Had breakfast while watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Dan and Miss Elaina are excited about "The Neighborhood Fall Festival" and the beautiful fall decorations in town. Elaina, Dan, and Katerina try to help when the wind blows Music Man Stan's decorations down, but they can't put them back exactly the way he had them. Mrs. Tiger encourages to do their best and do things their own way. Teacher Harriet holds a "Field Day at School" and sets up fall-themed games for the kids. They don't always play every game well, but they learn to do their best and not compare themselves to others.
I was going through my journals last night, looking for a story I wrote around 2021-2022. I spent an hour or so re-reading that when I finally found it. I really need to get another bag or container for my newest journals. They're starting to make the bag the recent ones are in too heavy.
Watched Match Game '77 next. Richard explains why, unlike Dick Smothers, he doesn't like to be called Dickie Dawson in the opening. Fannie Flag and soap star Meg Bennett join in to help the contestant with "Havana __." In the second episode, Fannie argues with Gene over whether a woman plastic surgeon would have been a tailor or a seamstress.
Spent the next hour or so writing. Richard the Tin Man admits that he doesn't remember who he used to be, either. Unlike Charles, he's not bothered by a lack of brains. What he wants is a heart, so he can be feel and love and be complete again.
Listened to A Day In Hollywood/A Night In the Ukraine while I worked. This goofy revue spoofing the Golden Age of Hollywood turned up in 1981 and was a surprise hit despite its small size. The "day in Hollywood" is the movie spoof, with songs spoofing westerns and the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy operettas along with a medley saluting movie song writer Richard Whiting. The songs are ok, but the spoof probably isn't anything an old movie buff hasn't heard before. The second half, a pitch-perfect take on Marx Brothers movies based after the Checkov play The Bear, is vastly more interesting, especially if you're a fan of the Brothers like me.
Headed off to work around 2:30. Thankfully, I spent the entire day sweeping and pushing carts. It was fairly busy, probably due to the holiday. I wouldn't have wanted to be inside today, anyway. It was cool, windy, and sunny for most of the evening. I was in and out with no problems. Rushed home with dark clouds trailing behind me.
(Thankfully, those dark clouds waited until around 8 - 9 PM to burst. I don't think it's doing anything out there right now.)
Went straight into Match Game '79 and dinner when I got in. Gene's not overly happy when he finds out in the opening that Fannie snitched his favorite tie. (Even if she did probably look better in it than he did, as Brett pointed out.) The contestant finally hits the big time when Richard Deacon helps her with "Which Way Is __" in the Head-to-Head.
Finished the night on Dailymotion and YouTube with some of the most popular game shows of the past decade. Game shows were once again at an impasse as the decade began. The intense Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style trivia shows had mostly petered out by 2010-2011, though the neon sets continue to linger. Many younger viewers had abandoned cable and the regular networks for Internet streaming, where they could watch all their favorite shows - game shows included - for free or a modest fee.
Syndication - and its endless need for filler - once again came to the rescue. Johh O'Hurley left Family Feud when he thought the show was getting too racy. Comedian Steve Harvey had no such concerns. He thrived on exaggerated reactions to sexually suggestive humor. Some people find him a little too exaggerated and agree with O'Hurley about the humor, but neither are really that bad in the early episode I have here.
Celebrity Name Game revived charades-style games in what amounts to a cross between Body Language and Password. Two guest celebrities help two teams guess the name of a pop culture subject. The winners go on to the bonus round, where the contestants give clues to the celebrities in order to guess the name of a subject behind 10 boxes onscreen. Fast-paced and fun, and Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson is clearly having a ball with the wilder guesses.
Like Celebrity Name Game, 25 Words or Less is based after a board game. In the first season, two celebrities and a contestant are shown a list of five words to convey to their teammates. The contestants then bid on how many guesses it'll take them to figure out the word. As with Pyramid and Password, players can't use their hands. Meredith Vieria returns to hosting here. Simple but addictive, I can see why this continues to be popular in syndication. (And I'd love to see what the board game is like, too.)
Fox's big hit Beat Shazam may be the first game show to be based after a musical game app. Three pairs of contestants guess songs from a certain musical genre or decade as they make their way up a prize ladder. The final song in each round is the "Fast Track" and is worth double the points. The team that guesses the title correctly in the fastest time wins the money. Half-way through, the lowest-scoring couple is eliminated. The bonus round has them identify five more songs before "Shazam," the computer, can. Hilarious, tuneful, and a lot of fun to play along with. No wonder this is still going strong on Fox at this writing.
ABC once again brought game shows back from the dead in prime-time. Instead of England, they turned to the genre's past and revived some of the most popular shows of yesteryear. To Tell the Truth and Match Game were expanded to an hour, but otherwise left pretty much intact. To Tell the Truth made things less staid by letting the panel play against each other and compete to see who uncovered the most fibbers at the end of the day. Match Game was pretty much the same as it had been since 1973, with actor Alec Baldwin clearly enjoying hosting and questions that could now be outright randy.
The pandemic in early 2020 brought an end to the sudden game show revival. Shows like Price Is Right, Let's Make a Deal, and Match Game thrived on interaction between contestants, the audience, and the host. Match Game bowed out shortly before everything started, but other shows were more strongly effected by the lock downs and new restrictions. Audiences dwindled, contestants stood further apart, and there was far less interaction. Even Meredith Vieria did 25 Words on a Zoom-type chat.
Romance shows thrived in the 2010's in the wake of wildly popular reality show competitions like The Bachelor. Also thriving were streaming services like Netflix that took advantage of new technology to offer a wide variety of programming at one price...at least until too many such services flooded the market around 2021-2022 and they became more costly. The Circle is one of Netflix's bigger hit game shows. A group of people are moved into an apartment building and are given the ability to talk to each other via social media. They can present themselves realistically, or go for a more fanciful version. The least-liked players are blocked from the game.
Honestly, this one gets a little too close to shows like Real World for my taste. I found it more smarmy than fun, especially eliminating people just because they annoy you.
Jeopardy got a major personnel shake-up when long-time host Alex Trebek died of cancer in November 2020. The show auditioned hosts for almost a year before finally settling on two - smart Mayim Balik and former Jeopardy big winner Ken Jennings. Jennings is the one seen in this recent Tournament of Champions exhibition episode.
Jeopardy isn't the only intense trivia show currently running. One of Game Show Network's more popular offerings at the moment is another British show, Master Minds. Originally titled Best Ever Trivia Show, this one has three contestants playing against three trivia experts. The last standing trivia expert and contestant go head-to-head in the final round. I hope more people catch this one. Intense game play, and you learn a lot from those trivia experts.
Find out how game shows have evolved over the past decade with these recent favorites!
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