Game Show Fans 50 Greatest - Results

[jjman920]

Undermines? Maybe a bit, but I do think that Travis gave the short shrift to a game that while not heavy on the knowledge front is a bit heavy on the strategy front. It's probably one of the things I loved most about the show. Those very interesting situations that could arise as the scores remained close and the Whammy was still ever present on the board.

While I wouldn't place it at #1, and I didn't place it Top 10, I'd certainly give it its credit for being as entertaining as it was.

[Matt Ottinger]

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.

Heaven forbid that people like a show that is entertaining as opposed to something boring and mundane such as Quiz Bowl.

HEY!  I'm right here!

[JasonA1]

I do think that Travis gave the short shrift to a game that while not heavy on the knowledge front is a bit heavy on the strategy front.

I completely agree. I also agree with Chris that the questions on most episodes were just a speed bump on the way to the big board, but the players had to do something to get there. Compare that to other luck-based shows in which you were clear once you passed the audition, and didn't have to make decisions in a competitive game. Outside of PYL, many of the other great shows don't require a high level of understanding either; they boil down to simple concepts.

-Jason

[TLEberle]

Undermines? Maybe a bit, but I do think that Travis gave the short shrift to a game that while not heavy on the knowledge front is a bit heavy on the strategy front.

I was using a rhetorical device to make a point.

If you enjoy the show that's great. We're all children of God with different experiences and tastes. If someone says "I like that it gave away lots of money and prizes in an entertaining way and frequently had big wins," that's a start. Someone else could like the Whammy taking money away. Or someone else could point to the technological marvel of the big board (and one of the reasons I don't have the show on my own list is that it was beaten severely.) I can bet that several people who have rung in put the show on their lists. For the person who has it as number one all time, tell me why it's better than Millionaire, Jeopardy, Pyramid, The Price is Right or What's My Line? Don't dismiss my opinion because I expressed it in a way that you don't care for.

[PYLdude]

I do think that Travis gave the short shrift to a game that while not heavy on the knowledge front is a bit heavy on the strategy front.

I completely agree. I also agree with Chris that the questions on most episodes were just a speed bump on the way to the big board, but the players had to do something to get there. Compare that to other luck-based shows in which you were clear once you passed the audition, and didn't have to make decisions in a competitive game. Outside of PYL, many of the other great shows don't require a high level of understanding either; they boil down to simple concepts.

-Jason

This really expresses my view better than the post I just made so I'll just quote it to show my agreement.

For the record I had Press Your Luck in my top 15 and ranked What's My Line just ahead of it.

[Unrealtor]

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?

If Fear Factor isn't a game show, then is Beat the Clock a game show? At their core, they're both "do a stunt, win a prize if you succeed, go home at the end of the episode." The main difference beyond the construction of the stunts themselves seems to be that, at the time Fear Factor debuted, anything that wasn't a straight Q&A was being dubbed a "reality" show because the term was in vogue.

I also don't get the slippery slope argument of "If you say that this one show that gets lumped in under reality competition shows is a game show, then all reality competition shows are game shows." The Amazing Race and Survivor (and Big Brother, which hasn't really come up here either) are kind of outliers in the reality competition genre, which, these days, is basically down to shows about romance and talent competitions.

[MSTieScott]

5. Family Feud
1,914 points; 48 votes
2006 ranking: 6

Scott: Family Feud is the first show in the countdown to appear on every single ballot. It's also the only show in the top ten that didn't receive a single first place vote.

Jason: I did some last second shuffling with my ballot that moved Family Feud up in the rankings. I remember watching a special that was something like LAPD vs. the LA fire department, or celebrity lookalikes, and I still literally yelled at the TV to play along with the questions, even though what made the episode "special" was suspect. With every host, every new piece of theme music, every change to the set, what makes the show great has never changed. You can pretty much explain the meat of Family Feud just by asking a question. Anyone can play. Bullseye rounds aside, it's stayed largely intact, even reverting back to its classic set & music! I think, like Wheel of Fortune, our group may have seen enough of it to last our entire lives, which may explain the lack of #1 votes, but there's no question that Feud has stood the test of time.

Scott: No question whatsoever. Dawson's version had its iconic run. Combs' version was successful, too. And the current run of Family Feud is now in its eighteenth straight season. Who would have predicted that?


