Final episode mentions

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 02:06 PM\'] You mean this thread has gone into its second page and nobody's mentioned Rod Roddy's classic "you want to be a contestant" plug on "Hit Man?" [/quote]
 Actually, PeterTomarkensGal did, yesterday. :-)  Look about 19-20 posts down on the first page.

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'gsnstooge\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 06:57 AM\'] What about NYSI '89, Caesear's Challenge, Trivia Trap, Just Men, Bargain Hunters (even if you don't care), Blackout, and the original Battlestars? [/quote]
I can answer three of your questions!

CAESAR'S CHALLENGE:  Ahmad Rashad never made a speech.  It was a rerun.  NBC had plans to air Caesar reruns until March, but they quickly changed their minds after the LA earthquakes hit!

BLACKOUT:  Bob Goen addressed the audience after a $10,000 win thanking the viewers for tuning in.

JUST MEN!:  On April Fool's Day 1983 (what a lucky day that was for me), the final week had Eric Brown (Buzz-Mama's Family) having the lucky Ford Mustang Convertible key all week long.  No female won it on the 13th & final week.  Betty White told the viewers it was a pleasure hosting that show & all the male celebs gave her a hug.  

And when that was over, I cried...YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I felt like Dorothy throwing a bucket of water on The Game Show Witch!

WITCH:  NO!!!  I'M MELTING, I'M MELTING!  LOOK WHAT YOU DONE?  YOU DESTROYED MY WICKEDNESS.  OH WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD!  AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Unfortunately 2 months later, the Witch had the last cackle when Betty ended up winning her Daytime Emmy for Just Men!  Thank God & Greyhound the 1983 Daytime Emmys weren't televised or I would've thrown a John McEnroe tantrum (LOL)!

[Ian Wallis]

CAESAR'S CHALLENGE: Ahmad Rashad never made a speech. It was a rerun. NBC had plans to air Caesar reruns until March, but they quickly changed their minds after the LA earthquakes hit!

I could never figure out how NBC was airing "Caesar's Challenge".  For a week in August, and then again around Labor Day, they aired a week of reruns (maybe they didn't have enough episodes in the can at those points).

In late December and January, they skipped a few episodes, then aired a week of reruns, then it disappeared with no notice.

I remember seeing shows on the USA reruns that summer that I never saw on NBC.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 01:23 PM\'] CAESAR'S CHALLENGE:  Ahmad Rashad never made a speech.  It was a rerun.  NBC had plans to air Caesar reruns until March, but they quickly changed their minds after the LA earthquakes hit!
 [/quote]
 I'm not saying you're wrong, but what does one have to do with the other?  IIRC, CAESAR'S CHALLENGE and CLASSIC CONCENTRATION were replaced with Jane Whitney's talk show (OK, technically two weeks of CAESAR'S episodes replaced CONCENTRATION, then Whitney's show went off syndie and on network).  So what exactly did the earthquakes have to do with the decision to lose the game shows two months earlier than expected?

Doug

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 03:54 PM\'] So what exactly did the earthquakes have to do with the decision to lose the game shows two months earlier than expected?

Doug [/quote]
 When I heard about Caesar's pink slip locally, I called KPRC about it.  The lady told me NBC plans to air reruns until March & that KPRC will replace it with syndicated Family Feud.

Caesar got yanked January 14.  The LA earthquake hit on January 17 (Martin Luther King Day).  NBC probably changed their minds about extending Ceasar reruns.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 02:23 PM\']

Unfortunately 2 months later, the Witch had the last cackle when Betty ended up winning her Daytime Emmy for Just Men!  Thank God & Greyhound the 1983 Daytime Emmys weren't televised or I would've thrown a John McEnroe tantrum (LOL)! [/quote]
 INterestingly, since the Daytime Emmy eligibility period at the time was from March to February, Betty was nominated again in 1984 for her work on Just Men, but lost(to Bob Barker IIRC)

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 05:06 PM\'] When I heard about Caesar's pink slip locally, I called KPRC about it.  The lady told me NBC plans to air reruns until March & that KPRC will replace it with syndicated Family Feud.

Caesar got yanked January 14.  The LA earthquake hit on January 17 (Martin Luther King Day).  NBC probably changed their minds about extending Ceasar reruns. [/quote]
 That still proves el zilcho to the end that one event had a thing to do with the other.

[trainman]

My semi-educated guess is based on the fact that NBC was replacing two half-hour shows with a one-hour show...

I assume there were some NBC affiliates who had been showing only one of either "Caesars Challenge" or "Classic Concentration."  NBC may have originally planned to keep feeding "Caesars Challenge" reruns solely to those affiliates for a couple of months, as a service until they could get their act together and find another half-hour show to drop in there.  But then someone said, "Wait a minute, why should we make it easier for our affiliates to pre-empt network programming?!"

