Would it work on radio too?

[carlisle96]

As long as I'm on a roll with questions, gang, here's another one: what TV game show would also have worked as a radio show? I don't mean shows that started on radio like Groucho's or had brief radio versions like What's My Line or $64,000 Question. I think Password and You Don't Say would have been a good radio games. Jeopardy could also be adapted to purely an audio version too. Child's Play perhaps?

[steveleb]

Indeed, Jeopardy has existed as an audio-only entity, via its J6 game which Amazon Alexa used to offer as a subscription service.  It essentially took the unused clues from actual recent categories.

And believe it or not, Wheel of Fortune was actually attempted as a radio game from the prolific mind of Mark Richards, aka Alex Trebek's "best friend", who hosted a drive time "radio game show" for XTRA 690 out of San Diego in the late 80s.  He actually instructed players who phoned in to write down the blanks in the puzzle and number them.  One shudders to think if car phones were more prevalent at the time how many accidents he might have caused.

[Casey]

Match Game would work pretty well on radio - particularly the original version.  I think the 70s version would work also.  Sure, we wouldn't see Jim Nabors and Carol Burnett stroll in or Gene climb the audience, but most of the time you could easily follow the game. 

[clemon79]

Indeed, Jeopardy has existed as an audio-only entity, via its J6 game which Amazon Alexa used to offer as a subscription service.

Only in the sense that you had to add the "skill" to your Alexa account. It's always been free to my recollection, not even tied to Prime or anything.

[JasonA1]

Indeed, Jeopardy has existed as an audio-only entity, via its J6 game which Amazon Alexa used to offer as a subscription service.

That still exists. J! also has 24/7 stations on Tunein, where they had Buzzy Cohen host audio-only play-in games for the Champions Wildcard earlier this year.

-Jason

[Eric Paddon]

Audio recordings of the original Match Game show that it can work quite well as a listen only experience.   Password could work fine so long as you had the announcer's "The Password is....." voiceover.   I have an ABC Password after that had been eliminated where it's almost impossible to follow.

"What's My Line?" actually had a separate radio version created after the show's debut in 1952 and ran for a season on NBC Radio (different sponsor as well).  An announcer would tell the listening audience the occupation and a panelist would give a detailed physical description of the contestant prior to game play (a radio version of the "walk of shame" that was used in the early years of the show where a contestant would walk in front of the panel before game play so we could have such inanities like Dorothy asking to see a contestant's hands or Arlene or Bennett asking a contestant to flex a muscle or some other thing they hoped might give them a clue).   Only one episode of this radio version is in circulation though the Library of Congress has some more.   Arlene guest hosted a couple of the radio shows (something she never did on TV).

In later years, Armed Forces Radio would play audio only episodes of WML drawn from the TV soundtrack with an announcer mentioning the occupation and the Mystery Guest.

[BrandonFG]

Hear me out: Feud but with single players instead of teams. At most, three players per team but people in the background can help. Instead of the faceoff, do a coin flip for control. Or have both callers on the line, and whoever says their name first gets to guess. Higher answer gets to play or pass. Maybe limit the board to five answers.

I'm also tossing around how to do Millionaire, but with Ask the Office (basically no more than five other people at the station), Ask the Expert (the resident trivia buff at the station or even better one of the cohosts or staff members), and 50/50. Ask the Office might be a little time-consuming, but maybe give them :10 to write their answers on a dry-erase board.

[BillCullen1]

I think Pyramid is the perfect game show for radio. Other possibilities include Family Feud, Card Sharks, Trivia Trap and possibly Child's Play from the Mark Goodson camp. Most of Bob Stewart's shows would work on the radio like Jackpot, Chain Reaction, Double Talk.

[JasonA1]

I think Pyramid is the perfect game show for radio.

We've definitely played it for years on voice chat software, but it's far better when you can gesture in the main game and otherwise use visual cues in every other facet of playing.

-Jason

[parliboy]

One would think that most music-based games would slide into this.  Something like Keynotes would fit in great here.

[Nick]

Hear me out: Feud but with single players instead of teams. At most, three players per team but people in the background can help. Instead of the faceoff, do a coin flip for control. Or have both callers on the line, and whoever says their name first gets to guess. Higher answer gets to play or pass. Maybe limit the board to five answers.

A radio station at which I used to work used to its own rendition of Feud (introed with the Combs theme and using the appropriate sound effects).  It was more simplified than what you described (just two callers, whoever got through first got first crack at guessing one of the top five answers on the board.  It was just one guess per player, and whoever's was higher on the board won a little prize), though I like what you described for making it more of a true game of Feud.

[Matt Ottinger]

I think Pyramid is the perfect game show for radio.

Good God no. 

Just because something is theoretically capable of being played by contestants on the radio doesn't make it a good radio program.  A listener would be completely lost without being able to see the items being described.

You could try and make the argument that a listener could "play along at home" with the clues that are being given, but I can guarantee you that would get old fast.  Pyramid isn't even a good game to play on the radio, much less a "perfect" one.

[aaron sica]

I think Pyramid is the perfect game show for radio.

About as good as Concentration would be.

[wdm1219inpenna]

One could argue Pyramid would work.  As I recall on one special episode they played with two blind contestants for an entire episode.

Was Name That Tune an original radio concept?  I'd think that could still work on radio.

[SuperMatch93]

Was Name That Tune an original radio concept?  I'd think that could still work on radio.

NTT debuted on TV, but Stop the Music was a massive hit on radio in the late 40s.