4. Password
2,037 points; 48 votes; 1 first place vote
2006 ranking: 4

Scott: It's a testament to the simplicity and brilliance of Password that it hasn't had a successful version for over 25 years, yet we've ranked it as the fourth greatest game show.

Jason: Perhaps our society's quality of communication has changed over time, but the words in play didn't age. Password gave game shows a great legacy by popularizing bonus rounds & celebrity partners. I think there's a lot to like about both the puzzle and non-puzzle Passwords. Do you have a preference?

Scott: I tend to prefer the the puzzle variety, even though I acknowledge that it severely limited the words the show could use. A half hour of straight Password (even if it's occasionally interrupted by spurts of speedy Password) gets a little tedious -- having a puzzle to solve helps break up the monotony. Still, I also enjoyed watching teams come up with brilliant clues for the tougher words of original Password... Cashword was a good attempt to capture that spirit, but it isn't quite the same when you know you have three unopposed chances to build up to the solution. It seems like there should be some effective way to marry the two formats. I can't immediately come up with one, but it certainly seems like there should be a way.

Jason: I don't think we're alone in that. Both flavors of Password had their strong suits, and a new version that combines them both would be cool.


Scott: And now, the big winners! The Game Show Fans Greatest Game Shows are...


3. Jeopardy!
2,076 points; 45 votes; 6 first place votes
2006 ranking: 2

2. The Price Is Right
2,163 points; 47 votes; 14 first place votes
2006 ranking: 1

1. Pyramid
2,264 points; 48 votes; 14 first place votes
2006 ranking: 3

Scott: Ten years later, the top three shows are still the top three shows, but now they've all moved around. There's a lot to discuss -- let's start with Jeopardy!, which falls from second to third place. When we held our first vote in 2006, Jeopardy! was still coming down from its Ken Jennings high (the Ultimate Tournament of Champions had been held roughly a year prior). However, ten years later, the show has seen a number of multi-day champions who have exploited the game's strategies with a frequency that hasn't really been seen until now. One of those gameplay trends -- wagering to tie -- resulted in a rule change. I don't want to use this thread to rekindle debate over the other strategy -- Daily Double hunting -- so I'll just say this, which I think is objective and fair to both sides: It's the optimal strategy for winning Jeopardy!, but it makes the show less fun to watch at home. Could these developments have had an effect on how our group ranked Jeopardy!?

Jason: Maybe. But I think, like our ardent Millionaire fans, you'd have to do a lot to shake Jeopardy! from the proverbial medal podium of the voters. These things & more helped the show stay active in social media discussions, which is mighty impressive for a show with as few changes over the years as Jeopardy!

Scott: The fact that three people left Jeopardy! off of their ballots entirely really stands out. When I saw this result, I wondered a) whether those omissions were accidental and b) if they were, whether Jeopardy! could have taken second place -- after all, it lost by just 87 points, so a couple more top-five rankings would have given it the silver. As it happens, of the three people who didn't vote for Jeopardy!, I know two of them well enough that I felt comfortable asking them whether the omission was deliberate. In both cases, it was.

Jason: I suppose what makes Jeopardy! fun to watch is not successful with the entire audience, so I get it. Even though strides are always made to make the material accessible, it's ultimately going to be like Frasier to the other shows' Friends - perhaps just the air of knowledge is enough to turn off people for whom composers & English lit are completely foreign topics. The cost of merchandise and the basic identification of things we see & hear everyday are practically the definition of accessible. While the Jeopardy! omissions surprise me in the grand scheme of things, I can understand them.

Scott: Speaking of omissions, The Price Is Right finds itself excluded from one ballot this year, but even if that hadn't happened, it still wouldn't have won the top spot this time around. This is the result which surprises me the most. In 2006, The Price Is Right took first place with a pretty comfortable lead. I think a lot of people assumed it wouldn't have any trouble holding on to that position. I'm too close to the situation to provide an unbiased opinion, but I'll note that while all three of our top shows have seen changes in the past ten years, it's fair to say that The Price Is Right and Pyramid have seen the most. Still, I think we've concluded that votes for, say, Let's Make a Deal or Match Game were reflective of those shows' legacies rather than only their current incarnations. So what happened to Price?

