Game Show Fans 50 Greatest - Results

[Ian Wallis]

I personally don't consider Survivor or The Amazing Race to be game shows (something like "reality competition" seems more appropriate)

I agree.  I think there's a difference between "reality competition" and "game show".  If you bring Survivor and Amazing Race onto the list, wouldn't you also have to bring shows like Hell's Kitchen, American Idol, Fear Factor or even The Bachelor?

[Ian Wallis]

Celebrity Sweepstakes is another one that fell off my list deliberately. I've been lucky enough to see more episodes of this lately (for instance, there was that documentary on comedian Billy Braver made recently, and the full episodes surfaced with some people in LA).

Cool - at least it's nice to know more episodes of this exist.  I hope the rest of us get to see these eventually!

Break the Bank struggled to get even one memorable zinger per show. The shows without the forfeit-the-box-automatically rules are hard to watch.

I'll agree with you there.  I think the rule in the first place was short-sighted - they should have automatically awarded it to the opponent from the beginning - unless it resulted in a win.  I bet the producers didn't think there'd be so many wrong answers!  Shows later in the ABC run moved much quicker once they changed that rule.

As for Go, I agreed with Clay - I like the game mechanic, but Go itself was not a good enough show to merit a rank from me this time around.

I know it has its fans, but i'm not one of them.  I can watch it from time to time but I didn't rank Go in my top 50.  I think it's OK as a bonus game, but as the premise for an entire show it gets tiresome.  And don't get me started on the theme...

[MSTieScott]

10. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
1,619 points; 42 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 11

Jason: I gave a lot more love to Millionaire this year than I did in 2006. A decade ago, I was probably still lamenting the original show's rapid decline as it aired multiple nights with celebrity editions growing in number. But looking back on the phenomenon, I couldn't help but get really happy. For a brief, but wonderful time, you couldn't escape Millionaire. In school, we huddled around the little Flash game on ABC's website until the CD-ROM came out. Once we owned that, it was a matter of nights before my family & I went through the material. I'll never forget watching the first players climb to six figures. It's still strange to me that the show hasn't gone away since 1999, save for a few months between the network & syndicated runs. We don't really have an analog for this. It's like The $64,000 Question managed to stay on quietly for ten years after all the hoopla. Maybe it's more like Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! - mainstream attention for a bit followed by a continuing, successful run.

Scott: Millionaire is a good example of how keeping things simple can be in a show's best interest. This game is simply questions, multiple choices, and a couple of opportunities for hints to add just enough strategy to the whole ordeal. As viewers grew overly familiar with the show, they tried to spice things up with a timer and with surprise dollar values, but the format just doesn't need those things. No television show can be a nationwide sensation for years upon years -- I'm glad to see that Millionaire now seems to be comfortable with just being a solid Q&A game.


9. Press Your Luck
1,720 points; 46 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 12

Scott: I love Press Your Luck. I ranked it higher this time than I did in 2006 because I find it so gosh darn addictive. Still, its finish in the top ten does surprise me a little bit. The set screams "game show" and it's left an indelible mark on the public consciousness, but of the shows in the top ten, Press Your Luck by far had the shortest run. Does it earn its ranking, or is there some generational bias here?

Jason: I could see where you could argue for generational bias, but I don't think it's a slam dunk case. When they do "greatest" of music lists in magazines or on TV, The Beatles find a place because their greatness transcends their time - it's the 2-minute pop hits that feel more at home in a diner while you drink a milkshake that stay behind. I think Press Your Luck deserves to be brought forward. Sure, in some respects, it's a time capsule. But unlike some of the million-dollar hits, which are products of their time, Press Your Luck manages to be engaging even when played at home for no stakes. Just like the other gambling games on our list, there's an incredible rush when a player pulls off the impossible, and an equally great pang of what could have been when a whammy comes at the worst possible time. I think that alone is something special that deserves acknowledgement. One of the things that bothered me looking back on my 2006 list was how much credence I gave to shows' legacies vs. my own enjoyment. My entry looked more like a polishing of the TV Guide Top 50, with some rare gems thrown in. This year, I made my entry completely my own, and Press Your Luck got into my top 10. By points, the show's average place on voters' lists was around #14.

