Dana Barrett of Ghostbusters fame once said that Dr. Peter Venkman was "more like a game show host" than a scientist. And, for $200, just what exactly is wrong with that?What is your favorite game show?
Panelist: T-Rav
Wheel of Fortune. It's a family thing; I've watched it with my mom and grandparents since I was five. Used to be pretty good at cracking the puzzles before anyone else, too. Also, I hear Pat Sajak is a conservative, so that just makes it better.
Panelist: Tennessee Jed
Jeopardy, hands down. Watched it at my fraternity house at lunch every day 40 years ago. Great then and still is.
Panelist: ScottDS
I'm not a regular game show viewer but I would have to say Jeopardy. I enjoy playing along if it's on TV and I'm often surprised by how much I actually know. On the other hand, I once took the online test for contestants... and failed miserably.
Panelist: AndrewPrice
The Running Man. Ok, that's not real. I'm going with Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. This was a fun and interesting show. It taught you geography. It had good music. Plus, Carmen was pretty hot... if you could find her.
Panelist: BevfromNYC
Define “game show”. If you consider them to be skill shows like Top Chef and American Idol, then I am not sure. But as a pure old style game show, then Jeopardy – even though the questions have gotten easier over the years, it is still a big test of obscure trivia. And though you didn’t ask, my least favorite.
Comments? Thoughts?
As far as the classic game show goes, I have to confess to loving The Price is Right, though I only ever get to watch it when I'm sick. To be thorough in my answer, I must emphasize the Bob Barker days were better than the current Drew Carey days, though he does a pretty good job.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to include talent shows and competitions, then hands down my favorite is MasterChef. The pro cooking shows fascinate me, but the self-taught amateurs astound me!
I love trivia so for years it was Sale Of The Century, I would sometimes 'win' an episode playing at home.
ReplyDeleteCurrently it's Rockwiz which is a music trivia show that is really fun, it has two musical guests who play music and answer questions. The host is pretty funny and it's a great watch. They have episodes online at... http://www.sbs.com.au/rockwiz/
We never got Jeopardy in Australia, but from what I've seen of it in movies I would most likely have watched it.
Scott.
The original Japanese "Iron Chef" program.
ReplyDeleteOne episode, the Japanese chefs were given live octopi to cook, but the creatures had a different idea and some tried to make a break for it. Also, the master of ceremony was a hoot.
The American rip off versions aren't that interesting.
reading the comments of Tryanmax, Anon., and "K" are interesting because they say a lot about perceptions. Tryan's description of a "classic" game show is interesting in it's accuracy. As someone who grew up in the 50's, that is all I think about when I hear the term "game show." The classics include "Beat the Clock" "What's My Line" and the scandalous "21."
ReplyDeleteThe fact different game shows existed in Australia facinates me. And the fact K points out "Iron Chef" as a game show outlines how broad the category might be to some. (For example, I whould think of Iron Chef as a cooking show rather than Game Show.
Andrew, in the fictional game show category, don't forget "Pig in a Poke" which won a European vacation for the Griswold family.
T-Rav, Wheel of Fortune makes sense for a lot of folks. It literally has run for ever.
For the classics, I also like the trashy morning games shows like Treasure Hunt and Price is Right. These are the shows you could watch along with My Little Margie and The Real McCoys if you were lucky enough to be "sick" and stay home from school.
Lots of folks don't realize the great Johnny Carson started as a Game Show Host with shows like "Who Do You Trust." To this day, I will associate Jan Murray's "Treasure Hunt" with it's sponsor, Mogan-David Wine.
ReplyDeleteWheel of Fortune and Jeopardy were on back to back when I was growing up and watched those every night. I also liked The Price is Right.
ReplyDeleteBill Cullen is a name I remember. He may have been an early Price Is Right guy. Hugh Downs was another. Truth or Consequences seems to ring a bell, but the late 50's and early 60's was sort of a "golden age." There are only a handful left. I shudder to think right now will be looked back on as the "plastic age of reality programming." Reality t.v. is probably a broader based generic category that could include classic game shows, but that is the term I think of for all of the various "survivor" "bachelor" "dancing with the stars" kind of programming that pervades today.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, Interestingly, I also only ever saw The Price is Right when I was sick. I've never seen the Drew Carey version, but I strangely enjoyed the Bob Barker version, even though I can't think of a reason why I should have.