Jason: With Price, it's natural to wonder what the changeover to Drew might have done to its rank among the voters. Were there Barker faithful giving it more points than it deserved in 2006? Did those same people downgrade the show unfairly once Drew took over? For me, it merely dropped a spot for the opposite reasons I gave Feud a jump. The nighttime runs in the '70s, as well as other episodes without as much variety to the games & showcases, showed me there was more to the mix than just the format itself. Feud just has that spark that nothing can hold back. Like Match Game, there's evidence that something else is needed on top of the basic game of The Price is Right. Even if you consider the Cullen version, they too had the bonuses & humor of Bill Cullen to help things. A straight contest would likely not be as great.

Scott: I don't want to sound like a fanboy, or an apologist, or whatever, but I think that Bob Barker really is responsible for turning The New Price Is Right into the multi-decade hit it became -- for exactly the reasons you allude to. Sure, estimating the value of merchandise is something to which every viewer can relate. But that isn't what present-day Price Is Right's most memorable moments have ever been about. It was Bob Barker's experience and ability to draw the entertainment out of everyday people that defined this show, even from its earliest episodes in 1972. If both '70s hosts had simply focused on the pricing games the way that Dennis James did, TPIR would have still had a decent run, but it wouldn't have become an institution.

Jason: And on the flip side, no matter what, every time a Winner's Circle starts, I have to see how it ends. That's been true across all versions. Pyramid took the top spot on my ballot, just as it took top honors for the entire poll. I can play the game over & over and never tire of it. Pyramid never had big hitches in the rules or major strategy moments - it's just a pure game. After Dick Clark's passing, there was a fabulous article on the sweet science of Pyramid that captured what made it so great. Slowly but surely, we're getting there with the new version on ABC.

Scott: I can't help but wonder whether it's the present-day state of Pyramid that gave it top honors this year. When the 2006 poll took place, the most recent version we had was the Osmond Pyramid... and well, we all know what that was like. Since then, we've seen a GSN revival which, though it didn't always have the level of gameplay us hardcore fans like to see in our Pyramid, was a faithful adaptation that really deserved more than one season. And now we have the ABC version, which demonstrates that the Pyramid format is just as engaging today as it was when Dick Clark was the host.

Jason: What I hope the new version really does is get the public to associate that game with the Pyramid title again. In the time before Pyramid's primetime comeback, there's been Catch Phrase & Heads Up!, just to name a few of the entities that picked up the game mechanic. Now if we do this list again 10 years from now, I don't think it's a certainty these rankings will stay. Naturally, we should get at least one more Chase-like contender to break into the top 50. The Price is Right evolved a lot over its 35 years with Bob Barker, and at the rate they're going, we're bound to see it continue with Drew. Pyramid & Match Game could continue on ABC and perhaps into syndication. Pat & Vanna & Alex may not be on their respective shows.

Scott: I think what we've proven with this poll is that even among the longest-running game show titles, there will always be a place for us to debate the merits of each. Especially when it comes to game formats that are as diverse as the ones which make up our top ten. As we've clearly seen, opinions change over time, and no one set of rankings will remain the same forever. I like having a decennial poll which makes us reflect on what makes a game show great, both in the past and in the present. The best game shows are capable of being entertaining to multiple generations of viewers, and I too look forward to seeing what the future of our genre holds.


That does it for the 2016 edition of the Game Show Fans 50 Greatest! I'd like to thank everybody who dedicated some of their time and compiled a ballot for this survey. I'd especially like to thank Jason, who made this results presentation exponentially more insightful than what it would have been if I was doing it on my own. Congratulations to the winners, and here's to the continued popularity of the TV game show so we can do this again in 2026!

[SamJ93]

"Pyramid" ousting "Price" from the top spot seems like a huge upset at first glance, but Scott is right, the recent revival gave it a massive bump. I've always considered it the most "fragile" of game show formats because so much about getting it right relies on execution and nuance. Competent celebrities, a host who builds suspense while keeping things low-key, the subtle ratcheting up of difficulty in the Winner's Circle...it's a deceptively simple format, and deceptively easy to screw up. While there were nits to pick about the Strahan run, it (and Baldwin's MG) ultimately proved that a classic game show, produced faithfully, can still find an audience in the new millenium, which should be cause for celebration for us die-hards.

