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.

[Ian Wallis]

Here are a few of mine:

*I hate the 1969-78 To Tell the Truth theme.  The "bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah's" are really annoying and I don't want the tune going thru my head.  I hardly ever watch that version of the show and only have a few from that time frame saved in my collection.  Having said that, I adore the 1990 instrumental remake of the same theme.

*I've always been attracted to shows with big flashy sets, numbers changing and flashing lights.  Maybe that's why I like Press Your Luck, Celebrity Sweepstakes and Break the Bank '76 so much.

*I've lost some interest in Jeopardy recently.  I just find it's usually way too obscure now.  I used to be able to get approx 30 out of 61 responses right...now I'm lucky if I get 10.  The material they're covering is so out there that no normal person could possibly know this.  There have been a high number of episodes that ended in low scores because the contestants either kept missing or just didn't buzz in.  Obviously some of them are feeling the same way I do.  To me, it's lost some of its appeal.

*I find Steve Harvey to be quite full of himself and don't overly enjoy his version of Family Feud.  It's on GSN all the time and it seems whenever I turn to the channel, that's all they're showing.

*While I loved Peter Marshall's version of Hollywood Squares growing up, I can see why it didn't do well on GSN.  I'd love to see Davidson's version again.

[TimK2003]

I still don't get why certain game shows of the recent past and present (McHale's Card Sharks, Strahan Pyramid, Baldwin Match Game,...) still put two separate 30‐minute episodes back-to-back and officially call it a single one hour episode, and in many cases, switching out wardrobes and/or celebrities.

Isn't it much easier to just shoot a one-hour episode with two games using the same group of celebrities and eliminate the wardrobe changes and the second round of "welcome to the show" banter?   

You know darn well in the current TV world where nearly all 30-minute non-network reruns  are aired back to back for at least one hour at a time, the alternate unaired version with the specific 30-minute intros/outros will never see the light of day in reruns.

[Blanquepage]

A few more:

- I enjoy Treasure Hunt a lot, yet I've never found Let's Make a Deal interesting.
- Baffle is a rarity that I'm perfectly content with seeing only one episode of. Ick
- PDQ on the other hand is a rarity I'd love to see a lot more of
- The Puzzle Game should've made it
- I thought Peter Allen really had potential, and it really is a pity that we couldn't see more of him in action

[aaron sica]

Another one:

- PYL doesn't work as an hour show with a bonus round. It's quite predictable when the contestant will decide to stop.

[Jeremy Nelson]

-LeVar Burton hosting Jeopardy became a thing because one person said it on Twitter, and the general populace rallied around it not because it was a good idea, but because it was the right thing to say at the time. It was a mostly performative measure that flopped because those same people retweeting and pushing for him to get a shot at bat didn't show up with their remotes when it actually counted.

-If Jeopardy is going to be a sport, I think it should act as such. Every week, give me four new players who play in four heats with one odd person out a day. Top 3 winners play Friday for a flat cash prize and a spot in the Jeopardy Playoffs. Winner of the playoff gets $1 million.

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.

Contrary to popular belief, I think the Anthony Anderson-led run was a fantastic show. A little over the top at times, but it was a nice change from the very buttoned up social affairs of earlier versions. What's more, I think the smartest thing that version did was turn the format around to make the celebrities the contestants by scoring their correct guesses. It's much easier to do this on a one-hour show, but it was such a clever move.
 
Also, a lot of these hot takes are lukewarm and somewhat agreeable. YMMV, but maybe it's because we've become a more understanding, less confrontational bunch over the years, which isn't a bad thing.

[chrisholland03]

Contrary to popular belief, I think the Anthony Anderson-led run was a fantastic show. A little over the top at times, but it was a nice change from the very buttoned up social affairs of earlier versions. What's more, I think the smartest thing that version did was turn the format around to make the celebrities the contestants by scoring their correct guesses. It's much easier to do this on a one-hour show, but it was such a clever move.

We share a hot take on this one.  It was consistently an enjoyable hour for me.

[SamJ93]

I'm not sure if disliking the Match-Up rounds from MG90 is still a popular opinion around here or not, but having the chance to revisit the show courtesy of Buzzr, I find myself coming around on them a bit. I initially wrote them off as being too luck-based and lacking in humor, but ultimately they're an extension of the main conceit--testing whether the contestant is on the same wavelength as the celebs, with the added pressure of having to make snap judgements. And honestly, a lot of the time it's pretty obvious which option a celeb will choose (e.g. if the choice is between, say, CAROL SINGING or CAROL BURNETT, you know which one Vicki Lawrence is going with) and savvy contestants ought to pick up on that.

