Alternate realities when it comes to game shows

[aaron sica]

I've recently seen the new animated Spider-Man movie and also, "The Flash", in which alternate realities play a huge part. In the alternate reality of "The Flash", for example, it was Eric Stoltz who was Marty McFly and not Michael J. Fox.

Chris C. mentioned in another thread how Twenty One was passed on and Child's Play went to series instead.

What would have happened had Twenty One made it to series? How long would it have lasted?

What other alternate realities could exist in our world of game shows, and what might have happened as a result?

[BrandonFG]

I don’t think 21 does any better, honestly. I wasn’t too blown away by the pilot and it felt like audiences didn’t appreciate hard trivia shows again until J! came back a couple years later.

I do wonder what if the games from fall 1990 lasted a little longer? Not that TJW, TTD, or Trump Card set the world on fire, but if they last until about 1993, does the genre come to as much of a standstill in the mid-90s?

[aaron sica]

I do wonder what if the games from fall 1990 lasted a little longer? Not that TJW, TTD, or Trump Card set the world on fire, but if they last until about 1993, does the genre come to as much of a standstill in the mid-90s?

Along those same lines, even though it's not one of the syndicated fall 1990 games, that comment caused me to wonder what would have happened if Ross Shafer's comment on the last MG90 about "another channel, another time" had come to pass. It's rumored that was CBS. If that were the case, I could see the "Designing Women" reruns being taken off to make room.

[Blanquepage]

I definitely believe Break the Bank would've had a decent daytime run had it not been for that soap expansion.

[aaron sica]

I definitely believe Break the Bank would've had a decent daytime run had it not been for that soap expansion.

Absolutely. IIRC, its ratings were not bad.

[chris319]

I definitely believe Break the Bank would've had a decent daytime run had it not been for that soap expansion.

I think BTB deserved better than it got, but with nine celebs it must have been a relatively expensive show to do.

Tic Tac Dough, Jeopardy! (1978), Double Dare, Trivia Trap and even Whew! all flopped in daytime. TTD and J! did a lot better in prime access. I think a hard Q&A quiz like Twenty One would have flopped in daytime as well. Unrigged, Twenty One was a dull show by Dan Enright's own account, c.f. the PBS doc, and the 2000 prime-time version didn't set the world on fire. Blockbusters had some success in daytime but it had the game of hex and contestants were given the benefit of the initial letter of the answer. PYL had multiple-choice Q&A and the material didn't exactly test the intellect.

When I mull over game show formats I eschew strictly Q&A formats, figuring J! has a lock on that and audiences may burn out on Q&A. Jay Wolpert gets an "A" for effort in exploring fresh formats but his shows were a little too "out there".

[Joe Mello]

To further underline the current-ness of this topic, I've been led to wonder recently what happened were there no Writers Strikes. I don't think Temptation would've been presented as it was if at all if the previous strike hadn't happened (MNTV probably lives a bit longer as a channel w/ original programming too). The recent ESPN documentary also heavily implies that American Gladiators only made it to air because of a strike.

What a different world we could live in if companies properly compensated their workforce.

[BrandonFG]

Another two that cross my mind occasionally. I might be getting a little creative here.

Ever since the late-70s, Merv wanted a syndicated version of Wheel. IIRC, he almost got 20th Century Fox to distribute the show in 1980, and I'm guessing it would've been a 20CF companion to Dance Fever. That being said, I don't think it becomes the massive hit it became in '83 and I predict it gets the axe around the same time as Dance Fever.

In this alternate universe I see it getting a short-lived reboot in the mid-90s, then another one in the late-90s/early-2000s that runs to this day. Since evening Wheel doesn't give Feud a run for the money, Dawson goes a couple more years on syndicated Feud and passes off the torch to Ray Combs in '88. The ABC version still goes off the air in '85. Oh, and since Wheel went off the air around '87 Pat Sajak gets a CBS gig, but in 1993. Letterman replaces Carson in '92 and Jay Leno gets something in syndication.

The other one is Dean Goss's LMAD continuing into '86, and doing just well enough to make it to '87-'88 before finally getting canceled.

[mmb5]

Along those same lines, even though it's not one of the syndicated fall 1990 games, that comment caused me to wonder what would have happened if Ross Shafer's comment on the last MG90 about "another channel, another time" had come to pass. It's rumored that was CBS. If that were the case, I could see the "Designing Women" reruns being taken off to make room.

I asked Bob Boden if there was anything in the works for MG90 post-cancellation.  He said there were no plans.

[SamJ93]

I think the major lynchpin for us would have to be if Chief Justice Earl Warren had ruled the opposite way in 1954, finding that "giveaway shows" constituted gambling and were therefore not allowed on the airwaves.
Given the trajectory of media and society, it seems almost inevitable that they would've been allowed on the air at some point anyway. But when would that have happened? How would long-running favorites like TPiR and Wheel have developed--if they even existed at all? Would the scandals still have occurred at some point?

[Adam Nedeff]

So, in all the years that we've been tape trading, have you noticed that a TON of unsold pilots were shot in 1990?

Michael Brockman was in charge of ABC at that point and he made it known that he wanted to dump Home and make 10:30 am-12:30 pm a two-hour block of game shows. A bunch of those 1990 pilots were shot for ABC's consideration. Brockman was shown the door right before he brought this to fruition. Considering that the network game shows were starting to die at this point, I'm curious to know what would have happened if ABC had unleashed four new game shows in the fall of 1990. No difference? Ratings dilution because of all the syndicated game shows along with the ABC block? A few hits are in there and the life of network games gets extended a little bit?

[rebelwrest]

Michael Brockman was in charge of ABC at that point and he made it known that he wanted to dump Home and make 10:30 am-12:30 pm a two-hour block of game shows.

I think Michael Brockman would have faced some strong headwinds from affiliates not from putting game shows on, but for wanting to take back 10:30 eastern.  Pretty much since ABC's beginnings, 10AM to 11AM was for the local affiliates.  Considering that a lot of the popular syndicated daytime programming was one hour instead of 30 minutes, I don't think he would have won that battle.

[Jamey Greek]

Imagine if both Pyramid and CS are cancelled the same day and Top Secret premiered the same day as Feud.. Both Independence Day 1988. 

[Joe Mello]

I think the major lynchpin for us would have to be if Chief Justice Earl Warren had ruled the opposite way in 1954, finding that "giveaway shows" constituted gambling and were therefore not allowed on the airwaves.
Given the trajectory of media and society, it seems almost inevitable that they would've been allowed on the air at some point anyway. But when would that have happened? How would long-running favorites like TPiR and Wheel have developed--if they even existed at all? Would the scandals still have occurred at some point?

I think you may have some weird instances like what Britain did for Wheel and Price, but I think quiz shows and other skill-based games would still happen unaltered. Otherwise, you're saying sports like golf or tennis could not be televised because there's a prize for the winner.

[chris319]

Another thought exercise:

Pick a better emcee for Mindreaders than Dick Martin. Though the format was fundamentally flawed, Dick didn't help. He was better in office run-thrus but once he got into the studio he was never smooth at it. He was always a bit awkward.

I'm not sure exactly when Brockman departed NBC, but even though he was a client of the company there were those in the office who didn't hold him in particularly high regard. In watching his interview, the games he plays with his fingers remind me of the Simpsons' Mr. Burns character.

By the time we brought up Mindreaders in 1979, ISTR we were dealing with Noreen Conlin.