ReplyDeleteScott, We had a couple music-based game shows that I recall. There was Name That Tune a long time ago where they would play a couple notes and people would guess the tune. Then MTV had a couple neat game shows (can't remember the names) which were all about music knowledge.
ReplyDeleteYou never got Jeopardy? Interesting, I would have assumed that one made it all over the world.
K, I almost said that! I love the Japanese version of The Iron Chef. Talk about the perfect combination of challenges, showmanship, and announcing!
ReplyDeleteJed, Perception is everything. To me, "classic" game shows are the 1970s because those are the ones that were on when I grew up. Plus, that was right after the first wave of hosts retired, so the people who were doing the game shows at that point would become the people who did them for the next decade or two before the new crop. I have almost no knowledge of game shows (or hosts) prior to that period.
ReplyDeleteI agree that something like Iron Chef is hard to see as a traditional game show, but I do think the category has gotten much broader. To me, it's not really a cooking show because it is a contest and they are making strange challenges rather than showing you how to cook.
I'm surprised some version of Jeopardy didn't make it to Australia as well. I wonder if game shows don't travel well?
Jed, I associate Johnny Carson with The Tonight Show and only The Tonight Show. Again, because of when I grew up, I also associate The Tonight Show with him.
ReplyDeleteJed, Johnny Carson had a career before the Tonight Show? ;)
ReplyDeleteDUQ, Same here. Those were the evening game shows, which were on before prime time. I agree about The Price is Right.
ReplyDeleteI love Wheel of Fortune mostly because I'm so good at it. I've gotten puzzles with zero letters up before with only the topic to go on.
ReplyDeleteBut a very close second is Family Feud. It's just so much fun! I love it when people are really dumb. Lots of laughs. It hasn't been the same since Richard Dawson left, some of the hosts can be annoying, but still entertaining.
Yeah, knowing that Pat Sajak is a conservative makes me like him/the show more too :)
Jed, I despise "reality" tv. Talk about trashy and pointless!
ReplyDeleteHugh Downs? I know him from 20/20 as a fairly serious news anchor!
Cheryl, Same here! Finding out that Sajak is a conservative made me like the show even more! :)
ReplyDeleteI loved Family Feud when Richard Dawson did it. That's one of those shows that just made you groan whenever someone gave a truly stupid answer.
I have to admit I liked the Newly Wed Game. I also have to think that game led to a lot of divorces.
ReplyDeleteOn the Tonight Show, I had no love at all for Leno (or Letterman). I miss Carson.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of the name, but the pyramid game where the celebrity would give a word and the other person had to guess what word they were trying to describe.
ReplyDeleteScyFy : Newly WedGame (l.o.l.) gave rise to one of the very best jokes of all time (albeit crudest and some might say vaguely racist.) "Where is the strangest place you ever made love to your wife/"
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Bob Barker, his Truth or Consequences was the very first American commercially broadcast "game" show.
ReplyDeleteRichard Dawson was definitely the greatest game show host and his Family Feud was excellent.
ReplyDeleteAs far as current game shows go, my family enjoys Minute to Win It with Guy Fieri (who also had a show on Food Network).
Kelly - I think it was the $20,000 Pyramid (perhaps expanded to larger payouts over the course of it's run)
ReplyDeleteNobody mentioned the show that briefly brought the game show back to prime time in the U.S.A. "So You Want to be a Millionaire?" "Who is the Weakest Link" was a hit in Britain. The dry insulting wit of the hostess didn't seem to translate to American audiences, though.
Andrew - Hugh Downs indeed was a game show host. "Concentration" was a televised version of the old children's card game "memory." Hey, everybody had to break in somewhere. :)
ReplyDeleteMycroft - your mention of "Minute to Win It" is a good one. The only time I saw it, I liked it. You may be too young (or not) to remember the original "Beat the Clock" with host Bud Collier.
ReplyDeleteThe game show with the greatest reputation is the 1950's was "What's My Line" which came on in the evenings. The last guest of each show was a mystery celebrity. Check this clip out from youtube:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of7_K1e_x3Y&feature=related
Terry, I stopped watching The Tonight Show when Carson left.
