Your hottest game show takes

[Chief-O]

Ryan Secrest made Wheel of Fortune more enjoyable.

I'm not a "Wheel" watcher, but I have watched a few of Ryan's shows, and I do agree he's brought a bit of fresh air to the show.

Likewise Ken at J!.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

1.  I liked Jeopardy better when it had a 5-day limit and wasn't dominated by people who spend months preparing and training for it like a sporting event.

Agree on the distaste for 'Jeopardy as sporting event', but like unlimited championship runs. I've never been keen for forced retirements on any game show it's appeared on, same for winnings limits - and I don't think it's even remotely a coincidence that some of the heights of the genre's success have coincided with either superchamp runs (J!, Thom on TTD, etc) or when it was popular to have carryover contestants have success on shows.

2.  On the same token, I liked Mayim better than Ken.  Yes; Ken has improved, but I thought Mayim connected with the human aspect of the show better.

I feel like Mayim got the 'Show' aspect of the term quiz show better, while obviously Ken is masterful at the "Quiz" portion.

4.  I appreciate their places in game show history and have watched at least one episode from every major run of them, but I do not care for any of the classic panel shows at all.  If you absolutely forced me to pick one to watch, I'd pick TTTT 90..

Here's Hot Takes #2 and #3 back to back:
The syndicated version of What's My Line is superior as a show to the CBS version.  I am particularly fond of the Larry Blyden years with the blue set. (Tangent: Buzzr editing out the panel intros will forever wind me up in annoyance. I would literally they edit out credits instead ala GSN before cutting the intros.). Arlene in particular was WAY more interesting when she stepped back from the 'society' trappings of the CBS version and got down in the muck with the common people and often C-tier stars in the syndicated era - the 'fish out of water' vibe of having her do some of the demonstrations is quality entertainment. Soupy Sales, a pop figure utterly devoid of pretense, also makes for a sensational foil.  The weeks Bennett turned up on the syndicated show prove out just how much of a stick in the mud everyone and everything associated with the 'classic' version often were, and

And although I think Garry was the better host in the 70s, if you really press me, my favorite version of TTTT is the 1980 version.

Only having semi-regular panelists pushed a bit more of the emphasis onto good central character and impostor booking, and this version has that in buckets.  And while I think the execution needed tweaks, the idea of "Oh hey BTW one of the four impostors ALSO has something neat going on, can you figure out who?" was a fantastic idea for a side game (and better than the "Here's some extra person, who are they?" they ran with for '90).

This version also has not only my favorite Truth theme (I'm not huge on the 70s version although I like the 1990 re-do), but I think the opening of the show is sensational and best of panel shows. There are better Truth hosts than Robin Ward but even on his worst day he's perfectly decent, and in the ~quarter of the run I have there are some moments he absolutely shines.

The show definitely deserved more than 39 weeks and VERY sporadic GSN/Buzzr reruns, IMO.

[Kevin Prather]

1. Drew should stop doing the Spay and Neuter signoff. He's found his own cause telling people to take care of their mental health, and often times those two messages seem like too much of a mouthful.

Whether he wants to talk about spay/neuter or about mental health, he needs to script it.

When you say the exact same phrase every day, like "Help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or neutered," it will stick in people's heads. When you ramble on for twenty seconds, not so much.

1.  I liked Jeopardy better when it had a 5-day limit and wasn't dominated by people who spend months preparing and training for it like a sporting event.

I make the same comment about Countdown over in the UK. Moments like the 318×75 solve used to be breathtaking moments. Today, that level of skill is pretty much expected of you. Watching the Octochamps of today is often like watching a computer play the game.

[TLEberle]

Bouncing off of Kevin, it is strange where Drew says the same thing every day but doesn’t advance the narrative, or makes it up as he goes and sometimes sticks the landing.

Still no love for how the Showcase segment ends but after 15 years tha5 is unlikely to change.

[Kevin Prather]

So my contribution to this thread:

I didn't think Paula Poundstone was all that bad on To Tell The Truth. Maybe it's just because I'm a fan of her comedy, but I don't think it's such a sin that she goofed off during her time rather than buckling down like Kitty Carlisle. When there's four panelists, there's room for everything.

[RMF]

A few of mine:

Building off of the previously-noted critiques of the 1970s version of Match Game, one issue I have is that, in certain regards, it comes across as Goodson-Todman doing something we'd associate more with 1970s-era Barry and Enright- namely, copying aspects of another producer's format.

Family Feud has always struck me as a format that could be of potential interest, saddled with an assortment of unbearable hosts.

There are cults of personality around several figures in the medium that, to my eyes, are utterly incomprehensible- but are still so strong that I dare not hint at one of my key examples.....

In terms of the output of Chuck Barris, I get the feeling that the best way of understanding it is to realize that Barris appears to have been really good in terms of selling stuff, but that he doesn't seem to have had much in terms of ideas beyond draping his material with the zeitgeist of the time.

And, to offer a positive example: Information Please might have been the finest panel game ever produced in the United States.