This Week's Classic Game Show TV Milestones

[AH3RD]

JULY 11, 1966


The Newlywed Game, a naughty new Chuck Barris-produced relationship game show emceed by erstwhile KRLA DJ Bob Eubanks (coming on strong on the heels of Barris' earlier triumph, The Dating Game), had its debut on ABC Daytime. Legend has it that CBS pre-empted Password for a news special covering a press conference featuring Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the same day as ABC's premiere of Newlywed.

As a cornerstone of ABC's daytime schedule, the game ran for 8 ½  consecutive years and 2,195 episodes its first time out (1966-December 20, 1974), making it the 23rd-longest-running television game show in history. Shortly after its daytime debut, ABC added Newlywed to its prime-time schedule (January 1967), where, along with The Dating Game, it helped The Alphabet Network secure its prime-time game show dominance for five years. It would resurface many, many times in syndication, the last such occurence happening in 1997.

For 10 years following the cancellation of the original ABC daytime series, The Newlywed Game held the record as ABC's longest-running daytime game show in its history; that is, until 1984, when Family Feud took the crown with its 9th and last season on The Alphabet Network.

Every original ABC Newlywed episode has survived, but has kept a pretty low profile on Game Show Network (which emphasizes heavily on the syndicated versions), for many early shows are unairable due to color deterioration. (The show originaly debuted in black and white, with the switch to color occurring less than a year later.)



JULY 12, 1976


Family Feud, an exciting new Mark Goodson-Bill Todman game show wherein 2 families matched wits against a public opinion poll refereed by Richard Dawson, debuted @ 1:30 PM EDT on ABC Daytime. Mark Goodson originated the idea for Feud from one of his other hit game shows, CBS’ Match Game 76. The “Super Match” round of Match Game 76 featured a contestant choosing panelist Richard Dawson virtually every time, trying to match the correct response to an audience survey. The segment became such a huge hit with audiences the survey, that Richard Dawson and The Family Feud went on the air.

Contd...

[AH3RD]

On the landmark first show (recorded on July 7, 1976, ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's 36th birthday!), Tricky Dick Dawson greeted his audience with the immortal 1-liner: “I haven't felt that excited since I got the oil drilling rights to Jack Lord's hair!” The Moseley Family (Wayne, Shirley, Melissa, Bridget and Chris) challenged The Abramowitz Family (Hilda, Karen, Ken, Barbara and Shirley). The first question given was “Name a famous George;” the 6 most popular answers from 100 people surveyed were “George Washington” (46), “George Burns,” “George Gobel” (both with 4), “George Jessel” (3), “Gorgeous George,” and “George Wallace” (both with 2). It only took 200 points for The Moseleys to win the feud, and, though they blew the $5000 in Fast Money, they did manage to score $890.

There were different camera angles in nearly every shot; instead of a camera panning down at Richard, there is a camera at floor level aiming directly at him; and it featured marvelous complete shots of Richard and the contestants at their podiums as the camera followed Richard from one family to the next.

Other Famous Firsts On The Feud:

· The first contestant to give the #1 answer on Family Feud was Hilda Abramowitz.
· The first female recipient of the infamous Richard Dawson Smooch (on her hand, yet!) was Shirley Moseley.
· The first wrong answer given was “By George.”

The loud “strike” buzzer was more hollow-sounding than in later episodes. All of the Family Feud music cues were a little slower. Notice that Dick Dawson doesn’t call out the numbers of the answers after the end of each round; they just revealed themselves. The first Fast Money round on Family Feud included a rare shot of Richard Dawson and the contestant instead of just the contestant.

The end of the Feud premiere was rather weird, because announcer Gene Wood’s closing spiel was “This has been A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production!” instead of “This is Gene Wood speaking for Family Feud, A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production!” Furthermore, the superimposed titles were bright red! (There were no fee plugs, either!)

For the first few months of Family Feud, its set looked an awful lot different (what with it being originally videotaped at Vine Street Theatre before transferring to ABC Television Center); the faceoff podium featured metal buzzers and a single light-blue microphone (for the host), and the contestants’ podiums sported 10 brown microphones.