ReplyDeleteThe Newlywed Game was a fun show.
Kelly and Jed, I think the name changed periodically to reflect rising dollar amounts.
ReplyDeleteJed, That was a classic joke! LOL!
ReplyDeleteMycroft, Dawson had the perfect personality for it. He was funny, very likeable but also had an edge that let him poke fun at people when they were too stupid and deserved it.
ReplyDeleteJed, I've never seen "What's My Line."
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteMy whole knowledge of Jeopardy is from American movies and TV show. Never seen it at all. It is surprising as we quite often get local versions of American, Briton or other countries TV shows.
Some people are bringing up shows that I would not consider game shows. I love Iron Chef and Top Chef, but I would never call them game shows. To me a game show is one where a normal member of the public can enter and have a chance to win which rules both of those show mentioned...
I also liked another Australian quiz show called the Einstein Factor which was a quiz show were people answered questions about their specialty topic and general knowledge. They played not only against other contestants but against the shows 'brain trust' which added another layer to it.
Scott.
Scott, We often get the Americanized version of foreign shows. A lot of our reality TV has come to us that way and so have some game shows, like "The Weakest Link" (which Jed mentioned).
ReplyDeleteI figured you got the same thing, i.e. Australian versions of our better shows. It's odd though that you never got Jeopardy because that really is one of the best. Everybody seems to like Jeopardy.
It is a good question whether "Iron Chef" or "Top Chef" really fit the definition of a game show? I'm not sure, but we don't stand on formality here! :)
I'm trying to think if we have anything similar to "Einstein Factor" and I don't think we do.
When I was in the hospital doing my study, I spent the better part of a Sunday afternoon watching old game show clips and I have to say the Family Feud ones were the funniest.
ReplyDeleteTry to watch this and not laugh.
Incidentally, my mother has joked about us being on Family Feud but it's not happening!
I think I have to go with Jeopardy. Of the old shows, I loved GE's College Bowl.
ReplyDeleteJohnny Carson did start his national TV career with Who Do You Trust?, but that show originally starred Edgar Bergen (and Charlie McCarthy) and was called Do You Trust Your Wife? It change its name when Carson took over, but at first had the same theme. At one point, the couple was a young wife and a very old husband. Carson asked if they would, uh, be having any children. The wife replied, "Sure, Charlie Chaplin had children when he was in his 70s." Carson shot back "Yes, but look how he had to walk."
In terms of actually playing along... Jeopardy hands down.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of entertainment? 1970s Hollywood Squares and Match Game.... Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly -- who new a pair of queens would be a winning hand? I may have suspected they were "different" when i was a kid, but more importantly -- they were funny as hell on their respective shows... throw in Gene Rayburn, Brett, Nipsey Russell, Richard Dawson, etc. for Match Game -- George Gobel, and the rotating cast of 70s comedians for H-wood Squares and it was fun.
I think the term "reality TV" is a pejorative catch-all that isn't particularly useful. To my mind, pure reality TV is stuff like the Kardashians and The Real World; no game aspect whatsoever. Things like The Bachelor(ette) and Big Brother blur distinction, but I don't think there's any other description coined for these. Stuff like America's Got Talent and my previous mention MasterChef are probably better described as talent shows. Even though that narrows the field a bit, it still leaves "Game Show" a pretty broad category. I suppose one could keep going and separate the game shows from the quiz shows and the obstacle course shows. On that note, I forgot about Wipeout! in my earlier response.
ReplyDeleteScott, I would never want to be on Family Feud, but then I'm not big on celebrity in any event. Still, it's a fun show.
ReplyDeleteLawhawk, That was something Carson was great at, whipping out one-liners that just made you laugh like crazy without ever being crude or even having to fully explain the joke. Letterman tries to do that, but he's too nasty for my tastes.
ReplyDeleteFloyd, Hollywood Squares was really entertaining. As a kid, I was pretty sure something was up with those two, but I also didn't know what.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, I agree with your assessment as there are definitely different types of reality TV. In fact, "reality TV" should probably be saved for shows on the Discovery channel.
ReplyDeleteTalent show is a good description for things like American Idol. I always saw game shows as more about random chance pretty much.
