The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: aaron sica on August 26, 2004, 12:23:40 PM
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As most of us know, MG'90 was originally supposed to be hosted by Bert Convy.
Had Bert lived, and gotten to host the show, do you think it would have been on longer? And before you say "No, the noon time slot is what killed the show", stop and think about this for a second.
Ross Shafer was little-known at this point by most people, except for his stints on "Love me, Love me Not" and the FOX Late Show.
If Bert Convy actually HAD hosted the show, do you think some of the ABC stations that aired noon news might have made an effort to try to air the show in another timeslot? Or passed it off to some independent to air (I know of one market where that DID happen..Channel 27 in Boston)?
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It's always better to have an experienced host at the helm. Bert was a very well liked host and a known quantity and his cachet may have attracted folks to MG90 who wouldn't normally do TV games. I also think Bert would have had the pull to have been able to get creative changes made to the show, unlike a fledgling host. Whether stations would have made room for it in the Eastern time zone, probably not. SP ran for four years at noon and my NBC affil never showed one day of it. I think MG would have gotten full carriage in the other time zones, however, with Bert as host.
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I'd have to agree, too, even though in my opinion Ross Shafer tried his hardest, but just wasn't Gene. Heck, if Bert were alive today, he'd have been a better host of TNN's (now Spike TV) game show "Taboo" than Chris Wylde (I thought he had a Patrick Wayne-esque personality myself).
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 11:35 AM\'] It's always better to have an experienced host at the helm. Bert was a very well liked host and a known quantity and his cachet may have attracted folks to MG90 who wouldn't normally do TV games. [/quote]
His cachet didn't exactly get Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner on Super Password, did it?
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I'm thinking people like Bob Newhart, Burt Reynolds, etc.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 11:23 AM\']
Had Bert lived, and gotten to host the show, do you think it would have been on longer? And before you say "No, the noon time slot is what killed the show", stop and think about this for a second.
[/quote]
A great question....
First, it wasn't the noon timeslot that killed the show, though it certainly didn't help. MG90 aired at a time when local affils were pouring lots of added newscasts down viewers throats... ABC at the time probably didn't have a high clearance rate for the show, which likely helped lead to it's cancellation...
But wait, you say.....didn't Shafer announce on the last show that another network had picked it up? Yep....they were in discussions with NBC for the 11am slot...discussions that for some reason or another (can one of the vets fill this in?) fell through, leading NBC to pick up reruns of "Full House"...an ABC sitcom no less!
Could MG91 have survived on NBC ? Sure...at least until NBC went to just talk shows and soaps...a year or two later...cancellng the last of their gameshows in favor of "John and Leeza" and "Sunset Beach" in 1993....
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Early 90s Match Game was replaced by an extra half hour of the Home show. Question for you. How many stations that didn't run the 90-91 Match Game carried that third half hour of Home come the third Monday in July 1991? Any at all? This I wonder.
Bert might have been helpful in getting the program on NBC (replacing To Tell The Truth, I believe) after ABC canned it had he helmed the skein [today's bow to Variety-speak]. Unfortunately, he was taken from us too soon.
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[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 04:16 PM\'] But wait, you say.....didn't Shafer announce on the last show that another network had picked it up? Yep....they were in discussions with NBC for the 11am slot...discussions that for some reason or another (can one of the vets fill this in?) fell through, leading NBC to pick up reruns of "Full House"...an ABC sitcom no less!
Could MG91 have survived on NBC ? Sure...at least until NBC went to just talk shows and soaps...a year or two later...cancellng the last of their gameshows in favor of "John and Leeza" and "Sunset Beach" in 1993.... [/quote]
I'm sitting here with jaw dropped to floor, Matt.
Wow. It was early June, 1991 when NBC got FH reruns (I still remember seeing the blurb about "Full House" reruns moving to the timeslot in TVG, and wondering HOW?). It still makes me wonder to this day, how or why NBC would agree to fill the timeslot with reruns from another network..
