Have Game Shows Jumped the Shark?

[Ian Wallis]

The genre typically doesn't lend itself to those defining end-of-the-line moments that other types of shows do.

What about when a show dramatically changes its format part way through the run?  I'd think of that as a "jump the shark" moment.  The Christmas, 1974 changes on "Now You See It" come to mind as one that fits the bill.

Whew! are two examples of games that weren't meant to be celebrity games, but were retro-fitted during the run to awkwardly accomodate stars in a misguided attempt to boost ratings.

Was "Whew" really doing that badly when they added celebrities?  If I remember correctly, they tried a celebrity format for three weeks and then went back to regular contestants before making the celebrity format permanent.

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'inturnaround\' date=\'Oct 22 2003, 09:08 AM\'] The game show style you see now is temporary. It will forever be attached to this era and, I think, will stay there. Game shows of the future will have their own styles just like game shows of the past.

We're currently in a game show lull sure, but this too shall pass. We will have a new or remade show hit and hopefully it will lead to more quality shows being made. Of course this will also lead to a lot of bad shows being made, too, but since when hasn't that happened?

Do they make them like they used to? Of course not. They don't do anything the way they used to. If they did, Andy Rooney would be out of a job. [/quote]
 There is one thing from our era that I fear will not be restricted to just our era, the amount of commercial time in a program.  (And I'm only talking about the commercials that aren't built into the show proper.  Fee plugs and TPIR's pricing games are a different matter.)  Consider what would happen or did happen to some shows if they had to go from 25 minutes to 20-22:

Pyramid:  6-in-20, but that's not the worst of it.  A huge part of the play-along factor in the Dick Clark era was giving the contestant a few more clues after time ran out.  Now, it happens only occasionally in round one, and after round two, they go directly to the recap.

The Joker's Wild (the version that didn't suck):  Then:  You could usually get two complete games and bonus rounds in, if you didn't have to go to a tie-breaker.  The prize package wasn't huge, but with two tries per day, it still gave you winners with nice totals.  Now:  (Ignore the need to adjust the dollar values for inflation.)  You'd be lucky to get a full game, a bonus round and the beginning of another game in.  (You can't just make it self-contained, because three Jokers early would give you ten minutes of air to fill.)  If you only have one bonus round most days, you need to make it a bigger prize package, which makes it unlikely that anyone will stop with the money.

Tic Tac Dough:  Impossible to adjust.  Unlike TJW, you can't even change how long it takes to play a game.

Match Game 7x:  Ignoring all the other problems with the actual MG98, the change is similar to TJW.  Then:  A full game come hell or high water.  Occasionally, you have a 1-1 or 0-0 tie which means that a full game and bonus round takes a full half-hour of air time, but that's okay because the contestants dumb enough to force a 1-1 or 0-0 tie are funny on their own.  Now:  In order to get a full game and audience match even without the tie-breaker, you'd have to edit out the chit-chat that made the show so much fun to watch.  (Picture Hollywood Squares with Vulcan celebrities.)

LMAD and Beat the Clock:  One less deal and one less stunt per half-hour.

[calliaume]

The genre typically doesn't lend itself to those defining end-of-the-line moments that other types of shows do.

What about when a show dramatically changes its format part way through the run? I'd think of that as a "jump the shark" moment. The Christmas, 1974 changes on "Now You See It" come to mind as one that fits the bill.

I would argue that Now You See It's format was pretty mediocre to begin with.  Generally speaking, G-T shows were usually as sound as they would get from day 1.  When they started making major changes in the middle of the run -- Now You See It and Showoffs being the obvious examples; I wouldn't consider the changes they made to the end game on Card Sharks '86 or the Star Wheel in that category -- it was like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  The format signed off on didn't work really well and wasn't going to no matter what changes were made.

And Matt's absolutely right; I forgot about adding celebrities to shows, a point I make several times on my own site (and tack The Magnificent Marble Machine onto that list as well).

I honestly don't remember when Whew's changes became permanent, but if it was within two or three weeks of the initial experiment, it's possible the change was okayed by network execs enamored of the idea rather than waiting for the ratings to come in.  Sometimes it's just utterly obvious celebrities on the show won't work, with New York-based The Money Maze's failed week with Soupy Sales and Anita Gillette being the obvious example.  (Would have loved to have seen Peggy Cass or Arlene Francis romping through the maze, however.)