ReplyDeleteI would have to go with The Dating Game which I found to be hilarious.
ReplyDeleteHollywood Squares is another one that would often be humorous.
What's My Line was another one I could usually watch.
Jepardy and Wheel usually kept my interest.
I think Man vs Food is the only gameish type show I watch now (I also liked the old, Japanese Iron Chef), but both are only game shows in the broadest sense, in that they are competitions but that's the only thing it shares with traditional game shows.
Reality shows? I liked Cops. Shows like The Kardashians (my wife watches it and the spin-offs...ugh!) clearly are not reality, and have lots of made up crap to keep the "drama" going.
I'm flashing my Gen X card here, but NYC's Remote Control was awesome. Besides Ken Ober (RIP), it gave us Kari Wuhrer, and Adam Sandler. Did I mention it gave us Kari Wuhrer? And Colin Quinn... and Kari Wuhrer.
ReplyDeleteMTV... damn Android auto correct
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a favorite, and back in the day, I watched lots of them:
ReplyDeleteDating Game
Hollywood Squares
Match Game
The Newlywed Game (although in the early days, most of the questions went over my head).
Jeopardy
I had a brother who loved to watch--Press Your Luck
Wheel of Fortune (in the late 80s, a customer where I worked told me I resembled Vanna White. I guess she thought she was paying me a compliment, when actually, I was offended)
Price is Right (my sister had a friend who got on the show, and won big--I think it was a
car).
Family Feud--People who gave stupid answers like:
Question: Name a soft fruit
Contestant: A walnut
Family (clapping hands): Good answer! Good answer!
I don't think this really comes close to qualifying for a game show: The Gong Show--America's Got Talent gone wrong.
And American Gladiators-the original (I even went to try out to be a contestant when they took the show on the road).
Doc, I would call American Idol a talent show as well, not really a game show per se.
ReplyDeleteBen, I enjoyed Cops as well and I loved the Japanese Iron Chef, but I really disliked the American version.
ReplyDeleteThe Dating Game was often hilarious! What's funny now is to see how many future stars appeared on that show, which I thought was just average people.
Floyd, As a fellow Xer, I loved "Remote Control"! That was an inspired show. LOL! I had no idea Ken Ober had died? He wasn't even very old.
ReplyDeleteFloyd, By the way, I knew Kari Wuhrer best from Sliders which I really, really liked.
ReplyDeleteJen, I liked all of those as well, except I never saw the Gong Show.
ReplyDeleteAs a child of the 1970s, I grew up with a metric ton of game shows. I was never an avid fan, but you just couldn't escape them back then, like everything else in a 3-or-4-channel world, they were just "what's on" between playing outside and attending school.
ReplyDeleteVery early memories were of my folks watching the late-era run of the original WHAT'S MY LINE and TO TELL THE TRUTH. Daytime before my school years (and sick days/vacations, later on), I'd see LET'S MAKE A DEAL, THE PRICE IS RIGHT, THE $20,000 PYRAMID, WHEEL OF FORTUNE (with Chuck Woolery, another conservative), TATTLETALES, CARD SHARKS --and short-lived attempts like 'WHEW!'-- fill the network airwaves, before the boring soap operas would take over in the afternoons. I'd catch THE DATING GAME and MATCH GAME in the mid-afternoon (later, LOVE CONNECTION and the kid-oriented video game gameshow, STARCADE, on WTBS), and the family would watch some early-evening shows like HOLLYWOOD SQUARES, THE NEWLYWED GAME, LIAR'S CLUB, JEOPARDY, JOKER'S WILD, FAMILY FEUD and NAME THAT TUNE. The last regular-style game shows I watched for any stretch of time were REMOTE CONTROL on MTV, WIN BEN STEIN'S MONEY on Comedy Central and the 'harsh'-themed INQUIZITION on Gameshow Network (the quizmaster was a brutal judge, always seen from behind, while contestants wore prison jumpsuits, in an 'abandoned-warehouse' set. The losers left, heads hanging low, with NOTHING!).
All that being said, my favorite traditional gameshow was the original PASSWORD, from the 1960s, which I saw in reruns. That was a gameshow stripped to its bare essentials, the prizes were small, and average people would team with big stars like Jimmy Stewart and James Mason.
