"Two for the Money" on B&W O. - Thanksgiving Week

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Nov 9 2005, 10:15 AM\']The GSN press release on Two for the Money is out. I've seen a few episodes of the show and wasn't impressed. An obvious You Bet Your Life knockoff, and pretty forgettable. Herb Shriner's aw-shucks act gets old fast for me. But the show lasted five years, so somebody must have liked it.[/quote]
Well, being a knockoff of You Bet Your Life really shouldn't be considered a "knock" against it. Using a flimsy game as an excuse to showcase a comic's talents was a tried-and-true subgenre of the day.  And of that lot, 2ftM probably had a better game than most.  But sure, the popularity of those shows didn't ride on the game, it rode on the appeal of the host.  

The fact that Tom Brokaw says 2ftM was rigged (as a teen, he was a contestant) is the most interesting part of its history to me, since it was a G-T show and they managed to avoid getting into any trouble during the scandals.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Nov 9 2005, 08:35 AM\']The release is unclear whether any Sam Levenson eps will be shown.  It does say "never-before repeated" which I'm presuming means never before on GSN.  They have shown episodes up to at least the summer of 54, so these would have to be later, if the press release is totally accurate.

NITPICK: The release also says the show features three contestants answering questions in three rounds.  Wouldn't that make it "Three for the Money"?

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Three couples.  The couples are what made it "Two For the Money."  But it's been obvious before that Cindy Ronzoni doesn't watch what she writes about.

And yeah, it's a homespun "You Bet Your Life," but the game is stronger than it has to be and wasn't just a straight quiz.  I'm surprised that G-T didn't try to come to back to it to make it a more straightforward game (or maybe they did, since the structure of the "Password '75" Lightning Round has similarities to "TFTM"'s game structure).