Lots of mid-1980's episodes resurfacing

[Vahan_Nisanian]

According to Chuck Donegan, who is a friend of mine on Facebook, a good chunk of mid-to-late 1980's game show episodes have resurfaced. And it is all courtesy of a fellow named Patrick.

What has resurfaced is nothing short of awesome. Among them are the entire first six weeks of Scrabble (07/02/1984-08/10/1984), nearly ten weeks of the daytime version of Sale of the Century (07/01/1985-09/05/1985), the entire first nine weeks of Blackout (01/04/1988-03/07/1988), and what seems like the entire run of Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak.

It is unfortunate, though, that Patrick threw out every episode of Hit Man (all 65 of them) and a few months of Dream House. But other than that, I am happy with what HAS managed to resurface.

[WarioBarker]

...Wow, there's a lot of stuff. This could be really helpful for collectors who are trying to get their episode lists in order.

[BrandonFG]

Or people who just enjoy 80s game shows and a few obscurities.

[clemon79]

I don't think I can blame Patrick for a second for wanting to remain last-name-anonymous. (Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't wished he'd remained FIRST-name-anonymous by now.)

[TLEberle]

I sure hope he has the episode of Double Dare from 1987 where one of the teams racks up $750 over the course of the main game (remember now, that's $375 for each of them!)

[clemon79]

(remember now, that's $375 for each of them!)

Thank Glub you mentioned this! I was having trouble with basic division.

[TLEberle]

Reading that Facebook thread I think back to being a kid and writing a novel of a Christmas list then figuring out that I got a few primo gifts and in future years I would prune back my list accordingly, get the things I wanted and was thankful.

Clearly this lot missed out on those social graces.

[The Pyramids]

It looks like he was not a 'Wheel' watcher. I don't see it mentioned. In 1985 I taped the daytime 'WOF' every day and did not save one single episode.

[Toheckwiththis]

I sure hope he has the episode of Double Dare from 1987 where one of the teams racks up $750 over the course of the main game (remember now, that's $375 for each of them!)

Do any of you happen to know that team's name?

[Vahan_Nisanian]

I sure hope he has the episode of Double Dare from 1987 where one of the teams racks up $750 over the course of the main game (remember now, that's $375 for each of them!)

do you happen to know that team's name?

I do not know the team's names. Rumor has it that most of the 1987 SSDD episodes were lost to the ravages of time, due to a water leakage in Nickelodeon's video archives.

[Bobby B.]

I sure hope he has the episode of Double Dare from 1987 where one of the teams racks up $750 over the course of the main game (remember now, that's $375 for each of them!)

do you happen to know that team's name?

I do not know the team's names. Rumor has it that most of the 1987 SSDD episodes were lost to the ravages of time, due to a water leakage in Nickelodeon's video archives.

Key word is "rumor."  The DD25 page denied that, and they have plenty of connections with those who worked on the show.

[PYLdude]

Who is this Nate Ward guy and how does he know that stuff was still deleted? Far as I know, the last show where a question exists about its episodes being erased in Las Vegas Gambit*. Mitt Dawson said that much of Sale was gone before he died but he also said that the music masters were destroyed as well and they obviously weren't if TVPMM found them. So I have to call that into question.

And the only one that we know is gone after that is Dream House because the masters were lost last year in a flood.

Outside of that, what else could've gotten shitcanned? The only possibilities I can think of would involve Every Second Counts because of how little of that has turned up and Perfect Match, which I can't even remember if it turned up at all.

(*as in the run is mostly believed to have vanished- I know many Wheel episodes from that period are missing, or so the scuttlebutt has said, and that there's some question about Sale's first few weeks of episodes...suddenly I'm curious to know what happened to the original Battlestars, if anything)

[CarpetCrawler]

And the only one that we know is gone after that is Dream House because the masters were lost last year in a flood.

Was that last year when the masters were lost?  I remember TVPMM's Facebook page elaborating that the tape loss was discovered when GSN had asked about the tapes for the purpose of airing reruns, but I don't recall when they had mentioned GSN was interested.

[WarioBarker]

Outside of that, what else could've gotten shitcanned? The only possibilities I can think of would involve [...] Perfect Match, which I can't even remember if it turned up at all.

There's at least one around (Scott & Cari Andersen/Gino & Jessie Fuentes/Ken & Bertha Traylor). Some traders have it, and there's a few pictures here.

[TLEberle]

Not sure which is worse: the show itself or Rob's explanation.