SEPTEMBER 20, 1982
CBS Television honored the daytime premieres of 2 Great Game Shows: The $25,000 Pyramid and Child's Play!
The $25,000 Pyramid, a new edition of the game show created by Bob Stewart and hosted by Dick Clark, returned to CBS-TV @ 10:00am EDT (after an 8-year absence!), with Constance McCashin and Robert Mandan as the guests for the premiere week, and episodes now videotaped at CBS Television City Studio #33, situated @ 7800 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA.
The origin of the series eminated on Monday, January 26, 1981, an almost-full 6 months after the demise of The $20,000 Pyramid on ABC; on that date, a brand new syndicated version, The $50,000 Pyramid, distributed by Chicago-based CPM, Inc., made its debut throughout the country. This was the Pyramid which introduced the \"round-robin style tournament\" format of the series, something which would also be employed for the $100,000 version (more on that later). The unfortunately short 5-month life of $50,000 Pyramid that resulted can be attributed to a great many factors, but the most obvious are the couple of elements which made it old-hat: the set, which was a hackneyed reworking of the old $20,000 set, and the omnipresent theme, Ken Aldin's \"Tuning Up,\" which had been the main theme of Pyramid for some 8 years and by this time sounded as if it were a scratchy record played on AM radio. Therefore, when it was decided to revive Pyramid for network TV, a few alterations were made: Spice up the musical theme! Revamp the set! Move the show to new digs! But keep Dick Clark as host!!! This new format was workable, and so it was that The $25,000 Pyramid went on to thrill new viewers as well as its old fans.
Almost 2 months later, on Monday, November 8, 1982, the show became The New $25,000 Pyramid to avoid confusion with the same-titled 1974-79 Bill Cullen syndie primetime version; the \"New\" was removed from the title effective the January 28, 1985 episode (#608). That same year, the success of the CBS Daytime version yielded a daily nighttime version, The $100,000 Pyramid (syndicated originally by 20th Century-Fox Television), which debuted on on various stations Monday, September 9, 1985 with debut guests Vicki Lawrence and Brian Mitchell.
Continued...
