Switched to Press Your Luck next after taking the laundry downstairs. Whammies swarmed around the contestants on both episodes. One of the women in the first episode got knocked out in the second round. The champ was defeated by a young man who ended up with a craps game table and money and had the least Whammies. He didn't have nearly that much luck in the next episode. A pretty young model attracted way too many Whammies and was out early in the second round. The other man followed her. The one guy ended up playing the house and finally picked up a trip for his trouble.
Put the laundry in the dryer, then came back up for Split Second. By the time of the current episodes, they switched the bonus round from choosing three screens to choosing one. If it wasn't a car, that one will be blocked off the next time the person wins. They now earn money instead of another prize if they don't win the bonus round, and leaving and taking the other prize is no longer an option. One woman dominated the first round, as she apparently had for the previous four days. Alas, she was beaten on her fifth day by a curly-haired young man. He didn't pick the car, but would return.
Headed out after Split Second ended. I had one last bag of stuff and a cooler I didn't need that went to Goodwill. Rode over there, handed the bag and cooler to a gentleman who was helping another man with his larger donation items, and left.
Took the back way past the baseball field into Audubon. Had lunch at the Legacy Diner. They were relatively busy, despite it being quarter of 3 at that point. I tried their Waffle Napoleon, which turned out to be sliced strawberries and bananas with whipped cream on top of a waffle. The berry and banana slices were so big, I ate it like a fruit salad. The waffle was incredible, light and tender on the inside, just crispy enough on the outside, and very filling.
Stopped at the WaWa on the way home to cool off. I wanted to try more of those Olipop sodas. They had root beer along with strawberry vanilla. They were also busy, mainly because their self-checkout screens didn't seem to be working. At least the line wasn't too bad. Picked up assorted sugar-free and oatmeal cookies from Los Amigos Bakery.
It was a gorgeous day to run errands, too. Hot, yes, in the lower 80's, but breezy and sunny as can be, with a bright blue sky overhead. I wasn't the only one out and about, either. I dodged a lot of people out for walks, running their own errands, or heading home from work or school.
Put on more of The Persuaders! while putting away the laundry and extra blankets I no longer needed and doing job searching. Danny and Britt stop on the road to help a girl who doesn't seem to need help. While Britt deals with her, Danny wanders onto the grounds of a country estate and discovers a dead man. Turns out the estate belongs to an extreme right-wing politician, and the man is a journalist who is supposedly alive. "The Time and the Place" turns out to be a lot more sinister than anyone could guess when they learn that not only is the politician's views extreme to the point where he considers taking over the government, but there's radicals on the opposite side who would love to get rid of him.
Britt's the one in trouble when he's abducted by two figures who want to make an exact double of him. Seems "Someone Like Me" is the only one who can get them through to an infamously reclusive millionaire (Bernard Lee). Danny has to figure out if the real Britt can stand up, and what happened to his friend.
Worked on writing for a while after the show ended. Mother Nature explains that the rabbit who led Kathleen to her is her son Michael. Lady Jacqueline is the Lady of Winter, who wants winter to last forever so she and her kingdom will never change and she'll always have full control over the seasons. Michael opposed her plan and refused to let her use his resources, so she transformed him into something that wouldn't fight with her.
Broke for dinner and Match Game '78 at 7 PM. For some reason, they skipped to nearly the end of the year, after CBS added the Star Wheel and upgraded the set. Though Richard Dawson had already quit by that point, Nipsey Russell, who sat in his "smart guy" seat that week, still made a rhymed quip about him. (Incidentally, this would be the last time Nipsey sat in that seat. He apparently preferred the first seat and asked to go back there after this taping.) In the second episode, Gene showed how out-of-touch he tended to be when he didn't know that Superman was the "__ of Steel."
Finished the night with flop game shows from my teen years. Honestly, successful shows were a lot thinner on the ground in the 90's than hits. The rabid popularity of talk shows chased all game shows but The Price Is Right off daytime. Caesar's Challenge, a Greek-themed word game filmed at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and hosted by Ahmad Rashad, lasted six months from 1993 through early 1994 and is the last daytime show to run on NBC to date.