Scott: I suppose I'm feeling some misplaced sense of shame. Society says I'm supposed to favor smart shows, like Millionaire, and shows with wit, like Hollywood Squares. I'm not supposed to love a program in which people shout at a giant slideshow covered with incandescent bulbs. Well, I admit it -- Press Your Luck is a great game show! And there's nothing wrong with that!


8. Concentration
1,736 points; 46 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 9

Jason: My family & I played the heck out of any home version of Concentration we owned. There was a contestant on Idiotest who won a car on Classic Concentration. I was on the phone relaying the story to my dad when a guy walking by on the studio lot who looked to be my age decided to interrupt & tell us both how much he liked Classic Concentration growing up. For a show whose heyday was in black & white, that really only made it to this millennium through Endless Games, that shocked me. And in our voting, that same sort of thing was reflected - we're getting further & further away from the show's last life on television, and yet, Concentration stays strong, going up from 9 to 8.

Scott: It's the only show in our top 50 which primarily utilizes a memory game, and the only memory game show the general public remembers (sorry, Hit Man and Eye Guess). Normally, I'm against computerizing game boards, but in the case of Classic Concentration, it makes sense (it probably helps that the rebus itself was still a nice, hand-drawn art card). How do you feel about a game board which only exists virtually versus a physical game board in which the rebus is divided by black lines?

Jason: Even growing up, I thought it was weird that we never "saw" the Classic Concentration board. Going back to presentation being so important, in regards to Scrabble, it would have been a whole sight better if they built some sort of set piece around where the players were looking. Without it, the effect is like news anchors talking to someone via satellite. Half the show takes place in the virtual fourth wall where the cameras are. I'm still teeming for even more Jack Narz Concentration. That version bridged the gap nicely between the original run & Classic Concentration. Do you think this show has any shot of coming back even within the next 10 years?

Scott: Sadly, no. In an era where all media's goal is to deliver rapid-fire content, I just can't imagine a scenario where enough viewers would be willing to sit down and, well, concentrate on watching a TV show. The reason Concentration is a great show is because if you play along, you really play along. But unlike every other show in our top ten, a distracted viewer can't briefly check in on Concentration at any given time and be satisfied with a nugget of gameplay.

Jason: The actual gameplay doesn't work in brief bursts, yes, but do you think there's any chance people would want to stick around if they joined in on a partially-revealed puzzle? It might take time for the audience to get re-accustomed with rebuses, but when I pass by a Final Jeopardy! I always wait through the reveals to get the correct response, even if I didn't watch the whole show.

Scott: Ah, but there's the rub. First you have to get the audience to remember what a rebus is, and Concentration isn't the format to do it. When a person glances at a partially-completed Wheel of Fortune puzzle, they immediately know what they're supposed to do. The goal isn't as clear when only portions of rebus units are visible. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I remain pessimistic.


7. Match Game
1,811 points; 46 votes; 2 first place votes
2006 ranking: 5

Scott: We can all agree that the iconic version of Match Game was never about the game. It was about sometimes-famous people getting together to have fun while making jokes that were as risqué as Program Practices would allow. Many of us assumed that with television standards loosening through the decades, Match Game was a product of its time. Yet now we have a new version, popular enough to get at least a second season, in which sometimes-famous people get together to have fun while making jokes that are as filthy as they'd like (even if they know they'll be censored). That wasn't enough to keep Match Game in the top five this year, but it does reveal a surprising strength to the format.

Jason: It's sort of like they continued an old movie franchise and found something to say with new characters in familiar surroundings. Match Game lives & dies on the personalities, and they managed to find a good mix with the most-recent ABC version. Up until now, all we had were Match Games in name only. None of the versions in between curated a stable of stars like the '70s run. A vote for Match Game is almost certainly not a vote for the game format, it's a vote for the comedy. Nobody's lauding Saturday Night Live for its masterful interchange between acts of sketches & music. Now that the "curse" has been broken, maybe we'll be looking back decades later on multiple versions of Match Game like we do SNL casts.


