Game Show Fans 50 Greatest - Results

[Jay Temple]

These days, I see "celebrities" on a show like Celebrity Game Game, who are famous for something they used to be on, and I can't help but wonder whether they could use that $20,000 grand prize they're trying to win for somebody else.  That really shouldn't enter your mind when you're watching a celebrity game show.

Heck, I thought that when I saw Mary Cadorette on Pyramid after Three's a Crowd ended.

[chrisholland03]

She was in the utterly forgettable movie "Stewardess School" in late '86 #lastgraspforrelevance

[calliaume]

She was in the utterly forgettable movie "Stewardess School" in late '86 #lastgraspforrelevance

She did recur in Night Court for awhile, had a two-episode role in The Bradys, and now teaches dance and has directed a few high school musicals in Connecticut.  Pyramid obviously used celebrities who were very good at the game regardless of their fame level later in the 1980s run; she was just the most egregious example.

I had the same thought when I saw Ernie Hudson's family on Celebrity Family Feud - so we're not alone.

[Chuck Sutton]

29. Beat the Clock (1950-1961, 1969-1974, 1979-1980, 2002-2003)

Since we are currently in the age of streaming TV,  shouldn't Buzzr's YouTube episodes count here?

Our hosts keep saying YouTube is influencing the voting with old episodes why not new ones?

[TLEberle]

Because I like the old version, not the new. And I for one find the date entries unsightly (either bold or underline, not both) and redundant.

[gromit82]

29. Beat the Clock (1950-1961, 1969-1974, 1979-1980, 2002-2003)

Since we are currently in the age of streaming TV,  shouldn't Buzzr's YouTube episodes count here?

Our hosts keep saying YouTube is influencing the voting with old episodes why not new ones?

I would have included the Buzzr version of "Beat the Clock" on YouTube, but I hadn't known about it before.

[gromit82]

These days, I see "celebrities" on a show like Celebrity Game Game, who are famous for something they used to be on, and I can't help but wonder whether they could use that $20,000 grand prize they're trying to win for somebody else.  That really shouldn't enter your mind when you're watching a celebrity game show.

Heck, I thought that when I saw Mary Cadorette on Pyramid after Three's a Crowd ended.

If I remember correctly, Mary Cadorette was very good at Pyramid. And I don't mind having lesser-known celebrities on Pyramid if they are good at playing the game. (For that matter, I had watched Three's a Crowd, so Mary Cadorette still counted as a celebrity to me.)

[TLEberle]

I've said before that Ben's Money was a slight game that is carried by the host pair (and after Jimmy left it became mediocre to unwatchable.) I would love for it to be the case that you could raise the top prize to $25,000, increase the lower values reasonably and you're off to the races, but I do think the host pair must be given heaps of credit and it was the right thing at the right time. Plus it was un-apologetically hard. The Chase had a fantastic template that was ignored, a host who eventually sort of grew into the role, a game that was made harder by the fact that only three players play (that fourth player not only represents more money in the pot but a further step in the game if you get a full house back home) and puerile sophomoric questions far too often. Fun to watch, fun while it lasted and it lined the pockets for some winners, but I think it falls at the greatness hurdle for me. I can see how the voters disagree.

[PYLdude]

Re: WBSM- I found Sal brought it back around but the damage was already done.

Re: The Chase- here's my main issue with it. It's the same that I have with Winning Lines, which did make my list while The Chase didn't. The main event of the show is the best part. The buildup to get there, not so much. What gives Winning Lines the edge is that to me, at least, you could easily chop the qualifier off and bring someone out to face the Wonderwall. You really couldn't get away with that on The Chase.

Again, fine program done in by game mechanics.

[MSTieScott]

25. Supermarket Sweep
799 points; 37 votes
2006 ranking: 28

Scott: Supermarket Sweep is a mystery to me. By all objective standards, I shouldn't like it -- the front game is barely average and the big sweep is repetitive and has no play-along value. Yet I find myself entranced. Is this the result of my younger self being more willing to sit through mediocre programming combined with my present-day pangs of nostalgia? Or is there really something that just plain works about Supermarket Sweep?

Jason: I think, for once, the opening hyperbole got it right. Yeah, going up & down the aisles is not what I've "always wanted to do" but after seeing Supermarket Sweep, it sure was. We always talk about play-along being important, but sometimes it's about living vicariously through the contestants & dreaming about doing what they're doing. My brother & I had arguments over who would run the sweep if we ever got on the show. My female relatives still long for this to come back. Sweep connected with the regular audience in a way other game shows were dying for.