Unless it turns out that the Northridge earthquake caused highly localized damage to the shelf holding the entire collection "Caesars Challenge" videotapes at NBC in Burbank, in which case, never mind.

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'trainman\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 11:47 PM\']

Unless it turns out that the Northridge earthquake caused highly localized damage to the shelf holding the entire collection "Caesars Challenge" videotapes at NBC in Burbank, in which case, never mind. [/quote]
 Yes, and the gravitational pull caused a techtonic (sp?) shift which carried the tapes directly to the shelf at USA Network, who found them buried between some tapes of "Couch Potatoes" and "Hot Potato."  USA aired the tapes for a short time after dusting them off a bit.  After the game show block ended, the tapes were thrown one by one into the Pacific Ocean by edict of the sister of Debbie Allen of "Fame." (Preceding post purely parody.  Not to be taken seriously.)

[HYHYBT]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 05:06 PM\'] When I heard about Caesar's pink slip locally, I called KPRC about it.  The lady told me NBC plans to air reruns until March & that KPRC will replace it with syndicated Family Feud.

Caesar got yanked January 14.  The LA earthquake hit on January 17 (Martin Luther King Day).  NBC probably changed their minds about extending Ceasar reruns.

That still proves el zilcho to the end that one event had a thing to do with the other.[/quote]

In fact, it almost DISproves it. The earthquake on the 17th caused a show to be cancelled on the 14th, three days earlier?

The last Davidson episode was weird, as I think they acknowledged it being the last but still, John did the "see you next week" spiel.

The closest thing there is to a mention is his getting tongue-tied explaining, I think, why the contestant about to play the Winner's Circle didn't have to worry about coming back the next week. But that had to do with it being the end of a tournament, and his getting tongue-tied isn't unusual enough to go on.

I auditioned for the game in December 1991, and the contestant coordinators said there would be two more weeks of new shows taped before their hiatus, one of them being the tournament week. Given that they weren't taping during my trip, I don't think they would have let me fly in from Pittsburgh to audition if they thought the show would not be returning from hiatus.

That's odd. If it was December, the last episodes had already been taped. Either way, surely they wouldn't still be auditioning contestants if they knew! One other clue which to me suggests they didn't know it was the end (and now you'll think I'm crazy, but I had months of reruns during which to come up with hints that the show might just be taking a break) was the commercial for that last week. All that season, including the previous tournament, each week's commercial was almost precisely the same, (clue given, such as "Country singer with big breasts" followed by mismatched answer from the same round, "Johnny Cash", repeat a few times, mention celebs' names) but that last one was different. For instance, it included spooky effects and John Davidson singing "My sandwich has a first name...".

(hey, don't look at me like that. I hadn't seen commercials for game shows often, and since I had to tape this one off the satellite it had them included.)

[dougal18]

It was the last ever episode of 15 To 1 yesterday.  The host (William G Stewart) mentioned that it was the final Grand Final and proceeded to give some statistics.
Like it ran for 16 years, had 33,975 contestants, and he had asked just under 350,000 questions.

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Dec 19 2003, 06:21 PM\'] Interestingly, since the Daytime Emmy eligibility period at the time was from March to February, Betty was nominated again in 1984 for her work on Just Men!, but lost (to Bob Barker IIRC) [/quote]
 And the witch got angry saying...

WITCH:  Curses!  Curses!

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'GSWitch\' date=\'Dec 20 2003, 05:53 AM\'] And the witch got angry saying...

WITCH:  Curses!  Curses! [/quote]
 Wow.

[urbanpreppie05]

QUOTE (zachhoran @ Dec 19 2003, 06:21 PM)
Interestingly, since the Daytime Emmy eligibility period at the time was from March to February, Betty was nominated again in 1984 for her work on Just Men!, but lost (to Bob Barker IIRC)

And the witch got angry saying...
WITCH: Curses! Curses!

I'm REALLY confused here. What does all this mean?

[PeterMarshallFan]

[quote name=\'urbanpreppie05\' date=\'Dec 20 2003, 05:12 PM\']

QUOTE (zachhoran @ Dec 19 2003, 06:21 PM)
Interestingly, since the Daytime Emmy eligibility period at the time was from March to February, Betty was nominated again in 1984 for her work on Just Men!, but lost (to Bob Barker IIRC)

And the witch got angry saying...
WITCH: Curses! Curses!

I'm REALLY confused here. What does all this mean? [/quote]
 The Witch is his "mascot," and one of the Witch's favorite shows is Just Men.

Or something like that.