Of course, it would be a moot point, as I would have been out of luck with NBC, too. KYW-3 from Philly and WBRE-28 from Scranton did not air the 11am NBC offering, all through summer either.
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 04:22 PM\'] Early 90s Match Game was replaced by an extra half hour of the Home show. Question for you. How many stations that didn't run the 90-91 Match Game carried that third half hour of Home come the third Monday in July 1991? Any at all? This I wonder.
[/quote]
WHTM-27 from Harrisburg comes AWFULLY close (but no cigar). They aired MG from premiere date in 1990 up until whatever day "Trump Card" premiered. When TC tanked, reruns of "People's Court" filled the slot until mid-June 1991, when MG came back to 27. When MG was cancelled and "Home" expanded to 90 minutes, they carried the entire 90-minute program until the noon slot was given back to affiliates and "Home" was scaled back to 60 minutes again.
I can't imagine too terribly many stations carrying the last half hour of "Home" that didn't carry MG, as I would imagine almost all of them had noon news. But it is an interesting point to bring up.
As Matt alluded to NBC possibly picking it up, I think I read somewhere (maybe even here!), that ABC was considering shrinking back "Home" to 30 minutes to make room for MG, either before or during the show's run, I cannot remember.
And in yet *another* "What if".....
"Home" premiered in 1988. It actually *did* air for one complete hour, just for a week, in either September 1988 or early 1989 (paging Zach....). When it expanded to an hour PERMANENTLY in 1989, "Growing Pains" reruns, which aired at 11am, moved to noon to make room for the hour long "Home". This is also when "Ryan's Hope" was cancelled (the previous noon occupant).
So what if........Growing Pains had never moved to noon, Perfect Strangers replaced it at 11, and then "MG" premiered at 11am (EST) in June 1990? Would it have lasted longer THEN?
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 04:36 PM\']So what if........Growing Pains had never moved to noon, Perfect Strangers replaced it at 11, and then "MG" premiered at 11am (EST) in June 1990? Would it have lasted longer THEN?[/quote]
I think not -- in fact, I think it probably would've had an even shorter run in that case; it would've been airing opposite the first half-hour of TPiR if it had premiered in that time slot.
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[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 03:16 PM\'] Could MG91 have survived on NBC ? Sure...at least until NBC went to just talk shows and soaps...a year or two later...cancellng the last of their gameshows in favor of "John and Leeza" and "Sunset Beach" in 1993.... [/quote]
Point well taken, but just to nitpick a little--SUNSET BEACH didn't air on NBC for another couple of years. It was Jane Whitney's gabfest that took the CLASSIC CONCENTRATION and CAESAR'S CHALLENGE slot (or, more technically, CAESAR'S hour for the first two weeks of 1994).
Doug
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[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 05:11 PM\'] Point well taken, but just to nitpick a little--SUNSET BEACH didn't air on NBC for another couple of years. It was Jane Whitney's gabfest that took the CLASSIC CONCENTRATION and CAESAR'S CHALLENGE slot (or, more technically, CAESAR'S hour for the first two weeks of 1994).
Doug [/quote]
SB (Sunset Beach, *NOT* Steve Beverly ;) ) premiered on NBC in January 1997, IIRC.
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I think maybe the show might have lasted a bit longer with Bert. He probably could have gotten the producers to change the format, seeing as he was so well known and likely would have swing in that area of the show. The format is part of the reason the game didn't last I think. Timeslot stuff aside, with each game being self contained, and with how much gameplay they had to fit in to that half hour, Ross really had to keep things moving to get everything in, so a lot of the comedy was lost IMO. This was also probably the reason Charles and Brett were treated as any other star was, instead of "Match Game's Own".