Even Price had its troubles in this era. Its 1994 syndicated version The New Price Is Right with Doug Davidson didn't do a whole lot better and expired after four months. The half-hour format eliminated the Wheel and replaced bidding for the two Showcases in the end with one Showcase and a bonus round that was similar to The Range Game. While Price has done many nighttime specials since then, this has been its last try at a full nighttime show.
Price wasn't the only game show revival or syndicated version to flop badly in the 90's. Despite being a worthy successor to the original, the 1990-91 version of To Tell the Truth only lasted eight months on NBC. It's too bad. I've seen a few episodes of this online and on Buzzr, and the guests were as interesting and unique as anything on the original and syndicated program. The very busy Alex Trebek helps Orson Bean, Kitty Carlisle, Dana Hill, and producer David Niven Jr. figure out which game show-addicted older man won a backstage pass to the show and a date with Kitty, and which younger man wrote a book on recovering from drug addiction and gang involvement.
Match Game had an even rougher time during the decade. The 1990-91 version actually wasn't bad. It had some great moments and a lot of enjoyable panelists, but it didn't last a year on ABC. The syndicated show from 1998 was far worse. It reduced the number of panelists to five and added weird subjects to draw the questions from. The panelists weren't that bad - Nell Carter and Vicki Lawrence could be counted on a quip or two, and even Judy Tenuta could be fun when she wasn't being shrill - but Michael Berger was hardly the host to reign them all in, the pastel set was ugly as heck, and the questions could get a little too heavy on the sexual references.
Nickelodeon's success with their game shows in this decade inspired other networks to try kids' stunt shows. The Family Channel's hour-long Family Challenge debuted in late 1995 and ran through fall 1997. Ray Combs was the original host as two families competed in a series of wacky stunts. One of those stunts, the dads having a kissing contest, seemed kind of risque for a show of this stripe. Otherwise, this was really kind of fun. Apparently, after Combs' death, they moved the taping, replaced him with Michael Burger, and brought in more audience participation stunts.
Game shows being used as filler during the summer months goes back as far as the 50's and continues today with ABC's "Summer Fun & Games" block. The Hollywood Game from June 1992 would be the last such programming to air on the networks in prime time until the short-lived Big Deal in 1996. Bob Goen asks contestants questions about their knowledge of not only current and vintage movies, but also TV shows and gossip. It's simple, but kind of fun to watch, especially if you're a movie buff like me.
That wouldn't be the last pop culture trivia show to bomb in the 90's. VH1 ran My Generation briefly in 1998. Two pairs of contestants from different eras chose questions about music from the opposing side's era from five categories. A speed round had band names from both eras combined with one word that the contestants had to guess. Winners went on to basically play VH1 Password and give clues about the name of a band. It sort of resembles the 60's show The Generation Gap with music videos instead of live numbers, and once again isn't bad if you're into vintage rock.
The wild success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in late 1999 forever changed what game shows looked like and how they were played. Greed was one of the first imitators to debut in its wake. After five people move on from the qualifying round, their captain has to guess a multiple-choice question. His teammates decide if all of his answers are right. If they are, they move to the next round, and the captain can choose to either quit the game or move to the next round. At one point, a random "terminator" is chosen to challenge one of their teammates. If they win the question, they stay in the game. If their opponent wins, they stay. Chuck Woolery keeps things flowing.
Despite my fondness for trivia, I found the Millionaire imitators to be kind of boring in college. They all looked alike to me then, and the intense play was more depressing than fun. This is actually a little bit more interesting today, thanks to the group play and the ability to pit teammates against each other. Apparently, it did pull in decent ratings, but struggling Fox wanted to focus on scripted programming and ended it after barely seven months.
Explore how game shows fell out of favor during my teen years with these rare flops!
No comments:
Post a Comment