Within one year of its ABC Daytime premiere, Family Feud became the number one game show on daytime television. A prime time syndicated version of The Feud, which originally aired as a weekly series, debuted in September 1977; it quickly expanded to two nights a week in January 1979 and, in September 1980, eventually extended into five nights a week. The Feud won The Emmy Award in 1977 (the first of many) for Outstanding Television Game Show. The original ABC run of Family Feud continued for 9 years and 2,311 shows, during which Richard Dawson, the consummate ladies’ man, doled out more kisses per square foot than Milton Hershey, until June of 1985.

Contd...

[AH3RD]

JULY 17, 1977

"It's women vs. men in the battle of the sexes! Women or men, which is The Better Sex?!"

The Better Sex[/i], a Goodson-Todman game show which combined the elements of previous G-T triumph Family Feud and H-Q’s The Hollywood Squares and was hosted by Bill Anderson and Sarah Purcell, debuted @ noon on ABC Daytime.

Two teams of six (6 men, 6 women) faced off against each other. The champions (i.e., the men) started and a question was asked. This question could be a general knowledge or survey question (e.g.: "Where is Elvis from?" or "According to a survey, what did most people say was the worst thing about camping out?"). The team captain of the men's team looks at the correct answer and decides whether to use it, or come up with a good bluff. The host or hostess then goes to the opposing team (the women) and asks if they agree or disagree.

When the polling is over, then the actual answer is revealed. If the women are right, then the team captain is eliminated, plus one more of their choice. If the men were successful with the bluffing, then the two ladies that agreed or disagreed were eliminated. Whichever team was eliminated first lost the game. In the bonus round, a section of 30 men and 30 women are seated in a section of the audience. The women play against the men and vice versa. Each member of the team gets one chance to eliminate all 30 members of the audience section in the same fashion as in the main game. A question is asked, an answer is given, then all 30 players vote on whether to agree or disagree.

The Better Sex employed the same sound effects as Family Feud (which, when it was originally being developed, was very similar in concept to TBS!). The pilot for The Better Sex originally had 7 member teams instead of 6. Its rather weird main title theme music was performed by The Score Production Band and Chorus.

Like Break The Bank a little over a year before, TBS became a victim of expanding soaps on ABC, and, as a result, had a tragically short run of 9 months, lasting no further than January 13, 1978. Plans to bring back TBS, even for syndication, never saw fruition, and the series finale concluded on a rather somber note as Bill Anderson (guitar in hand) played one of his hit tunes for the audience. Anderson, who already had over 75 hit singles under his belt since 1958, would later on emcee Fandango on The Nashville Network, and co-host Sarah Purcell later starred in Real People (NBC, 1979-84).

[irismason42]

Ah, you mean it only takes $200 to win the game and to play Fast Money because when you saw the FF pilot, another rarity was there, instead of using Gene Wood to do the voice of the FF pilot, they used Johnny Olson(the voice of MG '7#, TPIR, Concentration) to do the voice of the FF pilot plus they play for points in the main game instead of cash but Richard wouldn't explain the rest of the rules of the pilot, do you know what else is rare, when they made a successful steal, the point number were added to the bank, that's why when it's in dollars, it doesn't add any money to the bank on the successful steal, but the another rarity was the clock displayed on the bottom left instead of the bottom right and they used the sound effects that Showoffs originally used and they always used the sound effects taken from Showoffs, but the one thing they added that Showoffs didn't use was the ding sound effect to display the clock that sound similar to the Barry and Enright's ding effect and also for the first few shows in the series, the audience has never showed up on camera at anytime and a lot of orange was on the top and that's what didn't show the audience.