6. Wheel of Fortune
1,847 points; 46 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 7

Scott: It's easy to criticize Wheel of Fortune now, as the show adds more and more sparkly things to keep the attention of an increasingly ADHD viewing public, but even today, if you turn the show on, you're going to try to solve that puzzle alongside the contestants. Wheel of Fortune may no longer be the utter phenomenon it once was, but it's still a very good game.

Jason: And I don't think I'm alone around these parts in welcoming some of the added stuff. I liked the Jackpot. I like the Wild Card. The presentation's a heck of a lot busier than it was years ago, but in the spirit of your previous sports analogy, I'm willing to embarrass myself too: are there football fans who think the superimposed first-down line & constant score bug detracts from watching the game? Wheel has had a natural evolution, and the general audience has stuck with it through every tweak. I think, at least in part, we don't talk about it around here very much because the changes were gradual enough that they didn't engender a reaction like Millionaire did when it went to the shuffle.

Scott: You're right that Wheel of Fortune has been good at making its changes gradually and subtly, which I think helps shield it from some of the criticism an overly analytical group like ours would otherwise give it. When Millionaire makes a change, it's a big sweeping thing that we all take note of. When Wheel of Fortune makes a change, it's so small in the grand scheme of everything else on the show that the threads here usually don't go very far. I also wonder how many loyal Wheel watchers we have on this board, as opposed to those who don't tune in often, but know that the show is still there, doing its thing. I think that not being under that microscope helps the show's reputation among our group, but then again, I don't think that would have an appreciable impact on Wheel of Fortune's ranking in this poll.

[Joe Mello]

I wonder if Concentration is suitable for a Web series like they did with Password. One rebus should be enough to fill a video

[BrandonFG]

I honestly wonder whether Concentration is too..."cerebral" for today's audience? Not for the difficulty, but because so much is going on with remembering whether the Refrigerator is behind 13 or 18, then trying to decipher a rebus on top of it. I love the show and personally had it at #23; I just wonder if it will have Suzy Q. Homemaker fumbling for the remote to watch Judge Judy.

Honestly, I think the show could return if you replace the rebus with something a little simpler, say a simple image. Yes, you now have Get the Picture, but I'm thinking about the average 2016 audience. If they were made up of all Invision members, it would prolly run for years!

[TLEberle]

If we've got to the point where thinking is too hard then maybe the game show is done as a genre. The fact that "Hit the Buzzer, Win a Cookie" is in the top ten and got a greatest of all time vote does not fill me with confidence.

[BrandonFG]

Well, to say thinking is too hard might teeter on hyperbole. Fortunately, Jeopardy has 32 years in its current form, Millionaire's coming up on close to two decades, Idiotest and The Chase do pretty well. So, I think a thinking person's game, if executed right (see Questions, 500), can still make it. I just wonder if Concentration requires too much thinking*, and IMO that partially comes from shows like Deal or No Deal or whatever paternity test-based talk show pissing in the proverbial gene pool.

*/And if the answer is yes, the show's title might be a bit ironic

[PYLdude]

You know, I don't understand how answering questions, earning things associated with answering those questions, using said things to take turns at a game board with thousands of dollars in potential prizes available as well as penalty spaces that take your money away by landing on them, as well with testing your adversity to risk and how strategy plays into your decision making boils down to "hit the buzzer, win a cookie".

[gromit82]

10. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (1999-present)
9. Press Your Luck (1977, 1983-1986, 2002-2003)
8. Concentration (1958-1978, 1987-1991)
7. Match Game (1962-1969, 1973-1982, 1990-1991, 1998-1999, 2016-present)
6. Wheel of Fortune (1975-present)

[gromit82]

10. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
It's still strange to me that the show hasn't gone away since 1999, save for a few months between the network & syndicated runs. We don't really have an analog for this. It's like The $64,000 Question managed to stay on quietly for ten years after all the hoopla. Maybe it's more like Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! - mainstream attention for a bit followed by a continuing, successful run.

