Game Show TV Milestones Of The Week

[AH3RD]

MARCH 26, 1973

The $10,000 Pyramid, a true classic and overall highly successful television game show created by Bob Stewart and hosted by Dick Clark, had its debut on CBS-TV at 10:30am (Eastern), on the same day of the premiere of the short-lived Jack Barry game Hollywood‘s Talking and the CBS Daytime Drama The Young And The Restless. Pyramid featured a very exciting word communication contest with two teams, each with a guest celebrity and a contestant. The first celebrity guests on the premiere were June Lockhart and Rob Reiner, and the show was recorded from the Ed Sullivan Theater (CBS-TV Studio 50, located at 1697 Broadway near West 53rd Street in Manhattan). On that first show, Rob Reiner was the first celebrity with his civilian partner to successfully climb to the top of the big Pyramid (his winning clue for "Things With A Hole" was "Doughnuts"). That fall, the show featured an opening montage of past Pyramid winners, including Rob Reiner’s winning clue for "Things With A Hole" from the premiere.

During two weeks in November 1973, The $10,000 Pyramid temporarily relocated to CBS Television City's Studio 31 at 7800 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, but soon returned back to its home base in New York City. As the new year of 1974 began, The $10,000 Pyramid found itself at odds as it aired opposite NBC-TV’s original Art Fleming-hosted Jeopardy!. Pyramid held its own, but CBS-TV nevertheless canceled the show after a little over a year on the air, and its CBS finale was on Friday, March 29, 1974 with celebrity guests Carol Channing and Soupy Sales. However, no mention was made of the fact that this was the last show as, according to original Pyramid announcer Bob Clayton, there were three weeks' worth of episodes that were subsequently videotaped but never aired! (Goodson-Todman’s Now You See It replaced Pyramid on CBS the following Monday.) ABC-TV quickly picked up (or "snatched") the rights to bring back The $10,000 Pyramid to its daytime schedule, and, after a 6-week hiatus, the show returned to the airwaves on The Alphabet Network Monday, May 6, 1974 at 4:00pm (Eastern) with celebrity guests Anne Meara and Soupy Sales. That fall, a once-a-week nighttime $25,000 Pyramid version for syndication in the prime-access time slot emceed by Bill Cullen debuted in local stations, distributed by syndicator Viacom International; it made its New York City premiere on Thursday, September 12, 1974 on WCBS-TV at 7:30pm (Eastern), with celebrity guests Anne Meara and William Shatner.

Continued...

[AH3RD]

The Monday, December 23, 1974 telecast of The $10,000 Pyramid saw the game moved to a new weekday time slot at 2:00pm (Eastern) on ABC and a new feature added to the show called "Big 7", which if a team picked a category where a special designated card was hidden beneath somewhere on the mini pyramid game board during the main game, the civilian contestant would be eligible to win a bonus prize if he/she successfully navigated the category. (The "Big 7" crossed over to Bill Cullen's Pyramid version beginning in September 1975, with the amount of cash that was available varying from season to season). On Monday, January 19, 1976, the ABC daytime show doubled the stakes and now became known as The $20,000 Pyramid; the first celebrity guests on the retitled game’s first week were Jo Anne Worley and Bill Cullen. Aside from winning Emmies left and right (in May 1976 as "Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Program" and "Outstanding Direction in A Game/Audience Participation Program"), the show had really interesting moments during its ABC run: several high-scoring main games on record via some amazing tie-breakers (the Friday, July 4, 1975 broadcast featuring Lucie Arnaz and Anson Williams with a score 45-44, and the Monday, June 12, 1978 episode with a score 43-42 featuring Sandy Duncan and Nipsey Russell) and the quickest win at the big Pyramid on record (Billy Crystal in November 1977 with an amazing 26 seconds, while a few others have done it in 30 seconds). It also yielded several infamous events: in the Friday, December 19, 1975 episode, where celebrity guest Clifton Davis became the first of two known people to accidentally rip the leather straps off the clue giver's chair in the Winner's Circle (the second was Sandy Duncan), and in a 1977 episode where a very frustrated William Shatner, having blown a shot at 20 grand for his civilian partner in The Winner’s Circle, grabbed up his chair and tossed it onto the floor!

Continued...

[AH3RD]

A network primetime celebrity half hour special, The All-Star Junior Pyramid, which aired on Sunday, September 2, 1979 at 7:30pm (Eastern) and featuring Susan Richardson and Tony Danza playing the game for charity with young future stars from the new ABC shows debuting in the fall of that year (one of them on that particular episode was a youthful looking Rob Lowe), led to the daytime version reverting to a full-time Junior Partner Pyramid format featuring civilian adult-children teams (with no celebrities at all!) between Monday, October 1 and Friday, November 9, 1979. A special Celebrity Junior Pyramid week followed suit with celebrity guests Susan Richardson, LeVar Burton and Michael McKean, but, fortunately, beginning with the Monday, November 19, 1979 telecast, the daytime show went back into its normal $20,000 Pyramid format.

