"Silver Age" of game shows

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'davidhammett\' post=\'196653\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 10:50 PM\']
/am I the only one who wants to model this with a sinusoidal function?[/quote]
Actually, some Benadryl will clear that right up.

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'davidhammett\' post=\'196653\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 10:50 PM\']/am I the only one who wants to model this with a sinusoidal function?[/quote]
I wouldn't call it sinusoidal, but the graph would have a mountainous look, with spikes maybe at 1972, 75, 83, 99, and perhaps 2005 (DoND)

/Wanted to make a Benadryl joke (but Matt beat me to it, apparently.  Curse me and my cautious editing)

[Fedya]

[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'196617\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 08:54 PM\']
[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' post=\'196604\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 08:19 PM\']
And this is the zinc age.

Randy
tvrandywest.com
[/quote]
I'd have called it Iron Pyrite Age, but it's not as funny to say.
[/quote]
And here I was going to make a joke about it being the brushed aluminum age....

[geno57]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' post=\'196604\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 07:19 PM\']
And this is the zinc age.[/quote]

Neehhhhh ... Chintz.

[Craig Karlberg]

My "personal" golden age started in 1968 with TTTT.  It peaked in 1975 where you couldn't escape from the TV without seeing a game show on any given channel at any given time during daylight hours.  Then it fizzled out in 1980.  By 1982, my "Silver Age" started to kick in with a peak somewhere bwtween 1985-1987.  Another drop-off occured in aboiut 1991 to the point I started to wonder if we ever saw game shows ever again the way we use to.  On August 16, 1999, I found a new age.  It was called the "Platinum" age.  This one only lasted a short 5 years.  Then, after a short lull in 2004, the "Diamond" age kicked in for me with DoND.  It's still going on today.  Who knows how long that'll last(maybe untill the day I die.)?

[Jay Temple]

I would agree generally with the early 1970's as the beginning of the Silver Age. I'm tempted to move it up to 1973, though, because of the premieres of The $10,000 Pyramid and Match Game '73.

[BrandonFG]

Would I be the only one who thinks the current era of popularity actually began in fall-1996, if not a few months earlier? When "Debt" premiered in June of that year, Wink welcomed viewers to the "return of the game show". From there, you saw revivals of DG/NG (and "Bzzz!" that season), the former lasting three seasons. In late-September 1996, The Family Channel premiered their new afternoon block of shows, complete with a "preview" special.

Compared to the previous season, where daytime talk shows dominated and there were only two syndie games, TPiR, and reruns of Supermarket Sweep and Shop Til You Drop, I'd put my money on the current game "renaissance" dating back to 1996, with "Millionaire" being the fuel that completely got things rolling.

/I feel like I'm writing a history paper

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'196734\' date=\'Sep 9 2008, 02:50 PM\']
Would I be the only one who thinks the current era of popularity actually began in fall-1996, if not a few months earlier? When "Debt" premiered in June of that year, Wink welcomed viewers to the "return of the game show". From there, you saw revivals of DG/NG (and "Bzzz!" that season), the former lasting three seasons. In late-September 1996, The Family Channel premiered their new afternoon block of shows, complete with a "preview" special.

Compared to the previous season, where daytime talk shows dominated and there were only two syndie games, TPiR, and reruns of Supermarket Sweep and Shop Til You Drop, I'd put my money on the current game "renaissance" dating back to 1996, with "Millionaire" being the fuel that completely got things rolling.[/quote]

A good argument, Brandon, but for many people those shows could still be dismissed as simply cheap cable, perhaps better than the USA originals or "STYD," but not much.  For me, the genre had to prove itself on broadcast TV again, which it did in August 1999.

As for the rest of TV history, I would agree that the 50s was the "Golden Age," with the 60s and 70s the "Silver Age," as new format concepts came to fruition and we had the first revivals (and I would consider "T or C" the first successful syndicated series, even if it was more successful in small markets than big markets).  In the 80s, we were getting more retreads than new concepts and then everything fell apart in 1991--until August 1999, when game shows (or a game show) came roaring back.

[joker316]

[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'196634\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 09:47 PM\']
[quote name=\'joker316\' post=\'196622\' date=\'Sep 8 2008, 09:15 PM\']
I agree with Matt and everyone who says the "silver age" began on 9-4-72[/quote]
To right the record, Matt stated that in his belief the Silver Age began four years before 1972,
for which he was hailed by Randy West.
Twas your Don who opined that Labor Day 1972 began said age.
[/quote]
Sorry about that Don. My apologies, sir!

[chris319]

Ironically, the Silver Age preceded the Golden Age IMO.

