The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: ActualRetailMike on July 12, 2016, 11:03:28 PM
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Besides the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour and the long-running TPiR, how many game shows are/were an hour long?
Also, when TPiR first debuted the 60-minute format, was it being called the "Price is Right Hour" or something similar? (I do know that at the beginning of the opening credits, they made a point of flashing the words "Hour Power" in that screen frame with the blinking lights.) There was a tendency to put the word "Hour" in a 60-min-long show title, as though that was some sort of aberration. Exceptions were made for show formats that are expected to be an hour long, such as dramas, crime dramas, or some variety shows. Ironically, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour was renamed The BB/RR Show, when they extended it from 60 to 90 minutes.
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Family Feud Challenge. IIRC, Family Challenge was an excruciating hour. Current LMAD is an hour show as well.
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Family Feud Challenge. IIRC, Family Challenge was an excruciating hour.
Since you brought it up, I don't know that Family Challenge would have been better as a half-hour, just shorter. I suppose if you want to do Family Double Dare but don't want to pay for the rights to do it, that's your out-draw, but jeez.
Millionaire ushered in the hour-long game show as a thing--many game shows since 1999 have been 60 minutes instead of 30.
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Wheel experimented with an hour-long format not long after TPiR expanded. It only lasted a couple of months at most. I heard LMAD did the same thing around the same time, but not sure if that was ever verified.
With the exception of ABC's Sunday night block, most of the primetime games since Millionaire have been an hour long. The ones that premiered post-Deal or No Deal were a chore to sit through.
IIRC, Paranoia from 2000 was also an hour.
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Also, when TPiR first debuted the 60-minute format, was it being called the "Price is Right Hour" or something similar? (I do know that at the beginning of the opening credits, they made a point of flashing the words "Hour Power" in that screen frame with the blinking lights.)
They never referred to it as the "Price is Right Hour", but they alluded to it being an hour in the opening spiel ("...the fabulous 60 minute Price is Right!") and the mid-show outro to the commercial ("Stay tuned for more pricing games and the fabulous showcases which are coming up on the second half of 'The Price is Right'!").
/I miss the mid-show outro with the audience shot and the logo
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Wheel experimented with an hour-long format not long after TPiR expanded. It only lasted a couple of months at most. I heard LMAD did the same thing around the same time, but not sure if that was ever verified.
I remember seeing LMAD as an hour show with Monty on ABC. IIRC, even Hollywood Squares was expanded to an hour briefly on NBC's daytime schedule.
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LMAD and Hollywood Squares each experimented with an hourlong format for a week in 1975. LMAD was week of December 1 and Hollywood Squares was week of November 3, the same day TPIR went to an hour full time.
Wheel also experimented with the hourlong format the week of November 3 and would go to 60 minutes full time on December 1. It reverted to half an hour on January 19, 1976. It seems (unsurprisingly) the networks were all trying to steal each other's thunder.
Family Feud was also an hour during Richard Dawson's 1994-95 season in some markets.
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Millionaire ushered in the hour-long game show as a thing--many game shows since 1999 have been 60 minutes instead of 30.
From what I understand after working in TV ad sales for awhile is that the hourlong formats are convenient, because that's how the ads are sold in prime, by the hour. An advertiser can buy the Sun 9-10pm hour and know they'll air during $100K Pyramid at some point, and get the ratings points for the demos who are watching that show. This is how local advertising works, I have no experience with national advertisers but I'm sure they are more choosy.
Even the half-hour sitcoms are (mostly) sold as such; buying the 8-9pm hour where two sitcoms air, you know you'll air in one of those shows. When the networks air two sitcoms in the same hour, most of the time, it's a very similar or same target audience.
I would have thought it would be interesting to stagger the shows and run Pyramid/MG/Pyramid/MG, but Sales would give a pushback on that because the demos are different within the hour, plus it breaks up the flow of the shows, and who knows what else.
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The primetime runs of "The Big Payoff", which aired on NBC in the summers of 1952 and 1953, also ran for an hour (8 to 9 p.m., per Brooks and Marsh).
I wonder whose idea it was to expand TPIR. Were CBS and/or G-T taking stock of the soap opera expansions in '75 and looking into whether games could be expanded as well, or was the idea developed independently?
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The primetime runs of "The Big Payoff", which aired on NBC in the summers of 1952 and 1953, also ran for an hour (8 to 9 p.m., per Brooks and Marsh).
I wonder whose idea it was to expand TPIR. Were CBS and/or G-T taking stock of the soap opera expansions in '75 and looking into whether games could be expanded as well, or was the idea developed independently?
TPIR ran for an hour during a test week from September 1 through September 5, 1975 (between the exit of Spin-Off and the debut of Give-n-Take). That gave G-T some time to work out what few bugs there were in the system. I don't know how long before the idea of an hour-long show had been under consideration, but they did a good job in making the full hour worth watching - it might have been just as easy to say, "Okay, we'll have seven people play pricing games, and the top two will still be in the Showcase." I think someone said here that Monty Hall was reluctant to expand LMaD to an hour because there was no logical way to make the full hour more interesting than the half-hour was - would you just split the show in two and pick out a Big Dealer from each group?
