I keep going back to Collyer
Beat the Clock, myself -- I like game shows that seem to have fun as a high priority, and I got a kick out of one stunt where they had a contestant spray stunt coordinators Bob Howard and Frank Wayne (plus her own husband) with whipped cream.
About a month ago, I was on a
Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour kick -- the
Match portions are consistently good from start to finish, and in the early months
Squares is tolerable and even fun. By the end, when the latter had pretty much nothing but "cutesy" scenario questions, I was skimming through those parts.
My brother and I have also been watching
Scrabble. The early episodes feel so weird, but it's fun to see the show's evolution into what we remembered it as.
I've also been watching daytime
Sale of the Century. I can't really describe it (I guess it might be because most of them haven't been reran, or because of the questions pertaining to then-current events), but there's something amazing about this version compared to the syndie one.
(The BBC version [of Wipeout] made things much better by playing 3 rounds of pass the buck before going to the head-to-head auction, but it doesn't seem like many episodes have made it online.)
From what I've found, there's just under 20 episodes online (I've compiled the video links I could find
here), but most are from after Bob Monkhouse became host...and, in my opinion, inferior to the few Paul Daniels shows I've seen. Don't get me wrong, I love Bob and his work, but from what I can tell he wasn't in the best of health by 1998 and giving him five-show taping days probably wasn't the best idea. I've tried watching shows from his era, and both he and the game itself just seem so slow even with Challenge editing out most of the pre-game banter.