[tyshaun1]

[quote name=\'irismason42\' date=\'Jul 11 2004, 07:32 PM\'] Ah, you mean it only takes $200 to win the game and to play Fast Money because when you saw the FF pilot, another rarity was there, instead of using Gene Wood to do the voice of the FF pilot, they used Johnny Olson(the voice of MG '7#, TPIR, Concentration) to do the voice of the FF pilot plus they play for points in the main game instead of cash but Richard wouldn't explain the rest of the rules of the pilot, do you know what else is rare, when they made a successful steal, the point number were added to the bank, that's why when it's in dollars, it doesn't add any money to the bank on the successful steal, but the another rarity was the clock displayed on the bottom left instead of the bottom right and they used the sound effects that Showoffs originally used and they always used the sound effects taken from Showoffs, but the one thing they added that Showoffs didn't use was the ding sound effect to display the clock that sound similar to the Barry and Enright's ding effect and also for the first few shows in the series, the audience has never showed up on camera at anytime and a lot of orange was on the top and that's what didn't show the audience. [/quote]
 Best. Run-On Sentence. Ever.

Seriously, if anyone can decipher that, I'll send you an autographed Lee Press-On Nails box, signed by Randy West!

Tyshaun

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Because I'm THAT bored.

General Observations about the pilot:  It only took 200 to win in the pilot.  Also, instead of using Gene Wood for announcer in the pilot, they used Johnny Olson (the voice of MG '7#, TPIR, Concentration).  Also, they played for points in the main game instead of cash. One thing I found odd was that Richard wouldn't explain the rest of the rules of the pilot, but rather. generally treated it as a regular game.   Also, something else that's rare was that when they made a successful steal, the number of points were added to the bank total during the main game, as opposed to in the regular run when they weren't (They played for cash at that point).  Another rarity was the clock displayed on the bottom left instead of the bottom right during fast money.   Why they moved it, I don't really know.  They also used the sound effects that Showoffs originally used.  They did add a Barry & Enright-esque ding effect to show the clock being placed on-screen. Weirld enough, for the first few shows after the pilot, they cut to an awkward tall-shot of the stage, as if the pilot gameboard were still there.   This tall-shot tended to cut out the audience. 

I *think* that makes a little more sense.  I really don't know at this point.

[Brandon Brooks]

[quote name=\'irismason42\' date=\'Jul 11 2004, 07:32 PM\'] Ah, you mean it only takes $200 to win the game and to play Fast Money because when you saw the FF pilot, another rarity was there, instead of using Gene Wood to do the voice of the FF pilot, they used Johnny Olson(the voice of MG '7#, TPIR, Concentration) to do the voice of the FF pilot plus they play for points in the main game instead of cash but Richard wouldn't explain the rest of the rules of the pilot, do you know what else is rare, when they made a successful steal, the point number were added to the bank, that's why when it's in dollars, it doesn't add any money to the bank on the successful steal, but the another rarity was the clock displayed on the bottom left instead of the bottom right and they used the sound effects that Showoffs originally used and they always used the sound effects taken from Showoffs, but the one thing they added that Showoffs didn't use was the ding sound effect to display the clock that sound similar to the Barry and Enright's ding effect and also for the first few shows in the series, the audience has never showed up on camera at anytime and a lot of orange was on the top and that's what didn't show the audience. [/quote]
 I dont' know who's more hopeless, you or Karlberg.

Geez.

Brandon Brooks

[Don Howard]

Two things.
#1: You forgot Hot Seat!! You can't blow off the galvanic skin response gizmo.
#2: Iris, the novelty is wearing off.

[adamjk]

There was something else different about the Feud premiere. I don't know how long it lasted, since I only taped the premiere off the Feast of Favorites, but each time a family tried to steal a bank, they didn't do a close up of the board. Instead you only saw a wide shot of the set.

[ChuckNet]

The end of the Feud premiere was rather weird, because announcer Gene Wood’s closing spiel was “This has been A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production!” instead of “This is Gene Wood speaking for Family Feud, A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production!” Furthermore, the superimposed titles were bright red! (There were no fee plugs, either!)

The lack of fee plugs and shortened closing spiel were due to time constraints, as explained in the book RD and FF:

"Goodson thought the 1st show a disaster. It ran so long that the 30 min. were up before the contestants reached the endgame; to squeeze it in, chunks of the earlier rounds not affecting the outcome of the game had to be edited out."

And the titles were red for the entire week, then changed to orange for the 2nd wk, followed by the more familiar white ones from the 3rd wk-onward.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")