I don't think the Wheel of Fortune expansion was bad - two three-round games; one head-to-head game for the two winners; day's champion plays a bonus round similar to the one we all know and love - but I'm sure it was more rushed (November 3 for the test run, December 1 for full time) - and the first half-hour of the hour-long Wheel ran against the last half-hour of TPIR.
As for whether hour-long soaps inspired hour-long game shows, I've never seen anything in print saying that. But you've got to think it's easier to have one production crew responsible for five hours of programming a week instead of two and a half. I doubt the fees CBS paid G-T to produce the show doubled (and I'm pretty sure the salaries for the show's staffers didn't double, either).
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Peter Marshall liked doing Hollywood Squares for a hour, would have that worked, with the self-contained format they used for nighttime transitioning into daytime possibly?
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I don't think the Wheel of Fortune expansion was bad - two three-round games; one head-to-head game for the two winners; day's champion plays a bonus round similar to the one we all know and love.
Did the two winners' game have more dough on the Wheel? Otherwise, it's a game that doesn't ramp up, you just play until time runs out. There's not much suspense about who'll end up with the most money, even with a semi-finals and finals. Hollywood Squares had the same problem. All they could do was play more of it. There was no build.
Millionaire worked because there was a build. Then when it started over, there was Fastest Finger to change the pace.
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The winner of the championship got to play for a bonus prize. Isn't that enough tension for you?
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Theoretically--I realize it won't happen--would a one-game show like J!, The Challengers or Sale of the Century work if the game went for an hour? The first two could add extra Final Jeopardy-ish deals along the way, maybe an end-game. $OTC had extras like Fame Game to vary the rhythm, and the bargains kept the game close.
Despite its troubles, I loved Mike Reilly's Monopoly. Maybe it could have worked as an hour. It needed more time for the dice rolling part, and maybe there'd be openings for deals between the players.
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The winner of the championship got to play for a bonus prize. Isn't that enough tension for you?
It evidently wasn't enough to draw an audience.
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Despite its troubles, I loved Mike Reilly's Monopoly. Maybe it could have worked as an hour. It needed more time for the dice rolling part, and maybe there'd be openings for deals between the players.
To what end though? And what would they be trading? All they have are developed monopolies and cash on hand.
If there was a way to expand the original daily rules pilot into forty-five minutes (perhaps have a movie of the week at 8:45) then I think it would get very close to awesome.
The reason TPIR works as an hour is there's lots of things going on in digestible chunks, and it all builds to a purpose. Gladiators has five or six events and then the finale. Millionaire has two or three contestants. Weakest Link did the same thing over and over but built toward a climax. You can't just transplant a half hour game show into an hour slot and presto! it's a winner because in lots of cases it will become tedious. I can't imagine "Let's fire up the board for Quadruple Jeopardy!" being a thing.
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I don't think the Wheel of Fortune expansion was bad - two three-round games; one head-to-head game for the two winners; day's champion plays a bonus round similar to the one we all know and love.
Did the two winners' game have more dough on the Wheel?
Yes, and it was played for cash. (http://wheelgenius.deviantart.com/art/Head-to-head-Wheel-1975-304261389)
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If those colors are correct: whoof, that is bowling shoe ugly and slapdash in design. Also interesting that there's an extra prize on the wheel.
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Family Feud Challenge. IIRC, Family Challenge was an excruciating hour.
Since you brought it up, I don't know that Family Challenge would have been better as a half-hour, just shorter.
It actually was only a half-hour in some cities, including Chicago. I'd say your supposition is correct.
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Family Feud Challenge. IIRC, Family Challenge was an excruciating hour.
Since you brought it up, I don't know that Family Challenge would have been better as a half-hour, just shorter.
It actually was only a half-hour in some cities, including Chicago. I'd say your supposition is correct.
Just to be clear, Family Feud Challenge ≠ Family Challenge.
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When Family Feud Challenge became "The New Family Feud", was it also in an hourlong bracket? I didn't watch the show as much when Bullseye was added. Also, WHY was it changed to "The New Family Feud?" As far as I can tell, the show was really no different, unless the "challenge" title wasn't bringing in more viewers, so they decided to call it "new" to attract those that didn't see the Bullseye format.
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If those colors are correct: whoof, that is bowling shoe ugly and slapdash in design.
Welcome to the 1970's. That was the Wheel's color scheme for the first 11 years, until they added the brighter colors in 1986.
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When Family Feud Challenge became "The New Family Feud", was it also in an hourlong bracket? I didn't watch the show as much when Bullseye was added. Also, WHY was it changed to "The New Family Feud?" As far as I can tell, the show was really no different, unless the "challenge" title wasn't bringing in more viewers, so they decided to call it "new" to attract those that didn't see the Bullseye format.