I think if MG 90 would not have had the self contained format, Ross' comedy could have really shone through better then it did. It would have also allowed the stars to get a bit more chemistry like the 70's stars did.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 03:27 PM\']
Wow. It was early June, 1991 when NBC got FH reruns (I still remember seeing the blurb about "Full House" reruns moving to the timeslot in TVG, and wondering HOW?). It still makes me wonder to this day, how or why NBC would agree to fill the timeslot with reruns from another network.. [/quote]
An odd situation, but not without prececedent. NBC stripped reruns of "Make Room for Daddy" while it was on CBS primetime, and CBS aired "Jack Benny" weekday afternoons the season it was on NBC in primetime, and the CBS Late Movie aired other networks shows frequently as well. I remember Johnny Carson griping to Fred Dryer that he couldn't fathom why NBC would let CBS show "Hunter" reruns opposite the "Tonight Show."
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[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 04:11 PM\']
Point well taken, but just to nitpick a little--SUNSET BEACH didn't air on NBC for another couple of years. It was Jane Whitney's gabfest that took the CLASSIC CONCENTRATION and CAESAR'S CHALLENGE slot (or, more technically, CAESAR'S hour for the first two weeks of 1994).
[/quote]
Nitpick taken and accepted...my brain was a little fuzzy about what came and went on NBC daytime in the early 90s...didn't Faith Daniels have a show too?
ms
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[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 07:33 PM\'] Nitpick taken and accepted...my brain was a little fuzzy about what came and went on NBC daytime in the early 90s...didn't Faith Daniels have a show too? [/quote]
She did... a talk show called "A Closer Look" that soon added a studio audience and later changed its name to, simply, "Faith Daniels." One of my favorite shows back then -- I still have the signed photo she sent me.
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[quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 07:40 PM\'] She did... a talk show called "A Closer Look" that soon added a studio audience and later changed its name to, simply, "Faith Daniels." One of my favorite shows back then -- I still have the signed photo she sent me. [/quote]
Yet another person to have a talkie during NBC in the early '90s was "Night Court's Own" Marsha Warfield.
ObGameShow: Marsha Warfield acted with Markie Post, who worked on CS.
;)
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[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 06:33 PM\']
Nitpick taken and accepted...my brain was a little fuzzy about what came and went on NBC daytime in the early 90s...didn't Faith Daniels have a show too?
ms [/quote]
It ran for two years, from the end of Generations in January 1991 to the bowing of Family Secrets in March 1993.
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If ABC had premiered MG at 11am EST, it would have been up directly with TPiR. Given the choice between Match Game and TPiR, I would have picked TPiR to watch.
EDITED: to fix MG typo
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You mean premiere Match Game at 11.
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To reiterate old points here - Bert hosted the pilot of course, which had three rounds, points for matches (2 in the final round) and no "Match Up." Audience testing revealed they thought it went too slow and they liked Audience Match. So that change prolly would have carried through regardless of Bert.
Now, personally, I don't see Bert any better or worse than Ross (Bert wasn't as naturally funny, but could've interacted with people better), but his notoriety might've kept a few extra viewers on. MIGHT have lasted longer - that's the best I can do.
-Jason
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Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who the celebs were on the pilot?
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Brad Garrett, Marsha Warfield, Charles Nelson Reilly, Khrystine Haje, Jerry Van Dyke, and Teri Copley.
-Jason
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Who is Khrystine Haje?
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[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 09:39 AM\'] Who is Khrystine Haje? [/quote]
Redheaded actress; Co-Star of Head of the Class(on ABC at the time) who also did a couple weeks of MG90 and TTTT90.
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[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 10:39 AM\'] Who is Khrystine Haje? [/quote]
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0354467/ (http://\"http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0354467/\")
She played one of the students on Head of the Class. (Edit: Never mind. El Zacho beat me to it.)
I feel old after describing a show, one less than 20 years old, which I remember from my childhood to a youngin'. Can someone whip up a prune smoothie for me stat? :-P
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[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 09:39 AM\']Who is Khrystine Haje?[/quote]
God, am I getting old--not that she wasn't a big star or anything (if she was, would she be doing "MG?"), but that does make you feel old.
I IMDBd her the other day and it seems that she's done a few things since "Head of the Class," including three different roles on the "Law and Order" shows, but I would assume that she's primarily doing the wife-and-mother thing these days.
