35. The Who, What or Where Game / The Challengers
563 points; 23 votes
2006 ranking: 37
Scott: This is the only ranking which really benefited from the combination ruling. There were a few votes for these two shows as a pair (from voters who remembered the ruling in 2006) and there were a few votes for The Who, What or Where Game, but the majority of votes were for The Challengers. If the two titles had been separated, The Challengers probably would have still made the list, but I don't think The Who, What or Where Game would have.
Jason: The Who, What or Where Game is another in our thankfully-shrinking list of shows with very little surviving video. Given what other gems have been discovered in the past decade, and the fact it ran for about 4 years, I hold out hope we've still got at least another episode of it to see. The 3 Ws is very interesting in that it's a genuine trivia competition between three players that doesn't involve reflexes. If your host adjusts the odds for the dated material, playing the home games shows off what a unique format it had. And The Challengers was long a personal favorite of mine. They added just enough bells & whistles to bring the concept into the '90s.
34. Chain Reaction
586 points; 30 votes
2006 ranking: 32
Jason: Again, Bob Stewart shows us his knack for going to new places in games. Like Lingo, this one found a second life on cable. Do you have a horse in the race when it comes to word association vs. GSN's later adherence to two-word phrases?
Scott: I concede that word association allows the show to use a wider variety of words, but from the perspective of the contestant and home viewer, it also exacerbates the Pass the Buck-esque problem of "your valid guess isn't what we were thinking of." I'm not saying that two-word phrases completely solve the problem (it's a problem which can't be fully solved in this format), but it does make correct answers feel more correct.
Jason: I guess I was never a big fan of knowing the contestants were 100% wrong when their guess was not a widely-accepted two-word phrase.
Scott: Speaking of aspects of the show which hinder contestants' success, what's your opinion on scoring being based on word length as opposed to a flat reward per word?
Jason: The variable scoring never really bothered me on this show. I guess it's like the hidden money behind each answer on Wordplay. I just see it as part of the game. Double score words being included more on USA & GSN would have been a nice marriage of the two. I liked tougher-to-suss-out words to have a bigger reward.
Scott: I suppose I need to remind myself that Chain Reaction was always meant to be one of those shows where contestants go on just to have some fun and play a game. When I get myself into the mentality of "YOU ARE HERE TO WIN AND ONLY TO WIN," it's easy for me to forget.
Jason: This was my spiritual vote for the Go format, as I chose to leave that show off my list this time around.
33. Whew!
599 points; 25 votes
2006 ranking: 38
Scott: If you asked the average person (or magazine, or cable channel) to compile a list of the 50 greatest game shows of all time, it's a near certainty that they wouldn't even think of including Whew!. Yet when you ask the game show fans as a group, they consistently put it on the list. If we do this again in 2026, I bet Whew! still lands somewhere in the thirties.
Jason: I think there's always been lingering speculation - and rightfully so - that our affinity with Whew! was because of how many of us were introduced to it through the late Randy Amasia. I've talked with younger fans who are falling in love with it for the first time on YouTube, who know nothing of that past. Couple that with the fact it actually rose up in the ranks this time, and I'm more confident in saying that Whew! deserves its place. Sure, the game felt skewed in favor of the blocker, but it's so darn fun to watch. I ranked it much higher than 33, but this slot is about as far as a cult hit could or should go in these sort of things.
32. Gambit
620 points; 28 votes
2006 ranking: 50
Scott: This is a surprising jump in the opposite direction. In 2006, only 40% of voters placed Gambit on their ballot. Nobody this year voted for Catch 21 in lieu of Gambit, so that didn't affect the ranking. The only other explanation I can think of is Wink Martindale's YouTube channel bringing new attention to this show.
Jason: That would be my guess as well. Just as other shows' newly-found video made me drop that show down the list, the "new" episodes of Gambit helped me bump it up from my 2006 ballot. I'm a sucker for the Heatter-Quigley pacing. I was not a huge fan of the original Gambit Board endgame, but the added devices attached to prizes on the board helped make it enough of a palate cleanser between games, I guess. Beyond the format being sold off by Merrill, I think another thing keeping Gambit from making a comeback is the shift in what makes a game show these days. There's still not yet a buyer for a speedy new game being done just for game playing's sake. If you tried to make Gambit more "prime time", it could end up looking like a caricature.
31. Now You See It
625 points; 28 votes
2006 ranking: 43
Jason: Outside of Now You See It, word searches have only turned up here & there in game shows, which is surprising to me. Now You See It always had tons of play-along, even while they worked out the kinks on the air. For most fans our age, this was their biggest exposure to Jack Narz, who did a fine job here as he did elsewhere. Had Now You See It come around a bit sooner, and hopefully without the embarrassing-looking turn-your-chairs-around competition, the inevitable revival could have been on a few years sooner. Daytime games were on the way out in 1989, and minor quibbles aside, I liked the Chuck Henry version.
Scott: I'm a sucker for big physical set pieces that light up in interesting ways, so I'm instantly attracted to the original Now You See It board. But yeah, that entire team concept was unnecessary for a show like this. I also agree that the Chuck Henry version had the better rules -- even though the show's fate would have been the same, it's too bad they went with electronic graphics. It just feels wrong for a show -- especially a Goodson show! -- to not have any game boards or score displays on the set. "Now you don't," indeed.