Family Feud Challenge was what they renamed the daytime show. The New Family Feud was what they renamed the nighttime show. Both happened close to the same time and coincided with the addition of the bullseye round (daytime in summer 1992, nighttime in fall 1992.) The nighttime show was only a half hour the entire time Ray Combs hosted it.
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When Family Feud Challenge became "The New Family Feud", was it also in an hourlong bracket? I didn't watch the show as much when Bullseye was added. Also, WHY was it changed to "The New Family Feud?" As far as I can tell, the show was really no different, unless the "challenge" title wasn't bringing in more viewers, so they decided to call it "new" to attract those that didn't see the Bullseye format.
....except for the game play mechanic in the daytime series where two families were challenging each other to face the defending champions in the second half hour. Hence why the syndie series didn't go with that name.
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The reason TPIR works as an hour is there's lots of things going on in digestible chunks, and it all builds to a purpose. Gladiators has five or six events and then the finale. Millionaire has two or three contestants. Weakest Link did the same thing over and over but built toward a climax. You can't just transplant a half hour game show into an hour slot and presto! it's a winner because in lots of cases it will become tedious. I can't imagine "Let's fire up the board for Quadruple Jeopardy!" being a thing.
I feel like the key is variety and pacing. TPIR, the current run of LMAD, and Gladiators have a ton of variety. Match Game '16 and the new TTTT give enough time to the comedy that it doesn't start to feel repetitive. An hour of Wheel of Fortune gets a little bit tedious. An hour of Jeopardy would be exhausting.
Of the current crop of of shows, I find The $100,000 Pyramid to be the strongest overall, but also the one where I notice the extra length the most. By the time the 24th front game category of the day comes up, I'm ready for them to just get to the final Winners Circle already.
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Just to be clear, Family Feud Challenge ≠ Family Challenge.
Someone should come up with another completely unrelated hour-long game show called "Feud Challenge" to completely mess with my brain.
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There's a difference though with the current Sunday block which really is just two half hour games in a row that happen to be packaged as an hour. It's basically like watching a double run of Feud or CNG. Compared with Weakest Link or TPIR where the entire hour is a self-contained format that couldn't be split into two parts.
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TPIR is just two half hours. That is how Nielsen rates them. Just drop the wheel and play two showcases in an hour and it would be just like 1972. (One showcase every half-hour with the top two winners)
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There's a difference though with the current Sunday block which really is just two half hour games in a row that happen to be packaged as an hour. It's basically like watching a double run of Feud or CNG. Compared with Weakest Link or TPIR where the entire hour is a self-contained format that couldn't be split into two parts.
Who's to say you couldn't have a separated Link? Two matches and if you wanted, you could have the winners square off for the combined total of their winnings in one final showdown at the end of the hour.
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Of the current crop of of shows, I find The $100,000 Pyramid to be the strongest overall, but also the one where I notice the extra length the most. By the time the 24th front game category of the day comes up, I'm ready for them to just get to the final Winners Circle already.
I have a solution for that: watch it a half-hour at a time.
I'm not bored with the game by any stretch, I just don't have the whole hour to spend. Unanticipated side benefit: Two halves of Pyramid, two halves of Match, and maybe a Food Network Star and I'm good until the new episodes come out the following Sunday/Monday.
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Hollywood Squares had the same problem. All they could do was play more of it. There was no build.
Paley Center has one of those hour-long episodes (in what seems to be a dub with crude editing)- their approach to maintain interest involved the rotation of celebrities in and out of the squares during the hour. This approach was something that almost certainly would have been cost-prohibitive to do regularly, helping to ensure that this was a one-week experiment.
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...What would they be trading? All they have are developed monopolies and cash on hand.
If there was a way to expand the original daily rules pilot into forty-five minutes (perhaps have a movie of the week at 8:45) then I think it would get very close to awesome.
To allow for trading, they'd have to skip turning every group into a monopoly in the opening round. Is the daily-rules pilot Peter Tomarken's pilot?
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I don't think the Wheel of Fortune expansion was bad - two three-round games; one head-to-head game for the two winners; day's champion plays a bonus round similar to the one we all know and love - but I'm sure it was more rushed (November 3 for the test run, December 1 for full time) - and the first half-hour of the hour-long Wheel ran against the last half-hour of TPIR.
One problem may have been, in order to fit the last game (and the bonus round) in, the first two games almost always were interrupted with the "ship's bell" during their third puzzles (which, IIRC, was the first time $1500 appeared on the wheel).
Also, was the bonus round for the winner automatic, or didn't the player have to land on a "Bonus disc" on the wheel (and note that I am not confusing this with the Star Bonus from a few years later - this looked like one of the old Free Spin discs, but said "BONUS" on it, and if somebody landed on it but later landed on Bankrupt, Chuck would put it back on the wheel, usually with a bang of his fist) first? Is it possible that the November version was different from the December/January one (which is the only one I saw)?