jwallis's Blog

I grew up with Press Your Luck before it became Whammy. My grandmother and I used to watch Wheel of Fortun and Jeopardy when Sajak and Trebeck had believable hairpieces. The game shows out now are a completely different caliber than those of yesteryear (read: 1980s). Here's a couple of the newer shows and what they compare to from back in the day:

Deal or No Deal: People choose a briefcase filled with up to $1,000,000 (represented on a piece of printer paper). Howie Mandell, fresh off his Bobby's World fame tries to convince the contestant to take a much smaller amount of money. The person believes they have the $1,000,000 case and they say no and end up with anywhere between $1500 and $40,000.
Old School Equivilent (OSE): Let's Make A Deal
Better? Old School. Nothing beats the look of a middle aged housewife find out she turned down a Jamacian vacation for a pile of lint.

The Rich List: An exorbitant amount of money is offered (up to $10,000,000). The catch? An exorbitant list is requested. The example i saw recently: Name forty animated Disney films. FORTY. My significant other and i hit 21 before we went to IMDB for help.
OSE: Closest i could find was 50 Grand Slam from 1976. 2 people face each other in isolation booths. They take turns answering 4 questions. Whoever answers more wins that level. 8 levels=$50k While its not $10 million, still for 1976 that's not anything to scoff at.
Better: $10 mill is hard to pass up the chance at. And its you against your brain, not you against someone else's brain. Rich List Wins

Random Game Show Facts:
*The show with the most revivals in history is Pyramid, which has had 10 incarnations since its debut as The $10,000 Pyramid in 1974.
* The longest consecutively running show (no revivals or cancellations) is The Price is Right, which has been out since 1972. However, Spanish game shows hold the record with Sabado Gigante (which is Giant Saturday, i think) with 44 years of production consecutively.
* Fifty-Nine shows have been cancelled in the same year they were created/ revived/ began. Most of those were quiz shows, and very few were spin offs (those usually lasted two seasons).