Recently, I came across a book about the early days of broadcast television from the point of view of the salesmen and packagers. The book is called Fridays with Art . It was “edited” by Dick Woolen. (I put edited in quotes because the editor uses the possessive form of proper nouns when he means to use the plural form.) There were some interest factoids about game shows I would like to share with this forum.
• “Celebrity Bowling” celebrities didn’t want to go home after taping a half-hour show so they would use the same celebrities, switch teams, and tape another show.
• The success of the first season of “Celebrity Bowling” inspired its distributor to develop an identical series called “The Best of Bowling” but a stern letter from the original show’s lawyer put a stop to the copycat series.
• “Celebrity Bowling” was cancelled, not because of low ratings, because the producer made enough money to turn his attention to financing theatrical productions.
• “Face the Music” started production as “Bet the Music.” Players bid for notes and guess the song titles. Tommy Oliver and his orchestra played the music. Patrick Wayne was the host but the producer blames the recent death of his father, John, for his poor performance during the pilot. Ron Ely was tapped as host. Both Wayne and Ely were golfing buddies of the packager.
• A robot figured into the production of “Bet the Music” but kept malfunctioning and was dropped.
• One of writers of the book admits to advising Jack Barry not to buy 700 episodes of “The Joker’s Wild” from CBS for $100 each before the tapes were destroyed. Barry ignored the advice and convinced KHJ in Los Angeles to run the series in prime time. TJW catapulted KHJ from last place to first in the time slot. The show went into syndication successfully in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
• (I saved my favorite factoid for last.) When “The Newlywed Game” was broadcast in Cincinnati. WKRC would kill the audio during the dullest answers and let the audience let its imagination fill in the blanks. The practice soon caught on in other markets.