[JasonA1]

You know darn well in the current TV world where nearly all 30-minute non-network reruns  are aired back to back for at least one hour at a time, the alternate unaired version with the specific 30-minute intros/outros will never see the light of day in reruns.

What did/does GSN run when they air Strahan Pyramid? Full hours or the half-hour edits?

To answer your other question: with all the stopping and starting in modern production, it's not any harder to film for both cuts. The production company ends up with the choice of hours or half hours they can sell later, all for a few minutes of work on the front end.

-Jason

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Here's a few more of varying degrees of spiciness and 'deep cut-ness':

* John Davidson's version of Hollywood Squares is by far the best iteration of that format, not even close, and the closest any other version gets to it in quality levels is the last two years of Bergeron's version. Giving Squares a variety show makeover makes the series fun and unpredictable in a way that makes watching it - even decades after the fact - way, WAY less of a chore than any other version. I loathe Marshall-era HS almost as much as Match Game (see previous), and in general I think the first four years of the Bergeron run in particular haven't aged well, not because of offensiveness or anything, just that the jokes often aren't really that funny but it has nothing else to fall back on. (Also, I'm fine never seeing the 'You Fool' stuff again).

* Bill Rafferty is the best host of every single show he's ever hosted. Which doesn't say much for Every Second Counts, but I'll take him over Jim, Bob, or any of the others on Card Sharks, and I actually prefer him on Blockbusters to Bill Cullen (or to Bob Holness if we loop in non-US versions). Other versions are arguably better overall, but Rafferty hosts it just a hair better. Would have loved to see him have to deal with the family pair gimmick. Rafferty on Blockbusters also produced one of my favorite funny moments: Early in the run, Bill gets frustrated by all of the "Helpful Hints from Mary Ellen" questions and at one point goes on an extended thing making fun of the repetition of those questions. Sure enough, the next question he draws is one, at which point the audience, Bill, and the contestants have one of the most sincere and hearty (but not overdone) laughs I've seen on a game show.   

* GSN's April Fools 2003 host swap stunt is charmingly eccentric, but also exposes a major flaw in the channel's productions circa that era (2002-04).  Every. single. show. that swapped hosts was improved with the host change. To a one (albeit to various degrees).  Graham Elwood's shtick made Whammy way more interesting, Marc Summers was PERFECT for Cram which desperately needed the proverbial straight man, Kennedy's snark and edge is SO much more suited towards the otherwise wallpaper paste-like Wintuition that it made the show interesting for the very first time, Mark L. Walberg's "extremely competent game show host with a slightly mean edge" is pitch perfect for Friend or Foe. Lastly, Todd Newton hosted Russian Roulette like he'd been doing it for 10 years.  It's great TV, but it speaks to a bigger flaw of that era when every single show they produced got better when they changed the hosts for laugh.

* Scattergories in 1993 was a charmingly good show that deserved way, way longer than it got. 

* Elizabeth Banks is PYL's best host, even though I prefer the half hour format.

* Bob Barker should have taken his victory lap in 2001-02 then left after Price's 30th season - and I will forever believe the main reason he stuck around (besides cash) those last few years was because his ego demanded he first first keep going into his 80s (2003), then get the "50 years on TV" thing by sticking around to December 2006. It's not a coincidence that latter one is when he retired.  Many of his episodes from the last ~five years are just genuinely bad. The degree to which I hate Rich Fields as an announcer has some bearing in that as does the stuff that went down with Janice, Kathleen, and Paul Alter, but honestly? After around season 30 Bob just isn't able to be consistently 'on' in host mode anymore and until the adulation comes in for his retirement year he's just a crochety cantankerous old asshole who can't host a fraction as well as he used to and has run out of patience or the ability to improvise as well when things go sideways.

* Related: Firing Roger Dobkowitz is the single best production decision that The Price is Right has made since 1972, even if it took a couple of years to get to the good part in the aftermath.  The calcification of that show into the fixed form it held from the late 80s into the first year of Drew's run rests largely upon Roger when it isn't Barker, and the show is orders of magnitude better since the early 2010s than it was at any point since the 80s. (The host's also a way better person which helps, but the producer changes had a massive amount to do with why Price with Drew is good).