Harry Friedman, Guinness World Record holding Executive Procuder

[jimlangefan]

Harry Friedman now holds the Guinness World Record for producing the most game show episodes.  11,128 to be exact as of March 31st.  This also includes shows he did before Wheel & Jeopardy!  Congrats and continued success Harry!!

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/jeopardy-wheel-of-fortune-guinness-world-record-harry-friedman-1201785370/

[TLEberle]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was curious because wouldn't Mark Goodson be either close or beyond this? It reminds me of when they declared Pat Sajak to have hosted the most episodes of a single series.

[Matt Ottinger]

I saw this yesterday and thought it was curious because wouldn't Mark Goodson be either close or beyond this? It reminds me of when they declared Pat Sajak to have hosted the most episodes of a single series.

To the degree that it matters, I don't think Goodson was routinely credited as an EP on his shows.

To the degree that it doesn't, these things are almost always self-reported to Guinness and used as cheap publicity stunts for both parties. Verification is not a high priority.

[cmjb13]

Little known Guinness record...

Harry also holds the record for amount of audience members leaving during a taping by a game show producer.

[Thunder]

...Verification is not a high priority.

There's a 37% chance that some member of this board will claim that the real number is 11,127 because the February 18th, 2002 episode of Wheel of Fortune had to be scrapped because contestants got sickened by diesel fumes in the middle of Round #3

[MSTieScott]

Since this board did such a good job poking holes in the last Jeopardy!/Guinness claim...

What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.

[TLEberle]

There's a 37% chance that some member of this board will claim that the real number is 11,127 because the February 18th, 2002 episode of Wheel of Fortune had to be scrapped because contestants got sickened by diesel fumes in the middle of Round #3

Silly rabbit: Wheel of Fortune wasn't offering diesel-powered cars that week.

/to Scott's question, Pyramid would account for about 2,000 by itself.

[Matt Ottinger]

What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.

Give him 4,000 for Password and Price at G-T, assuming he was credited with their entire 50s-60s runs.   I don't think he was with TTTT for very long, though I might be mistaken.  My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   A thousand or so for Eye Guess, another thou for Jackpot, a little less for Three on a Match.  That gets us around 9,000, but after that we have a bunch of 65's and 130's and a long way to go.

If someone has a firmer and MUCH higher total for Pyramid, then maybe he's close.

[TLEberle]

My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   

There was a method to my madness--I think the figure 1,585 stuck in my head for the 10k-20k run for some reason. Plus you have the 80s and 90s versions, and that's at least another thousand just from that, possibly 2,000 more. All up that's a lot but that's still a fair bit away from even ten thousand.

[BrandonFG]

My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take. I managed to dig up Kris Lane's old Pyramid archives, and when multiplying the number of weeks by five episodes, I got 4,275. Now, take away all the episodes preempted for Watergate or Iran Contra hearings, or whatever holiday parade, and I'd say 4,200-4,250?

[Matt Ottinger]

My math suggests about 4,200 for Pyramid, give or take.

Then yeah. We proved Guinness wrong again.  Yay, us!

[TLEberle]

Then yeah. We proved Guinness wrong again.  Yay, us!

Three times! New world record!

[Fedya]

Bob Barker would say it's the first time it's ever happened.

[jimlangefan]

What would be a ballpark estimate of Bob Stewart's total? A lot of his shows were short-lived, but when you add in the shows he produced for Goodson-Todman, I'd reckon it has to be a fairly large number.

Give him 4,000 for Password and Price at G-T, assuming he was credited with their entire 50s-60s runs.   I don't think he was with TTTT for very long, though I might be mistaken.  My guess is Pyramid is a lot more than the 2,000 Travis suggests, but let's go with that.   A thousand or so for Eye Guess, another thou for Jackpot, a little less for Three on a Match.  That gets us around 9,000, but after that we have a bunch of 65's and 130's and a long way to go.

If someone has a firmer and MUCH higher total for Pyramid, then maybe he's close.

Maybe not as close as we think.  He was gone from G-T after Price ended, which would mean he didn't produce Password after 1965.  IIRC, he was gone from TTTT by 1961. 

[Matt Ottinger]

Dammit, I blame Scott.  I really had better things to do tonight.

Culled from a variety of sources.  To estimate longer runs, I assumed 250 shows a year, plus an extra 20 per additional month.

More or less chronologically, the Stewart company output:

Eye Guess:  930
The Face Is Familiar:  18
Personality:  571
You're Putting Me On:  130
Three on a Match:  750
Pyramid: 4200 (going with Brandon's number)
Jackpot:  1105
Winning Streak:  130
Blankety Blanks:  50
Shoot for the Stars:  180
Pass the Buck:  62
The Love Experts:  130 (A guess.  Daily syndication, but how many did they make?)
Chain Reaction:  115 (does not include the USA version shot in Canada)
Go:  79
Double Talk: 90

That's 8,540 just as an independent.  There were 2,263 Price episodes and he was there for just about all of it.  That's 10,803 without counting Password or To Tell The Truth.  So yeah. I'm comfortable saying Harry's not quite there yet.