Game Show Documentaries

[Thunder]

Fingers was still there, but Roger was gone.  In the Esquire article, it was mentioned that Fingers and Drew initially thought the perfect bid had been the work of an obsessive fan who was trying to get back at them for firing Roger.

They got the first part right, at least.

[ChrisLambert!]

I think Reg Grundy deserves a showcase for his impact on the genre.

If there's already one that has aired in Australia, we could just remake it and change the name.

[TLEberle]

It was just so well done that it took nine years for GSN to make a program to eclipse the number of people who had watched.

I have no idea what this even means.

I'd be interested in a showcase of different hosts. Cullen being an obvious one, but also ...Art Flemming,

Indeed; hopefully they'd Chyron his name properly.

[WarioBarker]

Fingers was still there, but Roger was gone. In the Esquire article, it was mentioned that Fingers and Drew initially thought the perfect bid had been the work of an obsessive fan who was trying to get back at them for firing Roger.

They got the first part right, at least.

They didn't just think that, they knew exactly who gave the perfect bid suggestion to Kneiss (Ted Slauson, a former contestant who attended tapings many times and had shouted out prices before) and permabanned him.

And Drew? He still thought it was done out of malice in 2012.

[snowpeck]

It was just so well done that it took nine years for GSN to make a program to eclipse the number of people who had watched.

I have no idea what this even means.

The Big Bucks special was GSN's highest rated broadcast until American Bible Challenge overtook it last year.

[TLEberle]

The Big Bucks special was GSN's highest rated broadcast until American Bible Challenge overtook it last year.

I thought he was saying that it took nine years to get to the 1.0 that "Big Bucks" pulled in; I had no idea that Bible Challenge surpassed that marks, or by how much.

[jjman920]

I'd be interested in a showcase of different hosts. Cullen being an obvious one, but also ...Art Flemming,

Indeed; hopefully they'd Chyron his name properly.

What a shame, especially since I read the entry about him from Adam's book not that long ago.

[TLEberle]

It just makes more sense to show the special again. It was just so well done that it took nine years for GSN to make a program to eclipse the number of people who had watched.

I wouldn't run the special as is at all. There was quite a lot of filler to pad the thing out to two hours such as having Ed and Janie play on the specially designed game board that numbered the squares and waiting for Ed to magically reach $110,238 to claim the record and focusing on the way Michael held his hands to stop the board and close-up shots of his beady eyes that move as the light marker dances on its predetermined path.

The story is a great one and worth telling (for one thing, it demonstrated that not every game show contestant is as pleasant and nice as they look on air; Michael Larson seemed to be the consummate sociopath) but it deserves to be told properly and simply and without embellishment.

Other subjects could be a day in the life of a game show, and how a game show is made, from conception to final product.

[Winkfan]

Didn't GSN used to do these kinds of "documentaries" before? There was The Real Match Game Story; and Chuck Barris: My Life On The Edge. Then there was Anything To Win but that was more expose than documentary.

One wonders why ATW didn't do a segment on those "misery games" of the 1950s, like Queen For A Day and Strike It Rich. The controversies those shows stirred up were "scandals" in their own right.

Cordially,
Tammy

[Jeremy Nelson]

Didn't GSN used to do these kinds of "documentaries" before? There was The Real Match Game Story; and Chuck Barris: My Life On The Edge. Then there was Anything To Win but that was more expose than documentary.

GSN has done a few. Anything to Win was about non game show competitions- I recall the premiere being about Rosie Ruiz, who cheated in the Boston Marathon.

[PYLdude]

Wasn't Michael Larson profiled again when Anything to Win came out?

[thgames65]

A could-have-been documentary. 

http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,11098.msg125290.html#msg125290

[pacdude]

Didn't GSN used to do these kinds of "documentaries" before? There was The Real Match Game Story; and Chuck Barris: My Life On The Edge. Then there was Anything To Win but that was more expose than documentary.

GSN has done a few. Anything to Win was about non game show competitions- I recall the premiere being about Rosie Ruiz, who cheated in the Boston Marathon.

And I have a DVD screener copy of the Tonya Harding episode of Anything to Win. I hold on to it to look at it whenever I see GSN doing something questionable. "At least they're not making lousy True Hollywood Story-esque ripoffs anymore."

[alfonzos]

A documentary about Ted Slauson has been released. It is called Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Know Too Much.

Link to Rotten Tomatoes web site:
 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/perfect_bid_the_contestant_who_knew_too_much

Link to trailer on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=LsfVCH7uEc4

[BrandonFG]

The story of that perfect showcase bid actually fascinates me a bit, particularly how the producers (over)reacted to it all.

I would be curious to see who all from the production side wants to talk about that.

It took 3 years, but this documentary is now a thing. Dunno who they interviewed, but it happened.