GSN 50 greatest game shows special...

[PYLW]

has stuff from the Barry and Enright vaults and the Chuck Barris vaults!

Anyone seen the commercials yet? I spyed clips from Treasure Hunt, The Joker's Wild, $20,000 Pyramid (The clips of it looked nicer and clearer than the $100,000 Pyramid run we're getting!), Three's a Crowd(Ugh...), amongst others. I'm guessing that makes the special much better, as I was expecting only Goodson-Todman stuff.

[Blanquepage]

Three's a Crowd(Ugh...)

Oye, I for one really liked 3's a Crowd and I'm glad it's on there.
Granted I fully respect other people's opinions, but I do wonder if a lot of those who slam this show have actually seen it and geniunely dislike it or just trash it because so many other people do.

--Jamie

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'121856\' date=\'Jun 19 2006, 03:52 PM\']
I for one really liked 3's a Crowd and I'm glad it's on there.
Granted I fully respect other people's opinions, but I do wonder if a lot of those who slam this show have actually seen it and geniunely dislike it or just trash it because so many other people do.
[/quote]
I saw it in first run, saw it on GSN, and saw the Alan Thicke remake.

And it sucks. It sucks because it basically showcases some of the most despicable qualities in people.

/didn't like Friend Or Foe either

[PYLW]

Indeed, I have seen some 3's a Crowd before. However, I found it too...weird. I'm guessing it simply had a trashy feel to it, although seeing Jim Peck's hilariously poofy hairstyle was fun. I did like how the whole team won $333.33. Hey, if you're going to do low budget, do it in style. In conclusion however, ehhh...the show isn't my style...

[Blanquepage]

I couldn't sit through the Alan Thicke remake, myself.
I concur with Chris that this version was terrible.

/didn't like Friend Or Foe either

The fact that it was on the GSN Feast of Favorites did nothing for me but lead me to believe that the list was totally tampered with.

--Jamie

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'121858\' date=\'Jun 19 2006, 03:58 PM\']
[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'121856\' date=\'Jun 19 2006, 03:52 PM\']
I for one really liked 3's a Crowd and I'm glad it's on there.
Granted I fully respect other people's opinions, but I do wonder if a lot of those who slam this show have actually seen it and geniunely dislike it or just trash it because so many other people do.
[/quote]
I saw it in first run, saw it on GSN, and saw the Alan Thicke remake.

And it sucks. It sucks because it basically showcases some of the most despicable qualities in people.

/didn't like Friend Or Foe either
[/quote]
While that's completely true, there's other things to dislike. Among the few:
* A completely uninventive scoring system. "You're right, so you get a point." It works on Two Minute-Drill because there are scads of questions. On "Three's a Crowd," it's 0 to 12. Even "Newlywed Game" hid this behind 5-10-25.

* A poke-my-eyes-out set. Whoof. Was there a remnant sale at Carpet Emporium?

* Material that deliberately provoked infighting, and probably not just after the show ended.

I was not of the belief that people were good and nice and all that to begin with, and "Three's a Crowd" did nothing to make me change my belief.

/I believe that certain people can be very good, but people as a species are stupid, greedy and motivated purely by their own self-interest.

[PYLW]

Haha, I actually had GSN for about a week or a month, and the first "surprise" I got to see was the re-make of 3's a Crowd. I already hated Alan Thicke for Growing Pains, so it really didn't help that he was hosting...ugh.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Fiono Coyne\' post=\'121860\' date=\'Jun 19 2006, 06:02 PM\']
I couldn't sit through the Alan Thicke remake, myself.
I concur with Chris that this version was terrible.
[/quote]
Yes, but you couldn't go wrong with that announcer.  

No Chicago outlet cleared the 1979 first-run version.  From the viewings I saw on GSN, I didn't miss much.

Doug

[Jackpotman800]

I myself ain't a fan of Three's a Crowd. However the only thing I liked about the original was it's bouncy theme song. The remake's theme was okay, but it's the one from the original that I'm a big fan of.

[Ian Wallis]

No Chicago outlet cleared the 1979 first-run version. From the viewings I saw on GSN, I didn't miss much.

Surprisingly the Buffalo station I saw it from didn't start running it until January 1980 - not too long after that, most of the rest of the country had already cancelled it.

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' post=\'121866\' date=\'Jun 19 2006, 07:49 PM\']
No Chicago outlet cleared the 1979 first-run version.  From the viewings I saw on GSN, I didn't miss much.

Doug
[/quote]

In the Harrisburg (PA) area, it ran from September 1979 through at least February (I'm going off of my old TV Guides) 1980 at 7pm weeknights. Sometime between February and June it was replaced by reruns of "Welcome Back, Kotter"...

[whewfan]

Jim Peck commented on Three's a Crowd at GSC 8.

I asked him when I was there how many couples were still together after the show. He replied "A better question would be how many were still together DURING the show?"

Just as Art James also said, Jim said that luck plays a major part in TV. Some hosts are given formats that can last forever, and some are given a show that's rotten, and the host has to do his best to try to inject SOMETHING in the show to make it more watchable and interesting.

He also commented that when the show was cancelled, Jim and Chuck were talking about the show, and Barris commented "Know what was wrong? Nobody had any fun on that show."

And if you've had enough nerve to watch through at least one show, you can clearly see that nobody seems to be smiling at the end, and they all look like they're waiting for the credits to stop rolling.

Here's 3's a Crowd fact:
The concept came from Jess Oppenheimer, the head writer for I Love Lucy. He pitched the idea to Barris, but his vision was asking harmless questions like "what does your husband like in his coffee". Obviously Barris did his own retooling.

[Ian Wallis]

Here's 3's a Crowd fact:
The concept came from Jess Oppenheimer, the head writer for I Love Lucy. He pitched the idea to Barris, but his vision was asking harmless questions like "what does your husband like in his coffee". Obviously Barris did his own retooling.

Here's another fact:  we could have seen Three's a Crowd about a decade earlier than we actually did.  Barris was actually pitching this show to network and syndication as early as the late '60s.  TV Guide even had a blurb about the show in its TV Teletype section around that time.  

One wonders how history would have changed had the show gotten on the air when he originally planned.  Barris mentioned that the negative press surrounding Three's a Crowd actually brought down the ratings of his other shows (Dating, Newlywed, Gong) that were on in first-run at the time.  Shortly after TAC was cancelled, he volunteeringly stopped production on all his shows and didn't offer them for the 1980-81 season.  Had Three's a Crowd not gone on the air when it did, maybe more seasons of the others would have been in the offing.

Just goes to show you how times have changed:  Three's a Crowd was reportedly the highest-rated show on GSN during what some people refer to as "The Dark Period", which led to the revival.

[Blanquepage]

Three's a Crowd was reportedly the highest-rated show on GSN during what some people refer to as "The Dark Period"

I must say in retrospect, 10/11/97 - 4/18/98 wasn't so dark.

There's actually a pilot for Three's a Crowd from 1969 for ABC still in existence. Haven't seen it yet so I can't comment on it, but we're working on that.

[Dbacksfan12]

I'm not usually one to issue a cheap plug...but you can read a little more about Jim's 3s a Crowd memories on my site.