"Now You See It" hoax?

[PeterMarshallFan]

While searching for Usenet posts about the Dark Period, I found one post that said, \".....false scheduling (The \"Now You See It\" hoax)\" What is this \"hoax\" about?

[Matt Ottinger]

I may have the details wrong, but Now You See It was supposed to return to the GSN schedule in the fall of 1999.  It aired for only a couple of weeks and was suddenly replaced with \"Click\", the Ryan Seacrest children's game that was in syndication a couple years earlier.  I don't think there was ever an official explanation, but the speculation at the time was that GSN was contractually obligated to air Click and they chose to replace NYSI with it.  That may be the \"hoax\" you read about.

[PeterMarshallFan]

Many thanks.

[Jimmy Owen]

It was a case of \"Now You See It\" and \"Click,\" now you don't!  There was a \"hoax\" involving \"Say When\" a few years back.  GSN had put on their website that the would be showing an episode of the Art James starrer on April 1. It turned out to be an April Fool's joke.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jul 12 2003, 12:27 PM\'] the Art James starrer [/quote]
 Y'all have been reading Da Perfesser's site too much.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jul 12 2003, 07:36 PM\'] [quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Jul 12 2003, 12:27 PM\'] the Art James starrer [/quote]
Y'all have been reading Da Perfesser's site too much. [/quote]
 I prefer to think that both Jimmy and Steve have each read a Variety magazine a time or two in their lives.

[Jimmy Owen]

Maybe I should have called it a \"skein\"?  BTW, in addition to my TV Guide collection, I have a ton of old Variety issues in one of my extra closets. 1975 the earliest and my subscription ran out in 96, but I still have 'em.  About 10 years of \"Broadcasting\" too (back when it was a good mag).

[Matt Ottinger]

You have *extra* closets?   More than one?

OK, yeah, now that I look at them, TV Guides do take up a lot less room than board games...

[Jimmy Owen]

Yes Matt, I am the proud possessor of a three bedroom domicile, each with a closet.  Two linen closets and two smaller closets that are supposed to be used to hang up coats.  Only one closet is being used for clothes. The others have TV Guides, other magazines, CDs and video tapes.  I want to turn one of the bedrooms into a \"multi-media\" room with all my TVGs and videos etc.  Did I mention I live alone?

[TonicBH]

IIRC, NYSI aired for two weekends, then Click came back. The reason why was the contract with the production company for Click (It wasn't Merv Griffin's production) wasn't expired. So they HAD to air it. and NYSI got the boot.

Doesn't mean that NYSI won't be making a comeback.

[Ian Wallis]

Quote:
The others have TV Guides, other magazines, CDs and video tapes. I want to turn one of the bedrooms into a \"multi-media\" room with all my TVGs and videos etc.


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Does anybody else besides me collect Billboard magazine?  A single issue is huge compared to TVGuides, or even Variety.  I've got almost 25 years worth of Billboard, half of which I have to store in my parents basement because I just don't have room for them!  (Maybe one day I'll sell the whole lot and make some money off an almost complete run during that stretch).  For the record, since (in my opinion) pop music isn't that great anymore (at least what's being played on the radio) I'm really considering ending my run of the magazine.  Oh, and if anyone's at all interested, my name has been published in it 14 times (e-mail if you want to know why).

Back to game shows, I suppose it's possible that \"Now You See It\" could return to GSN at some point, especially since they seem to favor the GT shows over the other libraries they have.  However, I'd be surprised if it returned any time soon the way things are going right now.  While I'd like to see it back at some point, there are a lot of other shows I'd rather see...

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Jul 14 2003, 10:57 AM\']Does anybody else besides me collect Billboard magazine?  A single issue is huge compared to TVGuides, or even Variety.  I've got almost 25 years worth of Billboard, half of which I have to store in my parents basement because I just don't have room for them!  (Maybe one day I'll sell the whole lot and make some money off an almost complete run during that stretch).  For the record, since (in my opinion) pop music isn't that great anymore (at least what's being played on the radio) I'm really considering ending my run of the magazine.  Oh, and if anyone's at all interested, my name has been published in it 14 times (e-mail if you want to know why).

Back to game shows, I suppose it's possible that \"Now You See It\" could return to GSN at some point, especially since they seem to favor the GT shows over the other libraries they have.  However, I'd be surprised if it returned any time soon the way things are going right now.  While I'd like to see it back at some point, there are a lot of other shows I'd rather see...[/quote]
I did for a while (1982-89), until they just took up too much room.  I've still got a few left, but some of the Whitburn books tide me over with chart data--I know it's not exactly the same (also have a lot of WLS [Chicago, just in case] Musicradio Surveys from 1964 through the 1980s--some of that chart data helped in forming the Hot 100 [that along with a gazillion other radio stations]).  And oh yeah, I've got a few TV GUIDEs as well but nowhere near Matt or Jimmy's collections.

Can I guess that in those 14 times you've contributed in some measure to \"Chartbeat\"?  (I'm probably wrong.)  

Doug

[Jimmy Owen]

I probably would have collected Billboard except for two things, Billboard's subscription price was (and is) astronomical and my public library had a subscription.  My public library didn't subscribe to TV Guide and it was only 15 cents an issue.  I got a Variety sub. after my public library dropped it in the mid 70's.  Lots of great trade ads and info pertaining to game shows in Variety back then.

[Ian Wallis]

That's what I like about having those old TVGuides.  It's really neat when looking at old issues the ads they'd run whenever a network changed it's daytime schedule.  

For almost every game show debut, they'd run the ad somewhere in Sunday's listings.  Usually they'd have a picture of the host, sometimes the set and usually run a brief desription of the show.

They're neat to have...

And yes, I have spent a lot of money on Billboard over the years (probably too much), but since I've been hooked on music and statistics for many years I always was fascinated by the charts and had to know how my favorites were doing each week.  I'm really considering selling off my issues from 1995 onward eventually, but will probably keep the ones from before then because the '80s were my favorite era for music.   Now...I think I may need a bigger house to store them all!!

[Ian Wallis]

Quote:
Can I guess that in those 14 times you've contributed in some measure to \"Chartbeat\"?


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Yes, it appeared in \"Chartbeat\" (the chart trivia column) 13 times between 1984 and 1994.  The other time was in a Letter to the Editor on the decline of vinyl records in 1990.  My name's also been in the Chartbeat Online column a few times since then.

To drag this thread somewhat back on topic, it's interesting that \"Now You See It\" was one of the few game shows of the '70s to use a commercially-released piece of music as its theme (\"Chump Change\" by Quincy Jones).  Most game shows had specifically composed pieces of music as their themes by that time.  My guess is they must have decided to use it because it fit the show so well.  I believe the theme to \"Sanford and Son\" is on the same album.