And I don't really think it would've made any difference whether Bert had stayed alive to host--the noon time slot had become a low clearance slot and there simply weren't enough stations to make it worthwhile.
Also, I'm more convinced that Shafer's "we're coming back" statement on the final show was more wishful thinking from MGP than actual fact (unless they thought that LBS would go ahead and make "MG" a stablemate with "Feud" in syndication).
ObGameShow from another post: The Marsha Warfield talk show was produced by our old buddy Richard Kline "And Friends."
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[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 10:51 AM\'] [quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 09:39 AM\']Who is Khrystine Haje?[/quote]
God, am I getting old--not that she wasn't a big star or anything (if she was, would she be doing "MG?"), but that does make you feel old. [/quote]
Wanna split a prune smoothie, Mark? :-)
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Krystyne Haje had the most beautiful red head of hair I think I've ever seen...I believe she was also on an episode or two of Animal Crack-Ups?
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I think Adam's just toying with us, otherwise he would have asked "Who's Teri Copley?"
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[quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 09:52 AM\'][quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 10:51 AM\'] [quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 09:39 AM\']Who is Khrystine Haje?[/quote]
God, am I getting old--not that she wasn't a big star or anything (if she was, would she be doing "MG?"), but that does make you feel old. [/quote]
Wanna split a prune smoothie, Mark? :-)[/quote]
I would have a response to that--but I don't think the rest of the people here need to hear about my regularity. :)
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 26 2004, 05:19 PM\'] SB (Sunset Beach, *NOT* Steve Beverly ;) ) premiered on NBC in January 1997, IIRC. [/quote]
Steve Beverly had a talk show on NBC?! I'm not surprised; it seems everyone else had a daytime talker on Peacocknet. (FYI, Jane Pauley's upcoming show is not a NBC show per se; it is syndicated by NBC Universal.)
Looks like I just won a ticket to tonight's Rappin' Dragon concert.
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[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 11:15 AM\']
Steve Beverly had a talk show on NBC?! I'm not surprised; it seems everyone else had a daytime talker on Peacocknet. (FYI, Jane Pauley's upcoming show is not a NBC show per se; it is syndicated by NBC Universal.)
[/quote]
Yes, Steve Beverly had a talk show on NBC - it was called "Me, Myself and I". :)
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 10:56 AM\'] I think Adam's just toying with us, otherwise he would have asked "Who's Teri Copley?" [/quote]
I actually don't think Adam's toying with us - I think her name intrigued him enough to ask who it was. :)
Adam would have probably been too young to remember "Head of the Class"...
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 11:16 AM\'] Yes, Steve Beverly had a talk show on NBC - it was called "Me, Myself and I". :) [/quote]
Really? Wow. I would have expected "Me, Myself, and Steve Beverly."
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[quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:27 PM\'] Really? Wow. I would have expected "Me, Myself, and Steve Beverly." [/quote]
He pushed for that title, but NBC rejected it. :)
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 11:32 AM\'] [quote name=\'Steve Gavazzi\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:27 PM\'] Really? Wow. I would have expected "Me, Myself, and Steve Beverly." [/quote]
He pushed for that title, but NBC rejected it. :) [/quote]
Instead they went for The Stosh Show, which is ironic since this title does not include his last name.
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:38 PM\'] Instead they went for The Stosh Show, which is ironic since this title does not include his last name. [/quote]
Guests on his show were denied if they did not give a last name - so people like Jackee were OUT.
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getting back to MG 90, and going back to what I said about the self contained format, if they had let straddling be done like the 70's run, do you think MG 90 would have been more successful?
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I really don't think the format would have made a difference in the ratings. Non-straddling worked pretty well for MGPM, after all.