Maybe The Simpsons might be a better analogy, even though it's not a game show. In its first couple of years, it was a national phenomenon. It's not a phenomenon anymore ... but it's remained on the air for 27 years.

[Ian Wallis]

Who Wants to be a Millionaire:  I'm glad to see this move into the top 10.  I saw almost every ABC telecast and pretty well every episode through the first few years of syndication.  Due to time slot and station changes in recent years, I only catch it once in a while now.  I think the phenomenon of the Regis version alone probably merits a top 10 placing.  He could make you laugh in a very tense moment, and make you feel for the contestant when he lost.  I always thought this was the best of the primetime "comeback" shows.

Press Your Luck:  I was talking to a colleague in another department the other day and game shows somehow came up.  She said "I like the one with the whammies".  From what I could tell, she wasn't aware that it was on GSN everyday, so it was from memories of the original.  It certainly left its mark.
Even though it only ran three years, the endless reruns would seem to suggest was cancelled way before its time.  An oddity about this show is that through decades of reruns (1 year in syndication, 8 years on USA, 1 year on Buzzr and now 15 years on and off GSN), the whole series has never been repeated.  The last few weeks of the series from Sept 1986 haven't been seen since the handful of CBS stations still clearing the 4 PM timeslot originally aired it.  If GSN ever does pick up the last bit of the series, they'll almost be like new episodes because so few have ever seen them.

I had all of these five shows in my top 20, with two of them placing in my top 5.

[TLEberle]

You know, I don't understand how answering questions, earning things associated with answering those questions, using said things to take turns at a game board with thousands of dollars in potential prizes available as well as penalty spaces that take your money away by landing on them, as well with testing your adversity to risk and how strategy plays into your decision making boils down to "hit the buzzer, win a cookie".

Given that you essentially dismissed any discussion of an opinion not adjacent to your own as it to pertains to "what's a game show" I don't feel particularly compelled to engage you here.

[PYLdude]

You know, I don't understand how answering questions, earning things associated with answering those questions, using said things to take turns at a game board with thousands of dollars in potential prizes available as well as penalty spaces that take your money away by landing on them, as well with testing your adversity to risk and how strategy plays into your decision making boils down to "hit the buzzer, win a cookie".

Given that you essentially dismissed any discussion of an opinion not adjacent to your own as it to pertains to "what's a game show" I don't feel particularly compelled to engage you here.

If you're referring to my statement about how I don't consider certain programs to be game shows by my definition, I was willing to elaborate. Since nobody pressed me on it, and some of the responses that followed echoed some of my sentiments on the matter, I didn't need to really add anything because there wasn't anything I could've added.

If you're not then I really don't know what you're talking about.

[Clay Zambo]

I just wonder if Concentration requires too much thinking*, ...
*/And if the answer is yes, the show's title might be a bit ironic

I don't think the point is that it require too much *thinking,* but that it requires too much *attention.* Although you might be able to solve a rebus with a quick look-in, you couldn't follow the prize-matching part of the game without being attentive to the whole game. You wouldn't necessarily have to *look* at the screen the whole time, but you'd have to be actively listening.

[BillCullen1]

I was wondering if Millionaire would make the list. I'm glad it did. It has great play along value. Regis' version would have lasted longer if they didn't overexpose it. Plus the celebs playing for charity gets old quick. Press Your Luck was a definite improvement over Second Chance, far more exciting. I was surprised Concentration made the Top Ten, for the fact that it's been off for over 20 years. I liked the Jack Narz version since I grew up with that. I figured MG would be in the Top Five. I always liked it. WOF has became a TV staple. I saw a taping of it at Radio City in NYC some 10 years ago with Pat, Vanna and the late Charlie O.

I think I've figured out what the Top Five shows are.