At the beginning, Club AM and Late Night Games were program blocks hosted by Steve Day & Laura Chambers. Both were done on the same living room set, with Late Night Games featuring less/shorter host segments, save for an extended one where Steve would read weird news from across the country. Club AM had drop-ins from hosts and former staffers, more host chat, calls and faxes from the then-small viewership, and little factoids and trivia contests sprinkled throughout. Late Night Games showed the same episodes as the previous Club AM block had shown earlier.
There was a running gag where Peter Tomarken was always making light of Steve & Laura during his daily cut-in to promote Prime Games. And because the announcer copy on Prime Games was pre-taped, Peter usually found a funny way to segue into it. "For rules and eligibility requirements, we need to talk to Mike Wagner, and Mike, I know you're overcoming that whole bed wetting thing, but your secret's safe with me." "Thanks, Peter!"
It seems so strange now to think a new cable network's prime time offerings were mostly black and white. Peter always spoke fondly of Garry Moore when promoting an upcoming IGAS, but didn't hold back on some of the guests ("do we know who Hy Gardner is yet?") and even did the rules to Decades in a not-so-flattering whispering impression of Richard Dawson, mocking a rotating GSN promo where he talked about the "magic" of "Family Feud."
The slots for Wheel and J! were the syndicated runs from the beginning, in production order, as were TTD and TJW. The opening montage for Late Night Games used scenes from the CBS version of Tic Tac, which was something of a tease, but still fun to see that version in perfect quality. Beat the Clock was the Jack Narz version.
-Jason
