The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Matt Ottinger on December 08, 2012, 04:40:09 PM
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A discussion at QuizBusters prompted this question. We just finished our season, and the station producers are quite proud of themselves at getting the entire schedule of 63 shows (due to some forfeits, we only ended up taping 61) done in a little over two months. We taped four shows a night every Tuesday, and also on alternate Mondays. And while that's a decent pace, I told them that in the real world, there were producers who worked a LOT faster than that.
I know there are stories of knocking off entire seasons of 26-30 shows for weekly syndicated series over the course of a weekend. But I wondered if anybody know of a condensed taping schedule for a 65-episode (13 week) daily series, which would probably more closely resemble our production schedule for comparison purposes.
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Marc Summers told me once that "Trivia Unwrapped" was 60 eps shot in 8 days. Thats' gotta be a contender.
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Marc Summers told me once that "Trivia Unwrapped" was 60 eps shot in 8 days. Thats' gotta be a contender.
Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to take back to them. Thanks!
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A discussion at QuizBusters prompted this question. We just finished our season, and the station producers are quite proud of themselves at getting the entire schedule of 63 shows (due to some forfeits, we only ended up taping 61)
That would explain why when I went to search for "Quizbusters 2407" or whatever the number was, that it wouldn't come up in Google.
And to answer MattO's question, the '89 version of Jackpot did 130 episodes in 17 straight days, for 7.6 episodes per day.
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I have heard stories that Dick Clark and the Pyramid crew would often bang out 10 episodes in a single day during the early days of the franchise...Man was a MACHINE!
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That's true about Bob Stewart taping 10 Pyramids in a day.
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Regarding Pyramid, how frequent were the tape days? Once a week? Twice? More? Less?
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Regarding Pyramid, how frequent were the tape days? Once a week? Twice? More? Less?
Don't know why three a week stands out in my mind. I'm going off what I remember reading in Jefferson Graham's Come On Down, but that was close to 20 years ago...
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Regarding Pyramid, how frequent were the tape days? Once a week? Twice? More? Less?
When I was in the audience for the Clark versions in 1987, they taped five shows on Thursday and 10 on Friday. The Thursday sessions were for the 25K, and all 10 of Friday's were for the 100K, but Johnny Gilbert said in the warm-up that the first five on Fridays were usually 25K episodes.
Brendan
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Celebrity Bowling knocked out the entire season over a weekend, 9-9-8 I believe.
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Regarding Pyramid, how frequent were the tape days? Once a week? Twice? More? Less?
When I was in the audience for the Clark versions in 1987, they taped five shows on Thursday and 10 on Friday. The Thursday sessions were for the 25K, and all 10 of Friday's were for the 100K, but Johnny Gilbert said in the warm-up that the first five on Fridays were usually 25K episodes.
Brendan
This leads me to wonder whether the $100K shows frequently involved one of the two celebs who had just done the $25K shows. ISTR a similar arrangement for taping MG7x and MGPM.
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Random Question from somebody who really doesn't know that much about production - say you have set up a five-show or (gasp) 10-show production day on a show that straddles, or has returning champs...
If you hit show 4 (or 9) and it's a clean break, a champion retires or you're at the end of a pairing on Pyramid when nobody is coming back, would you stop the taping for the day so that you could start a new session with new contestants, instead of forcing a contestant to come back?
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If you hit show 4 (or 9) and it's a clean break, a champion retires or you're at the end of a pairing on Pyramid when nobody is coming back, would you stop the taping for the day so that you could start a new session with new contestants, instead of forcing a contestant to come back?
Having never worked in such a scenario, I could not answer that with any professional experience.
However, the correct answer is: No way in hell.
Contestants are pretty much your most disposable commodity, and they're eager to do whatever then need to in order to play. Meanwhile, you've scheduled your time and your staff for X shows, and you take a financial bite if you don't get X shows made.
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This leads me to wonder whether the $100K shows frequently involved one of the two celebs who had just done the $25K shows. ISTR a similar arrangement for taping MG7x and MGPM.
Wasn't MGPM a weekly at this time? In that case, they'd tape six shows: one week of daytime, and then the syndie.
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However, the correct answer is: No way in hell.
Contestants are pretty much your most disposable commodity, and they're eager to do whatever then need to in order to play.
This. I'll point out this is an industry that would prefer a Mobster piss themselves than stop tape.
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This. I'll point out this is an industry that would prefer a Mobster piss themselves than stop tape.
I'll take that as a probably "not likely."
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This leads me to wonder whether the $100K shows frequently involved one of the two celebs who had just done the $25K shows. ISTR a similar arrangement for taping MG7x and MGPM.
Wasn't MGPM a weekly at this time? In that case, they'd tape six shows: one week of daytime, and then the syndie.
IIRC, they'd do 3 daytime shows and take lunch. The PM show would be the first show taped back from lunch, then the remaining two daytime shows would be shot.
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Regarding Pyramid, how frequent were the tape days? Once a week? Twice? More? Less?
Don't know why three a week stands out in my mind. I'm going off what I remember reading in Jefferson Graham's Come On Down, but that was close to 20 years ago...
The only reference I can think of to taping three episodes of a 5-a-week per day is when Dennis James substituted for Bob Barker for three days, and when Barker came back, he said that he had missed one day of taping.
This leads me to wonder whether the $100K shows frequently involved one of the two celebs who had just done the $25K shows. ISTR a similar arrangement for taping MG7x and MGPM.