[goongas]

The worst thing that has happened to game shows IMO is the abundance of commercials.  Many shows I see now seem rushed.  Also, the catering to 18-34 year olds doesn't help formats that are normally enjoyed by older people.

[chris319]

the very things you're complaining about happened thirty years ago, in relative terms. And that period of time is the beginning of the most vibrant and (debatably) the most interesting period of game shows in history

What I complained about in the initial post were changes for the worse, not changes for the better. You just described the '70s as a vibrant and interesting period, so would you agree that on balance the modernized '70s versions of shows were better than their '50s predecessors? I would say this was certainly the case with TPIR, MG and WML? Now let's bring this discussion into the new millenium: Would you argue that CS 2001 or MG 98 were improvements over the NBC/CBS versions?

[Dan Sadro]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Oct 22 2003, 05:21 PM\'] What I complained about in the initial post were changes for the worse, not changes for the better. You just described the '70s as a vibrant and interesting period, so would you agree that on balance the modernized '70s versions of shows were better than their '50s predecessors? I would say this was certainly the case with TPIR, MG and WML? Now let's bring this discussion into the new millenium: Would you argue that CS 2001 or MG 98 were improvements over the NBC/CBS versions? [/quote]
 The question is not whether the shows were better, because we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the question is whether we, as a group would perceive the changes as being better.  2003 has been a vibrant and interesting period -- many remakes of classic shows are on the air, and the airwaves have varied and fairly imaginitive game programming.  In hindsight, yes, the modernized 70s versions were better than the 50s predecessors.  But if I experienced television through the 60s similar to how I experienced television during the 90s, I might not have felt the same way about MG73.  I suspect that many of us are in the exact same boat, and that's what I've been arguing.

Obviously CS2001 sucked, although it wouldn't have been as bad if it didn't have Perry's and Eubanks' versions as predecessors.  MG98 wasn't a terrible game, it just paled in comparison to MG73, mainly because of the lack of quality panelists aside from Nell Carter and Vicki Lawrence.  This we can experience in 20/20 hindsight.

[Matt Ottinger]

Would you argue that CS 2001 or MG 98 were improvements over the NBC/CBS versions?

Of course not, but the seventies had its share of failed remakes as well. We just don't talk about them as much today because...well, they failed.  Truth or Consequences, The $128,000 Question, Celebrity Charades, Masquerade Party and others were poor 70s syndicated updates of popular 50s shows.

Failure is timeless, but so is success.  I don't see anything that suggests that the viability of the game show genre is any shakier now than it's ever been.  We talk about the mid-seventies as a golden age for the quantity (and quality) of shows on the air, but thanks to cable, there have been just about as many games on the air now as there were then.  Some are excellent, many are good and many of them are forgettable junk.  Just like then.
 
Sure, it's difficult to find new formats and new ways of doing things, but that's true of TV in general, not just our games.  I see no shark fins.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Oct 22 2003, 01:50 PM\']
Millionaire had their beginning-of-the-end moments when they relied too heavily on the celeb factor.
 [/quote]
 I think also contributing to the "beginning of the end" for network Millionaire was the end of the phone game qualifying format, nearly as much as adding extra celeb shows. The changing of qualifying format to in-person auditions took out the "every person can call in and qualify and be on the show within a few weeks or days" aspect to it. This could arguably be the biggest Jump the Shark moment in GS history.

[TimK2003]

Personally, I think game shows were beginning to jump the shark in the late 80s/early 90s when shows were either being severely tweaked and/or poorly remade.  

Three examples :

1)  Newlywed Game -- Not only did you switch Bob Eubanks with Paul Rodriguez, you traded a nice 80s 'updated' traditional set for something that looked like a ratty New York City apartment *AND* killing a familiar game show 80's-style ditty for a familiar non-game show 50's doo-wop song.

2)  The Jokers Wild -- Instead of a tried and true 2 person Q&A format, you turned it into a 3-person "Game of Definitions".

3)  Tic Tac Dough  -- Put in one bad-acting son of a famous silver screen icon, and add a Dragon Slayer that kills rapping reptiles.


Enough said on that part.

Oddly enough, it was just prior to this era when some pretty decent show concepts made air, but for whatever reason or another, they were short lived.

Three Examples:

1)  Wipeout -- good format, not the best financially-backed/supported producers.

2)  Catch Phrase -- a format that did far better across the pond than in the States, again without a good backing financially by higher ups.