The only current game show I like, and the only 'reality' show I enjoy, is THE AMAZING RACE, which seems to consolidate the aspects of many different reality shows, but with a minimum of the drawbacks.
Backthrow, Same here. With only 3-4 channels, and each of them showing soaps for game shows, you kind of ended up watching lots of them. And as you put it, they were on television by the metric ton!
ReplyDeleteWin Ben Stein's Money! I'd forgotten about that one! :)
I liked The Amazing Race for a while, but I'm just sick of all reality TV at this point.
Andrew: I really liked the first season of Sliders. But by the second season, star Jerry O'Connell had entered into production and direction (though he was not the executive producer), and quickly turned the show into a perpetual left-wing screed. I didn't stick around for the third season. I gave it one last try after it moved to the [then] SciFi Channel, only to find Fox had gotten so pissed off at O'Connell that they removed him from the series. What a fiasco.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I'm Gen-X or not. I think children of the 80s are a group unto themselves. As such, I recall Double Dare on Nickelodeon, as well as Super Sloppy Double Dare, Family Double Dare, Celebrity Double Dare, and some others whose names escape me. Everybody my age knows what it means to "take the physical challenge!"
ReplyDeleteColor me surprised when I learned years later that host Marc Summers has OCD. Talk about pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone!
Lawhawk, That's true. Sliders fell apart fast in the second season and never really recovered. That's too bad too because the show had such potential.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, You aren't. There seems to be a huge generational change about 5 years younger than me, where everything... everything is different. I don't quite understand it, but that seems to be the line and it's like the two groups are from different countries.
ReplyDeleteI know Marc Summers from the Food Channel, but I never saw him do those shows.
Floyd -
ReplyDeleteNot to go off-topic but...
I don't recall Remote Control (I was never an MTV viewer) but Colin Quinn had an excellent chat show on Comedy Central for a couple years called Tough Crowd. I seem to be one of the few who remembers it and Comedy Central appears to have it buried somewhere but it's one of the few last TV shows I'd love to see get a DVD release. It was frequently hilarious and un-PC and a lot of familiar faces would show up, along with regulars like the late Patrice O'Neal and Greg Giraldo.
Andrew, I'll take you're answer as the definitive one. You're more confident about it than any other source I've come across--none of which are in agreement. I'll just stick with "child of the 80s" though. The idea of being a "Millennial" disturbs me.
ReplyDeleteAndrew and tryanmax -
ReplyDeleteI remember Double Dare and its various spinoffs (and Wild and Crazy Kids and that Legend of the Hidden Temple something or other show)... and I remember Marc Summers hosting it. Nickelodeon also hosted a Jeopardy-like quiz show for teens called Make the Grade and, apparently, I'm the only one who's ever heard of it! I think it aired for a couple years in the late 80s. I even brought in a tape of it to watch in school (2nd grade).
Scott, I do vaguely recall Make the Grade though it's really hard for something like that to stack up against W&CK and LotHT. There were a few other obstacle-course based shows besides that, but I'm at a complete loss.
ReplyDeleteAndrew mentioned PBS's WitW is Carmen Sandiego? which had some of that same flavor, too. The Where in Time spinoff wasn't nearly as fun.
tryanmax, I never understood it, but there was a very clear line about 5 years younger than me. People on one side had the same experiences I did growing up and people after were like they had come from a different country. They didn't know the same movies, the same songs, the same politicians, and they have a completely different worldview.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what caused it, but it was truly pronounced.
Scott and tryanmax, I completely missed those shows. All I remember was that Nickelodeon was dumping green slime on kids, but that's all I know.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Carmen Sandiego a lot for some reason.
In my youth, the evening combo was To Tell The Truth (Kitty Carlisle and Peggy Cass - shout out) and Truth or Consequences. Match Game was a favorite along with Hollywood Squares (the double entendres are still hilarious). The original Jeopardy (back when it the money was $10 - $50 for reg, and $20 - $200 for Double Jeopardy and you actually needed to be fairly well educated to succeed). I enjoyed WOF back when you had to spend all your winnings on fun things like the ceramic Dalmatian. The Family Feud was awesome in the Richard Dawson era. It never ceased to amaze me to see the collective ignorance and supportive cheerfulness when someone came up with some of those answers.... I've tried out for Jeopardy several times - Made it through the second round twice. Lessons learned: Never underestimate the importance of having witty anecdotes at the ready and never try out the same year that Ken Jennings is doing a sweep.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned earlier Remote Control (on MTV when it was still mostly music), Win Ben Steins Money which gave us Jimmy Kemmel and Jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteI also love to watch Ninja Warrior on G4, not the new American Ninja Warrior, the original dubbed into English. While it's not really a game show but pretended to be one on Spike TV Most Extreme Elimination Challenge is funny as hell.
