New York City

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Those two aren't the same episode? For some reason I had the impression that the one with the Big Numbers win was 7/3/75.

The Warhol episode has original commercials and is an off-air broadcast described above. Reading from notes: 257 is a master, Judy wins the big numbers, then plays NFL player Ray Wersching (seen in 258) as a regular contestant (he was on the Chargers at the time, and Ruta says on AIR she knows the owner, so I'm kinda shocked play continued tbh.) And no, it's not for charity. Judy loses, Ray doesn't win the Big Numbers, then starts the game vs. Pat that resumes on 258 after Ruta's hit to the head.

[Matt Ottinger]

There are also multiple unsold pilots that aren't in circulation (to the best of my knowledge, at least) present- anyone for Robert Q. Lewis with contestants playing something that resembles mahjong?

Is that year correct? Hard to believe something from 1956 would exist in color.

The year is right, according to a couple of items in contemporary newspapers.  Specifically, it was planned for a summer run in 1956. 

It's the "color" part that's probably wrong.  It's historically possible for it to be a color videotape, but that would make it the oldest color videotape in existence, period, and you'd think that somebody at Paley would have noticed that by now.  I guess it could also be a color film, but that seems prohibitively expensive for a game show pilot.

[TwoInchQuad]

There are also multiple unsold pilots that aren't in circulation (to the best of my knowledge, at least) present- anyone for Robert Q. Lewis with contestants playing something that resembles mahjong?

Is that year correct? Hard to believe something from 1956 would exist in color.

The year is right, according to a couple of items in contemporary newspapers.  Specifically, it was planned for a summer run in 1956. 

It's the "color" part that's probably wrong.  It's historically possible for it to be a color videotape, but that would make it the oldest color videotape in existence, period, and you'd think that somebody at Paley would have noticed that by now.  I guess it could also be a color film, but that seems prohibitively expensive for a game show pilot.

There were no commercially-available color videotape machines in 1956... Ampex debuted the first B&W recorders in that year.

There are very rare color kinescopes from the mid-50s, but even those were considered to be an extravagance at that time.

- Kevin

[RMF]

There are also multiple unsold pilots that aren't in circulation (to the best of my knowledge, at least) present- anyone for Robert Q. Lewis with contestants playing something that resembles mahjong?

Is that year correct? Hard to believe something from 1956 would exist in color.

Having seen it, the listing is in error (as quite a few are on this point)- it's a black-and-white kinescope.

[Blanquepage]

There is a second show from the Andy Warhol collection in their index which AFAIK is from the first version as Ruta is credited, where Sand wins two games including a Big Numbers win, before being defeated by Mike.  There is additionally another episode in existence, not listed in their index, #257, from the master, the show immediately preceding the chandelier drop.

Those two aren't the same episode? For some reason I had the impression that the one with the Big Numbers win was 7/3/75.

Yes, the big numbers win happened on the 7/3 show.

[snowpeck]

Among other things already mentioned, I can recommend a 1969 Match Game in color that Paley has in their holdings. Tony Randall and Peggy Cass are the guests.

[That Don Guy]

In terms of the Paley Center:

First, it should be noted that the catalog is available online (it wasn't when I was first going there around fifteen to twenty years ago)- it is probably a good idea to check this ahead of time, as under current circumstances they tend to include time reading the catalog with your scheduled time (they didn't when it was viewing tapes in the back room):

https://www.paleycenter.org/collection-2/

Nice to know. They do list one Gambit and one G.E. College Bowl; not sure if that was the Gambit I saw there, but that was definitely the College Bowl, as I remember UC-Santa Barbara being one of the teams.

[steveleb]

Brenda Burrati was one of the nicest and smartest local programmers I ever tried to sell to.  She relished this unique opportunity to round out triple access where she was asked to develop a show to complement Jeopardy.  At one point I was asked to review it for National syndication. I thought it ran circles around a lot else we saw.  Eventually the powers that were chose a more comedic show that never went forward, but I for one would have loved to see it in tandem with Pyramid on one of the RKO stations

[CarpetCrawler]

I went in 2007, back when they were only allowing you to see an hour's worth of programming, and saw the aforementioned High Rollers from the Warhol collection, which I can confirm is definitely different from the two July shows that are around.  I also got to watch the Celebrity Sweepstakes episode from the Warhol collection.  I still have the request ticket they printed out for me somewhere in one of my boxes of stuff...

[chris319]

Hard to believe something from 1956 would exist in color.

It could be that the live broadcast was in color but the archival kinescope recording is in B&W and it is catalogued as being "in color", viz.:

[Neumms]

Thanks very much everybody. I was last there in the early 00s and I felt like the kid on Santa’s lap who forgot his list. I did watch the Marble Machine from Warhol and Herb Stempel’s loss to Chuck Van Doren.

I’m excited for the color Match Game and the pre-conking Ruta Lee. Can anybody think of more pilots worth checking out?

[trainman]

It could be that the live broadcast was in color but the archival kinescope recording is in B&W and it is catalogued as being "in color"...

It wouldn't make any sense for a library to (intentionally) catalog their holdings that way. (That would be like a library cataloging a modern-day CD-format reissue of a 1950s album as "vinyl LP.")

[mmb5]

There are also multiple unsold pilots that aren't in circulation (to the best of my knowledge, at least) present- anyone for Robert Q. Lewis with contestants playing something that resembles mahjong?

Is that year correct? Hard to believe something from 1956 would exist in color.

Having seen it, the listing is in error (as quite a few are on this point)- it's a black-and-white kinescope.

And it's closer to playing poker.

[Eric Paddon]

I was at the Museum yesterday because of the first ever public screening of the lost telecast of Super Bowl I.   Afterwards, I went upstairs to the Library which was my first time there in over 20 years.   I was amazed at how easy it is to watch something that's been digitized now since all you do is enter your search and bang right away you can watch it without waiting for them to provide  tape like the old days (though some things like the one episode of "Magnificent Marble Machine" are still not digitized so I passed on waiting for that).    I watched the Warhol "Moneymaze" recording (which clearly is before the episode available on YT since Nick Clooney mentions that they have gone to a new format of the couples remaining on stage during the game portion), the 3/15/78 "To Say The Least" and also the "Jackpot!" episode that is the day before the $38,750 one.  I'm frankly surprised those two episodes couldn't have just been shown back to back at some point over the years on GSN as part of a Stewart salute.    Seeing the episode immediately before helps provide more context for the lead-in to the big payoff show.

[Otm Shank]

I was at the Museum yesterday because of the first ever public screening of the lost telecast of Super Bowl I.

OK .... hoooooooooly crap! Can this be a post in the off-topic adventure? Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!

If it was me, I would have to go back to the library another day, because there's no way an uncirculated Money Maze episode can deliver after that!

It's been about 25 years since I've been there to view the collection. I assumed it was all/mostly digital by now, but cool to read your post about it.