Important Years in Game Show History

[carlisle96]

More examples:

1955: The $64,000 Question ignites the Big-Money Quiz craze.

1961: The original Password launches the "Celeb-Civilian Game"; plus, Say When!! gives Art James his first regular hosting gig.

1964: The original Jeopardy puts quizzes back on TV; while Wink Martindale begins his long hosting career (What's This Song?).

1965: The original Dating Game puts Chuck Barris on the TV map.

1966: The original versions of The Newlywed Game and The Hollywood Squares are unveiled; also Bob Stewart goes on his own. Speaking of Mr. Stewart.....

1973: The $10,000 Pyramid premieres, Match Game returns with a vengeance, and America meets Alex Trebek (The Wizard Of Odds).

Cordially,
Tammy

Or 1950: when What's My Line basically invented the panel show

[thomas_meighan]

Or 1950: when What's My Line basically invented the panel show

“Information, Please” ran on NBC Blue, NBC Red, CBS and Mutual from May 1938 to June 1948. Later shows were repeats. (Source: On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning, page 341)

I would vote for 1965 as a year of several notable changes, some of them structural that would reverberate for a number of years:

*Bob Stewart and Chuck Barris made their first sales as independent producers (“Eye Guess”, “The Dating Game”).

*The debuts of “Supermarket Sweep” and “The Dating Game” in December 1965 marked a change in tone from ABC’s previous daytime games. Most of the ones they aired from 1957-65 were relatively conventional, and several were picked up from the other networks. The two new programs seemed more youth-oriented, and the sight of contestants running through a supermarket was certainly a change of pace.

*”PDQ”, which started this year, was the first Heatter-Quigley game to last more than two years, and the first syndicated game to last more than a few months.

*”The Price is Right” was among the last (if not the last?) daytime games to air live most days of the week. Bill Cullen’s next project, “Eye Guess”, seems to have been entirely pre-recorded.

The only B&W game to transition to color was “The Match Game” in April, but the I think the balance in favor of color game shows tipped during 1963 or 1964. (It helped, of course, that NBC tended to air more games than CBS or ABC.)

[RMF]

1948 strikes me as a year of some importance, looking at game shows in two regards:

1) It is the year when network television, albeit still with limits to its full geographic spread, starts to emerge- and it becomes quickly apparent that game shows will be among the programs on offer, including both original game shows and ones adapting radio programs;

2) On radio, the rise of Stop The Music, which at its peak plays a key (though not the sole) role in the end of Fred Allen's career as a radio headliner- and which, more to the point, through its introduction of the "giveaway" craze plays a major role in the emergence of the "big money" approach to game shows, which (in various waves) has had influence on the genre ever since.

[carlisle96]

Or 1950: when What's My Line basically invented the panel show

“Information, Please” ran on NBC Blue, NBC Red, CBS and Mutual from May 1938 to June 1948. Later shows were repeats. (Source: On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning, page 341)

I would vote for 1965 as a year of several notable changes, some of them structural that would reverberate for a number of years:

*Bob Stewart and Chuck Barris made their first sales as independent producers (“Eye Guess”, “The Dating Game”).

*The debuts of “Supermarket Sweep” and “The Dating Game” in December 1965 marked a change in tone from ABC’s previous daytime games. Most of the ones they aired from 1957-65 were relatively conventional, and several were picked up from the other networks. The two new programs seemed more youth-oriented, and the sight of contestants running through a supermarket was certainly a change of pace.

*”PDQ”, which started this year, was the first Heatter-Quigley game to last more than two years, and the first syndicated game to last more than a few months.

*”The Price is Right” was among the last (if not the last?) daytime games to air live most days of the week. Bill Cullen’s next project, “Eye Guess”, seems to have been entirely pre-recorded.

The only B&W game to transition to color was “The Match Game” in April, but the I think the balance in favor of color game shows tipped during 1963 or 1964. (It helped, of course, that NBC tended to air more games than CBS or ABC.)

"Information, Please" wasn't a conventional panel show...it was more of a showcase for literary figures like F.P. Adams, John Kieran, and Oscar Levant. It left room for a lot of ad-libbing, joking around, and one-upsmanship among the group. "What's My Line" set up the template for panel games as we know them today.

[Jimmy Owen]

It seems as though every year was important. I'll vote for 1974. Every body was employed.

[chrisholland03]

Showoffs

[Kniwt]

Gosh, if only there was a comprehensive four-volume book that covered this, and sheesh, wouldn't it just be something if it was written by a GSF member? 

https://www.amazon.com/This-Game-History-Commemorations-Celebrations/dp/1593935692/ref=pd_bxgy_img_sccl_1/139-0367550-4016268

[carlisle96]

It seems as though every year was important. I'll vote for 1974. Every body was employed.

I think the only classic host who didn't have a show was Bert Parks, unless you count his one day of employment in Atlantic City

[Long live Jeopardy]

1980: Beat the Clock (Hall), Whew!, $20,000 Pyramid, Chain Reaction (Cullen), Hollywood Squares (Marshall NBC Daytime), and High Rollers (Trebek) end their runs that year.

[Jimmy Owen]

Showoffs

1975.

[Robair]

I think the year that was most crucial for the genre was 1968. Here is Mark Goodson, who in the previous year saw four of his creations cancelled, and a few years earlier lost "The Price Is Right". He believed the old formats had some worth, and in the next four years brought those four cancelled series back as well as "Beat the Clock" while still trotting out new games. His belief that any of his shows could come back bigger and better led to a 50-year run for "Price" as well as a syndicated "Family Feud" which is approaching a 25th anniversary season. And all the other packagers followed in his wake, and the genre was incredibly refreshed.

[Jimmy Owen]

1969 was a watershed year. Concentration changed hosts. Match Game, YDS and Eye Guess went off. Syndication had lots of new shows available.

[carlisle96]

1969 was a watershed year. Concentration changed hosts. Match Game, YDS and Eye Guess went off. Syndication had lots of new shows available.

It was also the year there were no Goodson-Todman shows on a network since the late 1940s