The Silver Age of game shows started with the dawn of television circa 1948 and ended with the quiz scandals in the late '50s. During that era game shows were prevalent both in daytime and prime time and production was New York-centric. After the scandals there was a lull of eight or nine years during which syndicated game shows were buoyed by local stations' demand for color programming. The Golden Age started some time around 1968 when (until the Prime Access Rule*), game shows were most prevalent in daytime. By the late '60s, production was becoming Hollywood-centric, G-T's panel shows were gone from prime time and the company started reviving old formats, Chuck Barris arrived on the scene, Jack Barry started to resurface on network TV as both producer and emcee, later to be joined by Dan Enright. Around 1972, syndicated game shows started filling the 7:30 time slot made available by the prime access rule, and CBS lifted its game show embargo by putting on TJW, Gambit and TPIR in daytime. Throughout the '70s and '80s game shows were everywhere, culminating in a mania in the mid to late '80s thanks to the success of nighttime Jeopardy! and WOF. Then in 1986 all three networks changed hands: NBC/RCA to GE, ABC to Capitol Cities, and CBS to Laurence Tisch. The game show business continued as usual for a few more years then started to decline in the '90s due to the networks abandoning the genre and giving time slots in daytime back to affiliates. Around the same time, the entrepreneurs who had been the major packagers since the '50s started to retire (or die) and sell their libraries and formats.

We are now in the Styrofoam Era when, except for a very few cases, game shows are mired in formulaic, derivative question-and-answer formats. Innovation is almost completely absent from the genre. If Michael Davies hadn't revived The $64,000 Question in the late '90s I don't know where we would be today.

*Jerry (Giraud) Chester, executive vice president of Goodson-Todman Productions, was instrumental in the passage of the Prime Access Rule in 1970 which paved the way for a bevvy of syndicated nighttime game shows.

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'196765\' date=\'Sep 9 2008, 11:02 PM\']Innovation is almost completely absent from the genre. If Michael Davies hadn't revived The $64,000 Question in the late '90s I don't know where we would be today.[/quote]
It's not just game shows.  It seems like innovation is gone from movies, TV, games, basically everything has become a two-step process: Find a great act, then steal it.  Of course, we all clamor for Split Second and Concentration, so it's not like it's just the fault of the production end, but there does need to be some sort of change in the way things are done.

As for the rest of the comment, I have to think we'd be at least a little worse off without Millionaire.  There'd probably be some other show, probably another revival, but I don't know if it would have the polish and spectacle.

/Remembers where he was during Millionaire's 1st set of shows.

[GameShowGuru]

I have to concur with the Golden Age being in the 50s and ending in 1969, September 26, 1969 to be exact, when NBC canceled The Match Game, Eye Guess, You Don't Say, and Split Personality.

I definately also agree with the Silver Age starting in 1972 with the premiere of The Price is Right.  My reasoning is that TPiR was only one of three shows from the Golden Age that was given a complete makeover which made it better than the original (the other two being Match Game and Password).

Where I disagree is that 1980 (6/20/80) marked the end of the Silver Age.  Rather, it ended Phase I of the Silver Age, with Phase II beginning September 20, 1982 with the premiere of The $25,000 Pyramid (Match Game ended its 9 year run over a week prior).  This also more or less kicked off the era of daily (as opposed to weekly) prime time game shows.  

Phase II almost died off in 1989-90 with the ending of Super Password and Scrabble, but the 1990-91 season gave Phase II a final brief burst of life with a series of revivals (TTTT, $100K Pyramid, The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough, Supermarket Sweep, and the Challengers) and a few original shows (Trump Card).  Once that season ended, Phase II ended with it.

Considering the game show choices you had (Caesar's Challenge, Born Lucky, Quicksilver, Free 4 All, Debt, Shop Til You Drop, FF '94 with Richard Dawson), the 1990s were pretty much The Dark Period of game show history.

In 1999, the bronze age came about when WWTBAM aired on ABC in prime time, with Twenty-One following suit on NBC.

So as far as the 2000s being the styrofoam era, well I wouldn't say that we're in the styrofoam era, but I do remember Dennis Miller saying in one of his rants that we have gone from the GE College Bowl to contestants on Wheel of Fortune saying, "I'd like an F as in pharoah."

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'GameShowGuru\' post=\'196776\' date=\'Sep 9 2008, 09:53 PM\']Considering the game show choices you had (Caesar's Challenge, Born Lucky, Quicksilver, Free 4 All, Debt, Shop Til You Drop, FF '94 with Richard Dawson), the 1990s were pretty much The Dark Period of game show history. [/quote]Hey, don't lump Debt in with the rest of that dreck. That show was decent, and could have made it.

[chris319]

Hey, don't lump Debt in with the rest of that dreck. That show was decent, and could have made it.

You mean Sideways Jeopardy!?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'196892\' date=\'Sep 10 2008, 10:38 PM\']
You mean Sideways Jeopardy!?[/quote]
I'm sorry, you didn't follow the "I am...You are" format, and so we're going to have to add $50 to your Debt...