[quote name=\'clanky06\' post=\'159826\' date=\'Aug 6 2007, 11:05 PM\']
[quote name=\'snowpeck\' post=\'159819\' date=\'Aug 6 2007, 06:25 PM\']
[quote name=\'clanky06\' post=\'159594\' date=\'Aug 4 2007, 05:24 PM\']
You're right, it was Scrabble. NBC conned Reg Grundy Productions to produce two game shows for the price of one to hold a "spot" until what they really cared about was ready (the other show was Scattergories, hosted by Dick Clark.) It truly was a game show from hades—there were constant equipment breakdowns, and the contestant pool cooled their heels for a whole day, only to be told to come back tomorrow. When I finally got on Chuck said at one point, "I don't feel right calling a grown man 'Clanky'."
Can anyone guess game show #2? One question I had was "It's Flanagan Goose Time."
[/quote]
Knockout possibly? Didn't they have a round where you had to figure out what three words had in common (obviously Father here)?
Greg
[/quote]
You got it—it was Knockout, based on the "IQ Test" question "Which of these four things doesn't belong and why?" Bruce Belland was producer, and he was a member of the Four Preps, famous for the song "23 Miles," about Catalina Island. Another of the group was Glen A. Larson, who produced a bunch of TV shows in the 70's. I asked Bruce, "What happened to the 'J'?" and he said, "How did you know that?" Bjelland is the original Norwegian name. I was trying to remember the contestant coordinator's name, Roberta something I thought, but Gary Edwards immediately came up with "Roberta Simons" at last year's GSC. Mark Maxwell-Smith was the creator-producer-writer for the show and it was great to see him again at this year's GSC. When I told him I had been a contestant on Knockout his eyes lit up and he gave me a big hug!
Roberta believed in "networking," and through me my sister Karen, brother-in-law Terry Kathan, and Hughes Aircraft Co. co-worker Dave Shingledecker were all later contestants. Near the end of the run, they made a pilot of a possible celebrity-partner version, and Terry and I played the contestants and Geoff Edwards and Jo Anne Worley were the celebrities. I saw Geoff at this year's GSC and he remembered the pilot—some 30 years ago!
One more Knockout anecdote. After I had won $25,000 on Celebrity Sweepstakes and $10,000 on Knockout, the company newspaper, the HughesNews, did a feature article on me. The paper came out before the episode aired, and when it did, I got a company phone call from Paula Witt, who had been on the show with me. How about that—small world! It turned out we knew a lot of the same people, although we hadn't met before.
Please forgive me for wandering off-topic, but this illustrates what it's like being a contestant and spending a lot of time talking to other contestants, contestant coordinators, and network S&P people! Our conversations wander all over the place, but usually about game shows.
Paula and I became game show buddies. Once I tried out for Whew! with the procedings conducted by Jay Wolpert. Now Mark Maxwell-Smith was a Type-A bundle-of-energy kind of guy, but Jay had him beat by a mile with his off-the-wall out-of-control antics! I didn't make it as a contestant, but later I thought about what they were looking for, and told all this to Paula. The upshot was that Paula won $25,000!
OK, one more thing and I'm through—for now. At the supper table with my wife and kids, someone would say "Give us a 'Knockout,' Daddy." And I would pose something like "Plate, Towel, Phone and Boy." Ah, such good game show memories!
[/quote]
The song you mentioned is actually called "26 Miles".