Big Bucks, No Whammies! Press Your Luck!
Kari Wuhrer also appeared in the movie Ford Fairlane and some Skinimax movies as well for those who are interested.
Oops, I almost forgot a big one I watched in the 1970s... THE GONG SHOW... and its poor relation, THE $1.98 BEAUTY CONTEST, with emcee Rip Taylor (I barely ever watched it, though).
ReplyDeleteKari Wurher attended my public high school, a year ahead of me, which also nicely ties two of this thread's topics together, game shows to SLIDERS. I didn't really know her, though, and she was rarely in school, as I recall, because she was doing model work and also underwent treatment for a brain tumor.
ReplyDeleteI used to watch Blind Date, and had totally forgotten about Joker's Wild, and Let's Make a Deal.
ReplyDeleteThere was another one that I really enjoyed--Street Smarts, and it showed how dumb people can really be.
ScottDS... yeah Tough Crowd was a great show.
ReplyDeleteI recommend Quinn's one man show, directed by Jerry Seinfeld "Long Story Short" -- a one jet tour through human history and human nature. He gets some of the history wrong of course, but a LOT of great stuff. It's not on Netflix yet, but is on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBIEbR94yO8
Andrew, the slime came from a Canadian import called You Can't Do That On Television, which was one of Nickelodeon's first shows. One of the many tropes on the show as that a character would get "slimed" if he or she said "I don't know." (Similarly, the word "water" would get water poured on the speaker.)
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, that really resonated with audiences, and the fledgling network became associated with the green slime, which they gladly embraced. So much so, that they incorporated the green slime into numerous other shows, regardless whether it had any fit. They also made it a major aspect of their theme park.
In more recent years, they've moved away from use of the green slime, but it still remains a part of their overall image.
As Floyd R. Turbo mentioned, can't beat Match Game for pure entertainment. $25,000 Pyramid a not-too-distant second.
ReplyDeleteFave game-show host still awaiting his own prediction: David Lee Roth.
Fave fake game-show: Jackie Rodgers Jr.'s $100,000 Jackpot Wad. "You're paying me in cash, right? That was the deal!"
Fave non-Remote Control Kari Wuhrer appearance in Ford Fairlane as Melodi ... like in a song.
ReplyDelete"You got to shave before you leave the house in a dress like that... and I don't mean your legs."
Pop culture nod: "Weird Al's" parody of Greg Kihn Band for "I Lost on Jeopardy."
Firefly, My sister kept trying out and got rather far in their process, but she never did make it to the show itself. It sounds like a difficult process.
ReplyDeleteOutlaw, Some of those re-dubbed Japanese game shows are hilarious! The Japanese are definitely inventive when it comes to torturing contestants.
ReplyDeleteBackthrow, I've never seen "The Gong Show," just little clips.
ReplyDeleteJen, "Let's Make a Deal" was always fun. I actually had a statistics professor who said that show showed how humans innately grasp statistics even if they aren't doing the math.
ReplyDeleteFloyd, Quinn was hilarious. He was one of the better "in your face" kind of comics out there.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, Ah yes, that was the name of the show -- "You Can't Do That On Television." That came to define the network for me, even though I never watched the show.
ReplyDeleteEric, I think of that Weird Al song whenever I see Jeopardy. LOL! "I lost on Jeopardy... baaaaaaby."
ReplyDeleteDavid Lee Roth would have made an excellent game show host in the 1980s, particularly if the show itself was obnoxious.
Andrew, As for The Gong Show, I recall that they got away with quite a bit at the time. To refresh my memory, I watched a few on YouTube. One came up in the search called "Have You Got A Nickel", or also named the "Popsicle Twins". Some of the guys in the audience loved it, and if you watch, you'll know why.