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[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:08 PM\'] getting back to MG 90, and going back to what I said about the self contained format, if they had let straddling be done like the 70's run, do you think MG 90 would have been more successful? [/quote]
I think it would have been. There really was no reason not to straddle. The shows were always in sequence on ABC, the audience was used to it, shows would have flowed better, no need to watch the clock, wouldn't have needed the awful match-up (hint: always pick the first answer and the star should quickly figure out what you're doing.)
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Wow. It was early June, 1991 when NBC got FH reruns (I still remember seeing the blurb about "Full House" reruns moving to the timeslot in TVG, and wondering HOW?). It still makes me wonder to this day, how or why NBC would agree to fill the timeslot with reruns from another network..
It didn't make sense to me either - I remember seeing that in TVGuide and thought it was the local stations that picked up reruns early! With most shows though, the network doesn't own them. The producers are free to shop reruns around to any network willing to pick them up. Most of the time they ended up on the network that aired the primetime shows - but not always. Also, by then, game shows were starting to fall out of favor with daytime TV, so it wasn't likely that we'd get another game show at that point.
Also, I'm more convinced that Shafer's "we're coming back" statement on the final show was more wishful thinking from MGP than actual fact (unless they thought that LBS would go ahead and make "MG" a stablemate with "Feud" in syndication).
A similar thing happened on "The Better Sex" finale in 1977 - at that time they thought they were being put on hiatus until ABC figured out what they were doing with their soaps. Unfortunatly, the hiatus never ended.
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[quote name=\'rigsby\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:10 PM\'] I really don't think the format would have made a difference in the ratings. Non-straddling worked pretty well for MGPM, after all. [/quote]
That may be true, but have to remember something. Even with more gameplay needed to fill a half hour with one game, they still had more time to joke around, seeing as that was the 70's, and there was less commercial time needed then.
Compare that to the 1990's when more commercial time was needed, for a show such as Match Game, which should be more about the comedic aspect then the game itself, a self contained format just isn't gonna work.
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[quote name=\'adamjk\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:25 PM\'] That may be true, but have to remember something. Even with more gameplay needed to fill a half hour with one game, they still had more time to joke around, seeing as that was the 70's, and there was less commercial time needed then. [/quote]
Even so, the problem with MGPM was that so much editing had to be done on many episodes in order to get a half hour show with three question rounds and two audience matches (leaving less time for the joking around, as I'm sure quite a few bits made the cutting room floor--moreso for time rather than content).
The first season I thought suffered from the opposite problem--with only two question rounds the proceedings had to move a bit slower to fill out the half hour. It's probably one reason why they added the third round to begin with.
To summarize, I thought the daytime version played it exactly right (granted, they had the luxury of straddling).
Doug
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:03 PM\']
Guests on his show were denied if they did not give a last name - so people like Jackee were OUT. [/quote]
For the first two years of 227(1985-87), Jackee was billed as Jackee Harry(as she was on her $100K Pyramid and other mid 80s game show gigs), so she might have passed muster then :)
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[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Aug 27 2004, 12:43 PM\']
Even so, the problem with MGPM was that so much editing had to be done on many episodes in order to get a half hour show with three question rounds and two audience matches (leaving less time for the joking around, as I'm sure quite a few bits made the cutting room floor--moreso for time rather than content).
[/quote]
The Daily Syndie MG suffered from this problem, particularly on the Thursday and Friday episodes. While that run of MG straddled, there was no straddling from Friday into Monday(six maingames/tiebreakers and Super Matches were played a week, two each by each pair of contestants). This led to a great deal of non-gameplay editing on the Thursday and Friday episodes, and the usual MG tiebreaker being replaced with the MGPM quickie tiebreaker.
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The first season I thought suffered from the opposite problem--with only two question rounds the proceedings had to move a bit slower to fill out the half hour. It's probably one reason why they added the third round to begin with.
I wonder why they decided to do only two questions in the first season. When you look at the daytime episodes that were airing at the time, you could always fit at least six questions comfortably into the half hour. There was always one additional minute of commercials in daytime as well.
Oddly enough, I believe it was on the very first episode where they had a tie and had to play six questions anyway!