3)  Blackout -- a good main game premise, but the Network execs used it to kill a timeslot for 13 weeks, as per the creator/producer.




Also, prior to the late 80s, we had seen quite a few shows that

[chris319]

We've had this discussion before over the years but it always bears repeating:

that could be the malaise we have here--that there are very few people out there who can execute and fine-tune a format the way that many producers did in the old days. They may have all of the state-of-the-art, computerized bells and whistles, but things simply seem to not be there--and thanks to the huge hit the genre took in the 90s, there isn't the number of younger producers who could've learned from the pros and kept going in the tradition or improved it.

That's it in a nutshell.

Another part of the problem is that even for people who learned game shows at the knees of the old masters, the market for daytime game shows has withered away leaving a mere shadow of the former business/employment climate. Robert Sherman comes to mind as a very capable "second-generation" producer who is no longer active in the business, with Sande Stewart and the TPIR staff perhaps being the sole exceptions. Someone who is good at game development, be it a new idea or a remake, can look at a game and identify the parts that click and the parts that don't, and get rid of the parts that don't. This skill did not seem to be in abundance among the creators of Card Sharks 2001 or that other wonder, One Hundred Percent.

[Adam Nedeff]

I don't think game shows have jumped the shark (dammit I hate that term; I really do). Jumping the shark just means it's impossible for game shows to still be watchable. Not so. Lingo and Whammy! are fantastic shows, although nobody notices that typically because GSN tramples the enjoyment of both with repeated airings. I still enjoy Millionaire, Family Feud, and of course TPIR. Quite honestly, I think now is a great time to be a game show fan, even if the execution is botched so very often.

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Oct 22 2003, 07:24 PM\'] 3)  Tic Tac Dough  -- Put in one bad-acting son of a famous silver screen icon, and add a Dragon Slayer that kills rapping reptiles.

 [/quote]
 The Dragon Slayer also rapped as well.  

And let's not forget Henry Mancini who also wrote the child-like theme!

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'Dsmith\' date=\'Oct 21 2003, 07:44 PM\'] [/QUOTE]
I think gameshows "jumped the shark" after NBC cancelled their last daytime effort; I believe Caesar's Challenge.    
 [/quote]
 Yes it was in January 1994!  NBC had plans to rerun Caesar until March, but suddenly changed their minds when the LA earthquake hit the following Monday (Martin Luther King Day 1994).

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Oct 23 2003, 09:07 PM\']
Yes it was in January 1994!  NBC had plans to rerun Caesar until March, but suddenly changed their minds when the LA earthquake hit the following Monday (Martin Luther King Day 1994). [/quote]
 I think Caesar's and Classic Concentration's replacement, the Jane Whitney talk show(she had a local show on WCAU in Philly in the early 80s) was a done deal beforehand, and the earthquake had nothing to do with it. Whitney's show was listed in TV Guide that came out the Monday or Tuesday beforehand IIRC.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Oct 23 2003, 09:28 PM\']I think Caesar's and Classic Concentration's replacement, the Jane Whitney talk show(she had a local show on WCAU in Philly in the early 80s) was a done deal beforehand, and the earthquake had nothing to do with it. Whitney's show was listed in TV Guide that came out the Monday or Tuesday beforehand IIRC.[/quote]
I believe that's correct.  Which leads me into this meaningless segue.

Among the few TV GUIDEs I've collected over the years is a "Central Time Zone" edition dated 1/31 - 2/6/98 (Yasmine Bleeth is on the cover--{arr-rrrrrr}).  Anyway, the novelty of the "Central Time Zone" edition is that it includes generalized network listings.  Lo and behold, as I look up NBC's generalized schedule, is a listing for CAESAR'S CHALLENGE at 11:30AM CT (NBC's three sudsers of that era are also listed--at 10AM, 12N and 1PM CT; the rest of the NBC broadcast day consisted of TODAY, LEEZA, Brokaw, prime time, Leno, CONAN, LATER [I think Kinnear was still there at that point] and "local programming").  Remember, this was a full four years after CAESAR'S was cancelled.

So the question is, does anyone recall actually seeing CAESAR'S CHALLENGE in 1998 in this fashion (as opposed to a tape trade, etc.)?  Or was this a dubious listing?

The other question is will Chris C. now kill me for taking his topic to a completely different tack (it's still on the subject of game shows but it has nothing to do with jumping the shark)?

Doug