24. Split Second
883 points; 32 votes
2006 ranking: 27

Jason: AKA, Monty Hall's second brilliant contribution to the history of game shows. It's a shame Split Second never broke through beyond its healthy daytime run. Like The 3 W's and The Cross-Wits, Split Second had many years on the air, but little to show for it in the memories of the American public. In a parallel universe, this is on every night in a block with Wheel of Fortune. The amount of material & the many different ways they presented it would seem to equal that mass audience appeal Jeopardy! has. The visual clues & sweeping crane shots were ahead of their time. Unfortunately, when Split Second was in syndication in the '80s for all audiences to see, the excitement was gone. Yes, buzzing in later gave the home audience a leg up & a chance to guess, but it took away the heart that made the original version so unique. The natural pauses in gameplay gave me ample time to chime in from home. The muted energy & cost-effective Canadian production values didn't help, either.


23. Double Dare (Nickelodeon)
1,025 points; 39 votes
2006 ranking: 25

Jason: Runaway hits always inspire imitators. Deal or No Deal had Set For Life; Match Game had Hollywood Connection. Double Dare had a host of challengers after it blew up on Nickelodeon. Its place on our list at #23, as a game show ostensibly just for kids, shows that it did something right the others couldn't. If Supermarket Sweep had an appeal in being jealous of the contestants, then Double Dare had it in spades, getting a whole generation wanting to run on the 1-Ton Human Hamster Wheel or dive down a disgusting mouth. Its competitor Fun House had a giant endgame with a studio-high water slide & much of the same ingredients, but aimed itself solely at kids, whereas Double Dare had some winks to the grown-ups. Shouldn't today's adults be fonder of the show that was made only for them? Was it just being "first" that gives Double Dare the edge in history?

Scott: I feel pretty confident in stating that Double Dare's success can be attributed primarily to one thing: The mess. To use Fun House for comparison: I can go down a water slide at the nearest water park. Crawling through a big pressure cooker is mildly interesting, but not anything I'm itching to do. But when in my life am I going to get the opportunity to slide into a big pile of faux ice cream? When will I get to squeeze through rollers and get covered with multicolored gak? There's something primal about getting to make an enormous mess -- especially being enveloped by it, especially when you know it's safe -- that appeals to the id of children and the young at heart. And while the sloppiness is what so many people remember and adore about Double Dare, I think some credit has to go to the question round, as well. Nobody loves it, but it presented the perfect vehicle for building anticipation: That team said "dare"! The other team said "double dare"!! Come on, say it... yes! Physical challenge!

Jason: That probably has something to do with it. Fun House could get very messy at times, but as a show, it was the demolition derby compared to Double Dare's "occasional crash at a NASCAR race." (How's that for an image?) Growing up, I felt like all the weird asides on Double Dare were letting me in on the adults' fun, whereas the style of Fun House was what grown-ups thought I might like.

Scott: I think you're exactly right. I know more about kids' shows than a man my age should, and the one thing that the highly-acclaimed ones all have in common -- and this goes back to hits like The Bullwinkle Show, too -- is that they were all made to entertain the adults making them. The shows just so happened to also be accessible to kids. Why shouldn't the same go for kids' game shows?

Jason: Absolutely. I still enjoy old episodes of Double Dare today, but with a different appreciation. They were definitely trying to amuse themselves at times. I also like hearing Marc Summers say the show was at its best when it was just kids. I'm sure many of the young contestants were less than thrilled when their parents took their precious few obstacles gingerly to avoid getting messy, or didn't understand how a catapult worked.

Scott: Plus, the kids were never worried about the prizes. Winning, yes -- but the relative value of the prizes was never as important to the kids as getting to complete the obstacles.

Jason: I'd like to see the board weigh in on this show's greatness. Does it transcend its kids veneer, or are we sliming it with nostalgia love?

Scott: Yeah... I bet the two of us could talk about Double Dare all day, but I suppose we have other rankings to get to. I do have one rankings-related observation to make before we move on, though. Note the substantial leap in the points between Split Second and Double Dare. As we get closer to the top, we'll start seeing more of these jumps of 100+ points. From the perspective of meaningful results, perhaps this is really the Game Show Fans 23 Greatest.