TPiR, on the other hand, is basically the SNL of game shows. Both have had their high and low points through the years, but the format is such a warhorse, and both "regimes" on the show have overall been pretty good at figuring out when something they try doesn't work. (I'm aware other fans will disagree with me on that last point.) Some probably believe the show has been in a valley for the last 9 years because they will never accept Drew as host, and that may well be why the show slipped out of the top spot. But if nothing else, Drew has shown that a classic format can have life beyond its iconic host, and just like Pyramid, that should give GS fans hope.

[Matt Ottinger]

I refer to Pyramid these days as "the greatest game ever created for television", but strangely enough, I had it second to Jeopardy ten years ago.  While I'm surprised to see it the number one pick, Sam's right.  A decent revival and the general feeling from some fans that Price just isn't as good anymore both must have been factors.  I doubt the smaller sample had much to do with it.  You had almost fifty and I think we were a little shy of seventy the first time around.

If you left either Jeopardy or Price off of your ballot, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that somehow, in a staggering moment of blindness, whichever one you left off just happened to slip your mind.  If you want to tell us that's not the case and you had a reason, let me offer you some advise.  Don't.  Just don't.  Whatever case you make will be ridiculed, as will you.

[TLEberle]

It's one thing to leave off High Rollers or Cash Cab because you forgot or ran out of slots. It's quite another to dismiss Jeopardy out of petulance, ignorance or some bizarre grudge.

/I nearly left both Family Feud and Match Game off my ballots entirely because I knew everyone else would carry their water and I've seen quite enough of both of them, but each one did lots of things that I like even if I wouldn't rate them in the top ten, so I pushed two also-rans overboard to slug them in and I'm OK with that.

[JasonA1]

I can at least understand how somebody who doesn't like difficult trivia looks at Jeopardy! as just wall-to-wall material (like Fifteen to One) and doesn't consider it great, or at the very least, doesn't consider it fun. I've talked to a fan or two who left off shows in the same manner you mentioned Travis - they took what I thought to be a lot of misdemeanors by a legacy show as enough crimes to take it off their list. For instance, if you didn't like Richard Karn, I don't think you needed to strike the entirety of Feud off your list, but there you go.

I know that my criteria to value shows I'd actually watch nearly took some bonafide classics off the list - I can see where voters of any age might find What's My Line? boring. I certainly feel that way about most Dating Game episodes I watch.

We saw some people accidentally leave off a show or two, but I'm curious for those with deliberate omissions to come forward, even for the shows outside the top 10 (because those will be easier to discuss without getting too salty anyway). I already mentioned some reasons I had for leaving Go, Weakest Link & Break the Bank off my list. I'll have to see my virtual top 50 "workspace" again for the others.

-Jason

[BrandonFG]

I dropped Jackpot, Shopping Spree, Greed and Street Smarts off my list (all four were already in my Bottom 10 in 2006). While I obviously enjoyed those four shows, I've simply viewed others that since deserved the inclusion IMO.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Youtube introduced me to many shows I hadn't seen 10 years ago. Out of the four "replacements", two were classics I hadn't yet seen in 2006 (Big Showdown, Trebek's Double Dare), the other two debuted since (1 vs. 100, Celebrity Name Game). The latter of the latter category was my #50 pick.

Reading the list, I still don't know how I missed Whew! or Lingo.

[Fedya]

It could be worse.  I forgot to include Concentration.

[Winkfan]

Let me weigh in:

I did some "comparison ranking" with my choices: meaning how they ranked this time (my ballot and the eventual results) with how I ranked them when we did this last. Here's what I came up with.

Jeopardy came closest: I put it at #4 while the official rank was #3.

Sale Of The Century and Let's Make A Deal both had the farthest: My list had SotC at #43 compared to the official rank at #11 and LMaD at #48 to #16.

Among the shows I added to my ballot this time around were three recent ones: Family Game Night, Let's Ask America, and The American Bible Challenge. I also had LMaD, Split Second, The Who What Or Where Game/The Challengers, and Say When!!

You may WHOOSH if you want to.....

Cordially,
Tammy

[Matt Ottinger]

It could be worse.  I forgot to include Concentration.

Clearly, you weren't concentrating.