Wasn't MGPM a weekly at this time? In that case, they'd tape six shows: one week of daytime, and then the syndie.
IIRC, they'd do 3 daytime shows and take lunch. The PM show would be the first show taped back from lunch, then the remaining two daytime shows would be shot.
That sounds right - there was an episode that began with Gene commenting that they had just taped a PM episode. (I think the PM episode was this one. (http://\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd9Hz6EEv4E\"))
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Would there have been any shows around Thanksgiving that didn't tape a Thursday/Friday show that week?
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Johnny Olson reported taping the entire 1973 season of "Concentration," 195 shows, in nine weeks, recording seven episodes each day. I believe that was a record for that time. Indeed, years later, Bob Stewart and Dick Clark did 10 on Saturdays and 5 on Sundays; the lighter load on Sundays so that Dick could catch an early afternoon plane. Now that we stop tape for hangnails, we'll likely never see those numbers again... except when our fearless leader Matt is calling the shots!
Randy
tvrandywest.com
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If you hit show 4 (or 9) and it's a clean break, a champion retires or you're at the end of a pairing on Pyramid when nobody is coming back, would you stop the taping for the day so that you could start a new session with new contestants, instead of forcing a contestant to come back?
On our show the celebs were, with rare exceptions, booked to do five shows in a day and they were done. The idea was that they would start on a Monday air date and end on a Friday air date. We would bring with us far more contestants than were actually needed so that we wouldn't run out of contestants. If a returning champion couldn't make the next taping we would explain the situation on the air and introduce a new contestant, no big deal. As expensive as studio facilities were, we knew exactly how many episodes we would tape going in and tape exactly that number. Many of the above-the-line people were on weekly salaries, but not the technicians and stagehands.
IIRC, they'd do 3 daytime shows and take lunch. The PM show would be the first show taped back from lunch, then the remaining two daytime shows would be shot.
My recollection is that the nighttime show was taped last so they only had to change the sign once. After the CBS run when they taped five per day, I remember an instance when Ira changed the audience after the second rather than the originally-planned third show. He said he didn't like the first audience but I'm wondering if he wanted to get Brett et al. to take their liquid lunch early.
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Didn't the mess that was Temptation churn out episodes quickly because they were trying to beat the writer's strike?
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IIRC, they'd do 3 daytime shows and take lunch. The PM show would be the first show taped back from lunch, then the remaining two daytime shows would be shot.
My recollection is that the nighttime show was taped last so they only had to change the sign once. After the CBS run when they taped five per day, I remember an instance when Ira changed the audience after the second rather than the originally-planned third show. He said he didn't like the first audience but I'm wondering if he wanted to get Brett et al. to take their liquid lunch early.
Hate to disagree with one of our esteemed mods, but they would tape the PM episode as the fifth show of the day and the last weekly show would be the sixth taping. There are several examples of evidence of this. One is Gene Rayburn making reference to a PM show that they just taped where Richard Dawson and Betty White do their impersonations of Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly -- he mentions it on the fifth day of a '77 week with the same panel (those four plus Avery Schreiber and Della Reese.) Another is where Gene mentions on a Friday syndie show the incident on a PM show they taped earlier in the day where the winning contestant accidentally removed Eva Gabor's toenail after a big win. Eva's foot is packed in ice for the Friday show.
Brendan
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This leads me to wonder whether the $100K shows frequently involved one of the two celebs who had just done the $25K shows. ISTR a similar arrangement for taping MG7x and MGPM.
Even with Bob Stewart's reputation for frugalness, there is no way you'd ask somebody to play ten straight episodes of "Pyramid." Even the best players would be human soup by the end of show #7.
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The only reference I can think of to taping three episodes of a 5-a-week per day is when Dennis James substituted for Bob Barker for three days, and when Barker came back, he said that he had missed one day of taping.
Dennis actually did four shows -- Tuesday through Friday of 1974's Christmas week. I'm pretty sure four show per day was the norm for TPIR at this time, although I forget how many days a week they taped and how many weeks they taped in a row.
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I suppose you would only want to tape that many episodes once you had the format of the show established. Here in Australia, a game show called Randling taped all of Season 1's 27 episodes before a single one went to air.
It didn't rate too well, but due to all of the episodes already being shot, they couldn't change the format. So there was nothing they could do 'save' the show. Consequently, it won't be returning in 2013.
What's the maximum number of episodes you would want to tape of a new game show in its first season?
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When I visited for two taping days in November 1978, the PM show was taped last on both days.
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The only reference I can think of to taping three episodes of a 5-a-week per day is when Dennis James substituted for Bob Barker for three days, and when Barker came back, he said that he had missed one day of taping.
Dennis actually did four shows -- Tuesday through Friday of 1974's Christmas week. I'm pretty sure four show per day was the norm for TPIR at this time, although I forget how many days a week they taped and how many weeks they taped in a row.
This call sheet from 1974 does confirm 4 shows a day.
http://home.comcast....3/callsheet.jpg (http://\"http://home.comcast.net/~cmjb13/callsheet.jpg\")
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When I visited for two taping days in November 1978, the PM show was taped last on both days.
Interesting. I wonder if they alternated. I'm with you -- it certainly makes the most sense to do the PM as the last show. In addition to the sign issue you mentioned earlier, it would also keep two '7x or daily syndie contestants from lingering in the studio needlessly while the PM contestants play their game.
Brendan