22. High Rollers
1,035 points; 42 votes
2006 ranking: 23

Scott: I wanted to point out that the overabundance of passing in this game makes this seem like a flawed format. But it occurs to me... maybe that's a feature. It's exciting when the contestant overcomes the odds to produce a good roll, and it doesn't feel so bad when they fail -- after all, they didn't answer the question correctly.

Jason: Absolutely right. The decision to roll or pass is about as thrilling as the higher/lower decisions of Card Sharks, but it's part of a larger machine that has moments of incredible luck leading to incredible wealth. High Rollers is simple, fun & exciting. The Big Numbers is a mountain that begs to be climbed. This is another one from the Heatter-Quigley factory of churnin' those questions out. You're not lingering on anything when you watch this show. Alex Trebek took some time to settle into his role, but by the time we had The New High Rollers in 1978, it was totally his. Had the ownership not changed hands, I know we would have seen this back on TV a time or two more.


21. The Joker's Wild
1,082 points; 42 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 15

Scott: I'm continuing to develop my theory that the average age of the respondents was a larger factor in the poll results this time around. Therefore, it's evident that the Pat Finn version of The Joker's Wild has left an indelible impression on our minds.

Jason: The definition is FUN, Scott, and don't you forget it. But I can see where the classic show also leaves younger fans wanting. Like High Rollers, Joker took a familiar casino device and stripped it down to be part of a TV-friendly format. And like High Rollers, the classic show goes at a pace few could match, with Jack Barry often starting questions before the lights around the category could get going. But it does have some game show cheese, with the melodramatic totaling up of winnings mid-question as a champion nears the finish line, and the less-than-stellar prize packages up for grabs against the devil. I think the CBS run was a healthy mix, offering some material that was a little more challenging than what we got in the syndicated years, and Jack seeming happier to be there after years in the shadows following the game show scandals.

Scott: How can you tell when Jack Barry is happy?

[Chuck Sutton]

I still think of the Finn Joker's Wild at least when it started as a different show with the same name.

seriously the only time I watched it, I had Lloyd Bensten in my head "I knew the Joker's Wild. .   ."

[Chuck Sutton]

With 20 classics left, without a shocking ommission, I am both surprised and dissappointed Cash Cab failed to make the cut.  When he announced the poll my first thought was where do I put this show.

What a simple and fun concept a group people on a cab ride consult to answer questions and win money.  They were happy to win a few hundred dollars.  Heck they were happy when they got them right. 

One of my favorite things was to hit pause on a red light challange and see how many I could get before hearing the contestants.

Even non game show fans knew this show.

I know there was a backlash about them screening contestants even though it was in the credits from the beginning. Hey I thought they had people with clipboards interviewing people waiting for cabs.

3 Emmys for best game show.

Hope I am wrong, but will be just as shocked by what else is not here if I am.

[TLEberle]

It means people had fifty shows they thought were Great-er than Cash Cab, not that they thought Cash Cab was an awful show whose tapes should be bulldozed over.

[SamJ93]

"Sweep" definitely took me by surprise. I didn't have time to submit my own ranking (life has been a bit overwhelming this year), but if I did I probably would have left it out, even though I watched the show faithfully as a young'un. Sure, the big sweep tended to devolve into the same strategies over and over again, and the glut of gimmicks and bonus items added as the show's run went on kind of watered down what was supposed to be a test of shopping skill. But the novelty of a game show in a supermarket certainly can't be beat. (I guess the "game show in a Family Dollar" that was announced recently is more indicative and appropriate for today's times.)

[BrandonFG]

I'm sure this will be the trend for the rest of the list, but this batch really targets a specific era of my childhood, more or less the first half of the 90s. I watched and enjoyed all these shows religiously*, either first-run or in cable reruns. I might have to have a Youtube marathon soon and go back to 1990 or so.

Even though this list includes two long-running hits that helped define the decade (Supermarket Sweep and Double Dare), it seems all five were underrated in one way or another. To add to Jason's point, occasionally I'll see a meme on Facebook telling you to admit you wanted to be a contestant on Sweep. It's cool to see a show that never completely got its due get, fondly remembered years later.

With Split Second, while Monty's version was lacking in presentation, it's still a fun show**. That said, the first time I saw Tom Kennedy's version, I was definitely blown away by how much it lived up to its title. For the 80s version, I know they needed a new bonus game to avoid lifting from Hollywood Squares (which of course lifted from the original SS), but the pick a window bonus took away so much drama.

*/Yes, even Finn's Joker's Wild
**//Would love to see clips from the Robb Weller pilot