Hi, I'm Chris. Longtime viewer, first time caller.
Locally, BtB aired on a small, independent station whose programming was mostly forgettable 60s and 70s movies, obscure 50s TV reruns, knock-offs of then-current popular cartoon series, and laughably bad low-budget advertising. Google the movie 'UHF'. As bad as it was, it was good.
Anyway, this little station aired the full run of BtB, and it was watchable fare. And I watched it regularly and enjoyed it. It was certainly more unpredictable than Wheel of Fortune or MASH reruns, and maybe not as entertaining as cable scramblevision, but watchable fare. For a long time I thought Joe Farago was the next-door neighbor's first husband on Married With Children. And my brother called him 'Joe Fart-i-go'. But I digress again.
The fun part of a retrospective view of old shows is the nostalgia and the cheese factor. Life was different when it was happening. The frosted lens of time makes things seem better or worse than they really were. See administration, Carter or administration, Reagan as good examples. At least one someone thought Break the Clock or Beat the Bank was a good idea and they spent their coin on it. And when it didn't quite pan out, they tossed the host and tinkered with the format. When that didn't work, it was replaced by something else that I didn't watch and can't remember.
Then 6 or 8 years later teenager Chris sees or hears something that reminds him of that show that had two hosts, a flashy set and an odd format. And he wants to see it again because it's driving him crazy. And he gets lucky and finds an episode that didn't get dubbed over in the family pile-o-Beta/VHS tapes. Then teenager Chris discovers usenet through his (expensive!) Compuserve account and finds these people that also remember that show. Some of which even had those shows on their resume (or at least the production company). And we danced and played together, hummed the theme to Mindreaders and reminisced.
Which brings us back here to this forum 20 years later. Break the Bank wasn't the best show on TV and it was not advertised as such. Perhaps if it were we might have justification for most of the comments made here about it (and other shows) in 2011. I don't put those expectations on it. I consider myself lucky to have seen it, as it didn't exactly air in the premiere markets or even on the premiere channels in Anytown USA. I'm even luckier to remember it. Super lucky to have a few episodes. Somewhere. I think.
I definitely don't take it seriously. Somewhere along the way, the internet became serious business. It hasn't been the same since. Can we reminisce some more, please?
