25 years ago today...

[brianhenke]

25 years ago today (January 17, 1984)Warner Amex (now Time Warner Cable) pulled the plug on their interactive QUBE Network shows without any advance warning.  That meant those in Cincinnati, Columbus OH, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh and St. Louis with QUBE consoles in their homes lost Soap Scoop (Cindi Rinehart's Northwest Afternoon show in Seattle got canceled last year, BTW) and four interactive game shows.

   For those not remembering anything about QUBE Network games, they were:

   Quizzles (aired Mondays and then Fridays) - children's game show; hosted by Patti Jefferson; she left and someone replaced her before the network was shut down
   The Magic Touch (Tuesdays and Thursdays) - hosted by Bill Myers (he also did QUBE's Screen Test in Cincinnati which was canceled shortly after the network's demise)
    Score (Wednesdays) - sports quiz (each city competed to win a monthly prize of $500 of sporting goods for an organization in the winning city - initially, Rawlings (IIRC) was the sponsor, but later on it was just $500 in generic sporting goods)
    Video Rockade (Fridays and then Mondays; traded places with Quizzles) - music video show (remember music videos?)

     There were also specials, like the Great Cable Game (this was when cable shows were still regarded as cheesy productions and were not eligible for the Emmys at the time), where at-home viewers could win prizes by knowing cable TV shows (I got every question right - but I didn't win anything).

    But that all came to an abrupt end a quarter of a century today. Does anyone here have memories of the QUBE Network games?

   Brian

[JIANORAN]

They Had A Baseball Game were you play the role as the manager.

[rugrats1]

[quote name=\'brianhenke\' post=\'206524\' date=\'Jan 17 2009, 04:51 PM\']Does anyone here have memories of the QUBE Network games?
[/quote]

Many of us here should already know about one of their first -- "How Do You Like Your Eggs?", with Bill Cullen.

[Matt Ottinger]

I highly recommend http://www.qube-tv.com, which has stories, links, photographs and a ton of YouTube videos about the project.

Interestingly, http://www.qubetv.tv is the so-called "conservative YouTube" and has nothing to do with the Ohio cable experiment.

[brianhenke]

[quote name=\'rugrats1\' post=\'206531\' date=\'Jan 17 2009, 07:17 PM\']
[quote name=\'brianhenke\' post=\'206524\' date=\'Jan 17 2009, 04:51 PM\']Does anyone here have memories of the QUBE Network games?
[/quote]

Many of us here should already know about one of their first -- "How Do You Like Your Eggs?", with Bill Cullen.
[/quote]


I was talking about the QUBE Network shows that aired in 1983-84. Yes, I remember when QUBE started in Columbus in 1977.

Brian