Classic Game Shows
What were the most influential game shows of the early 1950s?
It started with some of the question and answer shows that came from radio, then the panel shows started to take hold, most notably What's My Line, which premiered in 1950. That show endured for 17 years in primetime on CBS on Sunday nights. It was very much a high society party. It was the elite of New York society on the panel. It was every possible occupation that you could imagine paraded in front of these people, and they had to guess what these people did for a living. The mystery guest, the famous segment where the panel had to blindfold themselves, was one of the signature elements that lived for many decades on television.
What were the most influential game shows of the late 1950s?
As the 50's ended, the quiz show started to really gain prominence. The prizes started to increase in a big way and with the advent of The $64,000 Question, suddenly it wasn't just about winning a toaster or saying hello to your mom and dad out there. It was now about big, life changing money. Sixty four thousand dollars at that time was enough for many, many years of a happy life style. When the contestants came on that show and did well, they became not only stars in the context of the show, but they were stars in America. They made the covers of magazines and they were interviewed on television beyond the show's popularity.
What were the most influential game shows of the 1960s?
The 1960's was a game show era that was in many ways a reaction to the scandals of the late 1950's. The game shows were no longer about big money and big prizes, they were about having fun. There is shows like Hollywood Squares became prominent. There were still quiz shows, Jeopardy started in the early 1960's and there were many examples of shows that were about people. That is when the dating shows and the relationship shows started to flourish. If it weren't for the scandal, then the shows in the 1960's might have continued to be the big money shows, and they might have stayed through for many decades to come, but the game show industry had to react.
What were the most influential game shows of the 1970s and 80s?
The 1970's represented the peak of game shows in daytime network television. At one point in 1975 there were seventeen game shows in the daytime. There were no more prime time game shows for the most part, those had been gone since the scandal era. But the 1970's shows were a wide variety of talents and structures including word games, quiz games, people shows and dating shows. It was also the beginning of the cable era and many of the concepts that had been bigger on networks suddenly came back reworked in cable at lower budgets and lower production value.
How did You Bet Your Life influence the game show genre?
"You Bet Your Life" was a very successful show on NBC in primetime, and much of the reason was its host -- Groucho Marx. It was one of the first shows that actually took a very prominent comedic talent and made him the host of a game show. The game show itself was very much secondary to the comedy. There were long interviews, scripted interviews, by the way, followed by a very simple pedestrian game where players could win just a little bit of money and then if they said the secret word, the duck came down and gave them $100. But the show wasn't about the duck and wasn't about the questions. It was about Groucho Marx.
How did Let's Make a Deal influence the game show genre?
Let's Make a Deal was one of the most influential shows. It started in 1964 and it highlighted people in a very simple situation. You have something that you don't want, and you want to trade it for something better. You would bring that to the show and Monty Hall, the consummate professional host, MC, master of ceremonies and big dealer, would try to coerce you to trade what you brought for something better, and then something better than that and something better than that, ultimately leading to the big deal of the day. The show itself interestingly did not start with the costumes. The costumes were a reaction by people in the audience who wanted Monty to notice them and be chosen. The pilot of the show features people in suits, ties and formal evening attire playing a very serious game show with items that they had brought from home. As the show evolved, the craziness and the outrageousness of the costumes took hold, and that's what people remember today about Let's Make a Deal, which was on for almost 30 years.
How did The Gong Show influence the game show genre?
The Gong Show, which was probably the most bizarre game show up to that point in history, which truly was just a talent show, but it was a talent show turned on its head, and the people who got the most fame and notoriety from the Gong Show were the worst acts, and if you look at today even shows like American Idol, their audition shows are really all about the best and the worst, and that's what The Gong Show was, a game show for the best and the worst. America's Got Talent, in many people's eyes, is today's Gong Show.
What are the most-requested classic game shows?
One of the classic formats that was one of the most requested ones when I was at the Game Show Network was Name That Tune. It's a show that started in the fifties, and was a very simple format where an orchestra would play a part of a melody and civilians would have to guess the tune. It hasn't come back in its classic form in quite a while, but the new crop of musical game shows that are on now, most notably Singing Bee and Don't Forget The Lyrics, are today's Name that Tune. It's a different way of playing that game, which tests how much people know about music.
Why have so many classic game shows been lost?
When game shows ran on networks in the 1950's, even through until the 80's, the going belief, the conventional wisdom was that they didn't have any rerun value, so after the networks broadcast them one time, they would degauss the tapes, or in the case of the old kinescopes or other types of media, toss them away. A few producers kept their tapes thinking that they might have some value. Those producers are the ones who have profited quite nicely from resale of that footage to more contemporary outlets.