ReplyDeleteIf you check out the Unknown Comic, I can see a resemblance to Bender.
LOL! An early Bender, huh?
ReplyDeleteYou might not get the connection, but I did.
ReplyDeleteAndrew you never saw the Gong Show?
ReplyDeleteYou must have grown up in a cooler climate.
Summer was the time to watch all of that stuff(AZ is kind of warm in the summer).
I even saw a taping of it during a summer trip to Calf. I was to young to appreciate what was going on.
Another one was, "Make Me Laugh". Gallagher was one of the comics on that show. Look for it on Youtube.
Max, Nope, I never saw it. Maybe it wasn't on when I started watching television or maybe my parents didn't want me watching it? I'm not sure, but I just never saw it.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of the Weird Al Jeopardy video is that they got Art Fleming to be a part of it. "You're a complete loser!" Loved it. Getting on the show is even harder since they switched to online weed-outs I mean testing. Even though the show has easy questions, the online ones are significantly more obscure and difficult.
ReplyDeleteThe Gong Show introduced me to Carol Wayne, Rip Taylor and Rip Taylor. It had its moments.
Original version of Iron Chef - the dubbing was insane - the ingredients were insane - and the critiques were ever so polite as the judges ruled some dishes inedible. LOVED IT. The current version is but a pale imitation.
Andrew, My guess is that your parents didn't want you watching it. I could get pretty raunchy at times.
ReplyDeleteFirefly, I love the Japanese Iron Chef. The ingredients were insane -- this is $2,400 an ounce fish sweat and a $7,000 carrot. And I love the play by play and then the zingers the judges gave. What was best of all, however, was how completely seriously they took a show which was not at all serious!
ReplyDeleteThe American version takes itself far too seriously.
Jen, That could well be. And then by the time it ended up in syndication I was probably watching stuff on the other channels.
ReplyDeleteThe world's greatest game show ever is the Gong show.....
ReplyDeleteWhatch gonna do!
Whatcha gonna do!
I'm gonna play my tuba
Whatcha gonna do!
I'm gonna play my tuba now....
I loved Family Feud with Richard Dawson and I really liked I've got A Secret and What's My Line. The Gong Show was standard fare just for fun.
ReplyDeleteIndi and Critch, "The Gong Show" seems to be a very popular choice. I'm sad I missed it.
ReplyDeleteWhat did I start by mentioning THE GONG SHOW?
ReplyDeleteAndrew, don't be sad you missed it, there's always YouTube.
Jen, You're a trendsetter! :)
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I'm ahead of my time.:) You've got to check it out, it's hilarious. I was watching a few of them just a bit ago. I called my brother who's a few years younger than you, and he said he remembers it being raunchy.
ReplyDeleteSomething my mom didn't want us watching was "The Exorcist". It was on HBO (took a long time before they would show it), and we had friends over. When she found out what was on (probably because we were laughing real loud), she told us to turn it away. As soon as she went back in the kitchen, we had it on again.
Jen, The Exorcist is a great flick. I actually just watched it again for the umpteenth time this weekend.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I was way too young when it was first out. Everybody made such a big deal about it, so naturally, when you could finally see it on TV, of course we had to watch. I still wasn't old enough to watch if it had been in the theater when it was on HBO.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like good parenting to me.
ReplyDeleteDid they wonder where they went wrong when you became a lawyer(I couldn't help it. I hope you don't mind a lawyer joke).
Another show I remember from that time was, "Almost Anything Goes". Anybody remember that one?
Max, You want to know the funny thing, is I started in engineering school. When I left that and decided to go to law school, everyone said, "I always wondered why you wanted to be an engineer, I always figured you for a lawyer." LOL! I guess I have an evil soul?
ReplyDeleteJen, I first saw The Exorcist when it hit the networks. I didn't have HBO until my 20s.
ReplyDeleteSorry, all. I was at a wedding over the weekend and missed the fun conversation.
ReplyDeleteBesides Wheel of Fortune, I like Jeopardy and The Price is Right and at times Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Beyond that, I don't watch a whole lot.
Gene Gene The Dancing Machine!
ReplyDeleteJeopardy!!!!!
ReplyDelete