from the description, especially if you love early video games. It's honestly cool to see people enjoy these games so much, and to see the original version of the games in their actual cabinets. Edwards had so much fun doing the show, he became a video game fan himself. The show is still well-remembered by 80's video game and game show enthusiasts to this day and might have done even better if the Video Game Crash of 1983 hadn't damaged their ratings.
Starcade was far from the strangest game show to turn up in syndication during the 1980's. Face the Music has three contestants guessing which celebrity face was associated with a certain song. The second round was more like Face Plus, as each song was a clue to a celebrity's identity. This 1980 series later turned up on USA, and today is more notorious for the crazy contestants who turned up on it than the game play. Ron Ely is the bemused host.
NBC had even less luck with Time Machine. John Davidson hosted this pop-culture related trivia show that had two people guessing questions related to music, movies, TV, and events in various mini-games. The winner went on to "The Time Capsule," where they had to guess which year four events and a popular song came from. Like Trivia Trap, the mini-games made this way too complicated despite the fun questions. Even a retool didn't make it any less difficult. Apparently based on a Reg Grundy show, this one failed to capitalize on the popularity of its lead-in Sale of the Century and barely lasted four months.
I'm surprised I don't remember the 1989 revival of Now You See It. Apparently, it ran before Family Feud on CBS, but a lot of stations ran their own programming instead. It's pretty much the same as the original 1974 version, but starting off with two players instead of four and eliminating several qualifying rounds. Now the player goes directly from playing a challenger and figuring out a crossword puzzle to playing the champ. The bonus round remains the winner's solo attempt at the board. I can kind of see why Channel 10 (Philly's CBS at the time) might have passed. It's not any less complicated or more fun to watch the second time around and with computer graphics.
Check out some of the most fascinating game show failures of the 1980's, many of them with the commercials from their original run or runs on Buzzr, USA, and Game Show Network.
And a final knock on the door for Richard Dreyfuss' dream girl Suzanne Sommers, who passed away yesterday. My sisters and I loved Three's Company when we were kids. I don't think we really understood what all the fuss was about on that show. We just saw John Ritter being a funny big brother to two cool ladies while goofy landlords tried to figure out what was going on.
Sommers turned up on Match Game '77, the only time anyone from the show would appear during the 70's run. It's too bad she never came back, and the last episode of her week is currently lost. She played very well, and other than avoiding Gene's ogling, seemed to enjoy herself. Match Game Productions is running what exists of her week and the PM episode all this week. Here's the first episode:
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