After 8 long years of doling out cash to lucky contestants by the truckload, the 1,865th and final edition of The $20,000 Pyramid aired on ABC Friday, June 27, 1980. The final celebrity guests were Lois Nettleton and Bill Cullen (erstwhile emcee of the by-now canceled 1974-79 syndicated nighttime $25,000 Pyramid). While Dick Clark said this was the final edition he made certain to viewers that they would definitely be seeing it again. (Surprisingly enough, Pyramid would leave a profound impact on the 1980s, on CBS and in syndication, with [New] $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 formats!) The show ended on a humorous note as the final segment of this finale saw Dick displaying a phoney Winner's Circle round with such sidesplitting categories like "Used Car Dealers You Can Trust," "Hit Shows On NBC-TV", "Things That Kissinger Didn't Foul Up" "Famous Japanese Rabbis," "Oil Companies In Bankruptcy," and "Famous Italian TV Directors" (an inside joke and tribute to Pyramid director Mike Garguilo). Bill Cullen made TV history as the last celebrity on the original Pyramid series to aid his civilian contestant partner to win $10,000 on the show with clues on "Things That End" like "this show...the world one day".

As Dick Clark thanked everyone in the show's fading minutes, Bill Cullen commended him for being a great all-around host. Clark finally says to end the show, "...and we'll see you again soon!" and gathered the entire production crew on-stage, including a rare appearance by Pyramid creator/producer/executive producer Bob Stewart, as the long credits crawl superimposed over them. Effective the following Monday (June 30), The $20,000 Pyramid was replaced with Family Feud.

(Source Of Info: William A Padron's brilliant article, Thr Pyramid's Years In New York.)


MARCH 26, 1982


Password+Plus wrapped up a shaky yet nice 3 ½-year run, after 807 shows. It survived the loss of original host Allen Ludden, who, due to illness, had to retire from the show back in October 1980 and was superceded by Tom Kennedy. (Ludden took a 4-week sabbatical in April 1980 to have surgery done on him, and Bill Cullen hosted in his stead.) Kennedy guided the game through its most trying transitional period, even in the wake of Ludden’s passing in June 1981 (which was never mentioned on the show).

The final celebrity panelists were Audrey Landers and Tom Poston. Tom Kennedy mentioned his late friend and colleague in the show’s fading moments:

"This is the last in our series of Password+Plus. Even though our dear friend Allen Ludden is not with us at this particular moment, as you well know he hosted this show as only as he could do for something like 18 years. I was very proud to have the last year and a half here at the helm. All I can say is you know the show is going to be back soon. . . ."

Sure enough, 2 years later, in September 1984, Password was back on NBC…in the form of the newly revamped Super Password, emceed by Bert Convy.

[Ian Wallis]

On that first show, Rob Reiner was the first celebrity with his civilian partner to successfully climb to the top of the big Pyramid (his winning clue for "Things With A Hole" was "Doughnuts").

There is still some debate about whether this actually happened on the first show, or the third.  Bob Stewart was a guest on GSN's old "Game TV" one day, and he mentioned how they were doing the show and they had the first big win, and the head of CBS (who was watching on a closed-circuit monitor) called down to the studio and told them to stop tape because he thought it was fixed.  I'm sure Stewart said it was the "third show".

During two weeks in November 1973, The $10,000 Pyramid temporarily relocated to CBS Television City's Studio 31 at 7800 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, but soon returned back to its home base in New York City.

Actually it was three weeks, and GSN has run them all (except for one episode).  A more interesting question might be:  why did they move it out there at all?  It didn't seem like the stars that played had a problem with flying to New York to do the show.  It seems odd they'd do it there for three weeks and then never again (in the original run).

One other note - also debuting that day on NBC:  "Baffle".

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 22 2004, 11:12 AM\']

During two weeks in November 1973, The $10,000 Pyramid temporarily relocated to CBS Television City's Studio 31 at 7800 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, but soon returned back to its home base in New York City.

Actually it was three weeks, and GSN has run them all (except for one episode).  A more interesting question might be:  why did they move it out there at all?  It didn't seem like the stars that played had a problem with flying to New York to do the show.  It seems odd they'd do it there for three weeks and then never again (in the original run).

One other note - also debuting that day on NBC:  "Baffle".[/quote]
It was probably the same idea as with "Password"--go out to LA a couple of times a year to grab the celebs who may not make it to New York.  However, the CBS cancellation scotched any plans for a return trip and ABC may not've wanted to put up the money for similar trips when the show relocated to that network.  Bob Stewart also may not've wanted to spend the money to either keep transporting the set back and forth or building a duplicate set in LA (and I would bet that).  He also didn't seem to want to permanently move to the West Coast, although by the early 80s he'd given up the ghost and moved west.

[Jimmy Owen]

Public transportation options might have been a factor for Bob S. in staying in NYC.  I'm pretty sure most folks have their own cars in LA.  I thought there was a brief mention of it being the last show on CBS in 74, I remember Soupy saying it had been a "great show" to Dick during the mill-around, when he still did them. He didn't always just say "so long" and then walk off the set.  Bill's syndicated show of course always had a mill-around at the end, during which you could sometimes pick up bits of conversation.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Mar 22 2004, 04:19 PM\'] Public transportation options might have been a factor for Bob S. in staying in NYC. [/quote]
 Well, Geoff Edwards reminisced on his Radio Tonight radio show in June 2000 that Stewart would take the bus to work.

[TheInquisitiveOne]

Speaking of classic farewells, keep in mind that this week marks the 15th anniversary of what would be the beginning of the great game show purge. $ale of the Century and Super Password both said their sad goodbyes as both shows left the NBC daytime lineup on March 24, 1989.

The Inquisitive One