Greatest Cable Game Shows

[TLEberle]

Jason A's resurrection of Clash in the A/V thread brought a discussion between the two of us and I wanted to throw it to the assemblage. This is NOT a poll-just list what you rank as the three greatest game shows that either originated from or had its greatest success on cable television. Sorry, The Chase. If you want to include a competitive reality show or culinary showdown on your list that's fine by me, but it needs to have a bona fide game element. If you cannot bear to condense your list to three I will roll a d7 to curate your list for you. You may use whatever criteria you see fit as greatest—they can be personal favorites or ones you think were groundbreaking, or long lasting; they’re your choices.

EDIT: feel free to explain your choices as you see fit.

[Long live Jeopardy]

1. Win Ben Stein's Money (Comedy Central)
2. Supermarket Sweep (Lifetime)
3. GUTS (Nickelodeon)

[BrandonFG]

1. Win Ben Stein’s Money
2. Remote Control
3. Double Dare

WBSM was just a damn good game show that I’m surprised hasn’t been rebooted. It doesn’t have to have Ben Stein, as The Chase and Master Minds have shown us there’s plenty of trivia whizzes out there. RC and DD were the first games for their respective networks but also spawned a bunch of imitators. Esp. Double Dare.

[WhammyPower]

I'm taking a combo of your two lists:

• Win Ben Stein's Money
• Supermarket Sweep
• Double Dare

[Sodboy13]

1. Double Dare
2. Idiot Savants
3. Win Ben Stein's Money

[colonial]

Win Ben Stein's Money
Remote Control
2-Minute Drill


JD

[Chief-O]

Personal faves:

1) "Supermarket Sweep"
2) "Shop Til You Drop"
3) "Double Dare"

I'd have to think both DD and "Remote Control" should be lock-ins just for being (if I remember) the first major hit game shows on cable.

[Bryce L.]

1. Supermarket Sweep
2. Debt
3. Win Ben Stein's Money

[SuperMatch93]

1. Supermarket Sweep
2. Win Ben Stein's Money
3. Lingo

[rebelwrest]

WBSM was just a damn good game show that I’m surprised hasn’t been rebooted. It doesn’t have to have Ben Stein, as The Chase and Master Minds have shown us there’s plenty of trivia whizzes out there.

But that's not the only reason why WBSM was so damn good.  You can have a hard quiz, but to also have Ben Stein as a perfect foil and perfectly pair him with the smart-alecky Jimmy Kimmel would elevate it to one of the best.  But one of the big reasons it was so damn good was the comedy was amazing, and I'm not just talking about the categories (see my signature below).  This is the only hard quiz I can think of that lets the comedy breathe. How many hard quizzes do you know of that lets contestants who were eliminated stay around after they're eliminated just because they were great comic fodder.  How many shows can you think of in which the hosts and contestant dropped the pants after a win.  And not only that, but this was a show that had freedom in doing the comedy so far that one show was filmed in the style of THE BLAIR F***IN WITCH PROJECT.  That's why WBSM had an air of unpredictability that made the show so great to watch.  With all those reasons, that's why I put WBSM at #2 on my list.  #1 for me is Double Dare because not only does Nickelodeon owe a debt to it, but cable as well.  #3 is Remote Control and #4 is Supermarket Sweep although those can be interchangeable.

\Just to show how popular the show was at the time, in the Summer of 1998 (age 13 at the time) my mom and I took my great aunt to a rehabilitation center near Charleston, WV.  Both my mom and great aunt left me in a waiting room for SEVEN HOURS.  I didn't see either of them in that span of time, but what kept me occupied was the one TV in the corner that was turned to Comedy Central.  They showed WBSM at least four time in that span, and I enjoyed every single one of them (along with the daytime offerings of Comedy Central).

[PYLdude]

Double Dare, Supermarket Sweep, Win Ben Stein's Money.

[Dbacksfan12]

1)Double Dare
2)Remote Control
3)Supermarket Sweep

[beatlefreak84]

1.  Double Dare
2.  Supermarket Sweep
3.  Chain Reaction

For #3, I know that the show started on NBC, but it had its greatest success on cable (USA for 5 years, GSN for what feels like forever in new eps and reruns).  Still an addicting, fun word game that I've noticed even those who aren't really into game shows really like.

Anthony

[MSTieScott]

1. Double Dare
2. Remote Control
3. Win Ben Stein's Money

[Chelsea Thrasher]

1) Double Dare
2) Supermarket Sweep
3) Debt

Double Dare is one of the absolute pitch perfect blends of trivia, strategy, stunts, and competition games ever put to tape, and one of the best balances of humor/seriousness/sincerity.

Supermarket Sweep is phenomenal and losing my huge gigantic pile of eps from the Buzzr reruns in a cloud storage issue was a crushing disappointment

I wholly and sincerely think Debt is Wink Martindale's best show and plays to every single one of his strengths as an emcee. The trivia is solid (and moving away from the J! style board in season 2 was, IMO, actually a good change), and I think the double or nothingish (they still got a savings bond) stage 2 of the bonus game is the single best implementation of that mechanic in the genre canon, while the preceding trivia countdown has all the suspense of Alphabetics or the Winner's Circle bonuses. If Lifetime hadn't lost interest in doing game shows, this show absolutely should have gotten a longer run.