Earliest Game Show Memory...

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'148685\' date=\'Mar 20 2007, 08:14 AM\']
Earliest memories....The big numbers on High Rollers, the pinball from Marble Machine, Jack Narz' Concentration, and Dealer's Choice. I was 2 at the time....I later told Trebek in an interview with him that I had learned to count thanks to those big numbers!

Speaking of Dealer's Choice, does anyone here remember an audience game they played to pick the three contestants? Vague, 30+ year memories of this had audience members selecting boxes off of the same board they showed the prizes (the 3 x 3 grid).... I believe, and again, i'm going on hazy memories of a baby here, that a player had to pick a box that avoided a, now i'm serious here, pumpkin? to advance on stage.

Or I may have just been loopy from the breastmilk. Confirm or Deny old timers please?
[/quote]

All I remember was the contestants' names displayed on the "Prize Slot Machine."  Beforehand, Hastings or Clark would do the "pick" out of the audience (those he had already been told to pick).  Later, Jane Nelson introed the contestants.

As for the main part of the thread, my first memory is Groucho's duck-billed wheel, then "WML?"/"IGAS"/"TTTT" and "Password"--and the shows my mother didn't like, like "Concentration" and "Face the Facts."

[Jay Temple]

Sometime between 1968-69, I remember seeing Jeopardy! (and my mom telling me it would be too difficult for me), WhoWhatWhere and Peggy Cass on TTTT. I don't have a specific memory of seeing Concentration then, but I remember being taught the card game and wanting to know about the Wild Cards.

The first home game I can remember playing was The $10,000 Pyramid. We played Password once in the 4th grade, which is around the time I saw the Concentration home game.

[ChrisLambert!]

One of my earliest clear memories was wondering why Mom got so mad when she caught me watching "The Newlywed Game".

I just liked watching the people hit each other with those big cards...

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'ChrisLambert!\' post=\'148741\' date=\'Mar 20 2007, 11:45 PM\']
One of my earliest clear memories was wondering why Mom got so mad when she caught me watching "The Newlywed Game".

I just liked watching the people hit each other with those big cards...
[/quote]

When I was a child, I, too, was not allowed to watch TNG.

[PasswordPluster]

It's more like memorieS in my case.  

For me, the very first was on WABC and Tom Kennedy hosting the 100,000 Name That Tune that afternoon and getting hooked along with remembering the shapes and set of Bert Convy and Tattletales. From that came going to Channel 4 and Jim Perry with Card Sharks and being taken by the quick and reactive way he hosted. From then on, the majority consisted of WOR Channel 9's lineup of The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough with a little Camouflage in between on WCBS Channel 2, a short run but even during one night when that was on switching over for Channel 4's Whodunit hosted by Ed McMahon (how I wish to find episodes of this show someday to really bring me back).

[petek66]

Around 1973 I saw the original Sale of the Century tape in New York City. All I can remember is a split
level stage with stairs leading to a bargain basement. My other earliest memory would be watching
To Tell The Truth (Moore) in my room while I was supposed to be taking a nap.

My parents told me I was named after a Presbyterian minister named "Peter Marshall". Memories like
these convince me they must have been thinking of someone else

[TheGameShowGuy]

Earliest memories? I don't ctually remember it but family folklore has it that I fell out out the stroller (parked at the TV) watching an Art James at 6 months old. (A story embarrassingly retold on "Millionaire" when I was on). Research shows that Mr. James hosted "Say When!!" at that time...so I must have been watching that.
As for actual memories... I guess I can stretch back to age 4.
I remember Concentration(Downs) and Jeopardy!(Fleming). I remember them sort of airing back to back. By the time I understood time slots and where these shows were Concentration was at 10:30 and J! at noon. Thanks to the internet several years ago I found the did indeed air back to back in the 11-12 hour.
I also remember a little game show where the players (seated in a Password like array) sounded like they were crying or moaning. I remember my mom getting annoyed when "that crazy game show" came on early in the morning. I later (again thanks to the 'net) found out I must have been watching Fractured Phrases. In my memory it seemed like it lasted more than 3 months. I also remember a game that I called "The Betting Game" that came on somewhere after Jeopardy... That must have been "I'll Bet" (It seemed that "It's Your Bet was familiar when that came on in 1969). The next recall in my memory must be wrong based on NBC's schedule in 1965. I recall Jan Murray hosting a show between "Jeopardy!" and "I'll Bet" but I see from researching this that it was "Call My Bluff". Either he appeared frequently on that or my time line is off (He did host either Chain Letter or Charge Account around the mid 60s).
I guess my TV dial stuck on channel 4 as my day finished with "You Don't Say!" ad "The Match Game" . I loved how the names flipped to Match when a team matched and once I heard "Swingin' Safari" on radio and thought THe Match Game was coming on radio!!
(I know in between soaps were there too... but people were always getting killed on those so I left the room)
RE DEALER'S CHOICE:
I was 13 when this aired in 1974. They DID originally start with 4 audience members then went to 3 via a quick game. I don't exactly recall a pumpkin... but this quick game had the players pick from the "slot machine" that 9 box board.. and then there were usually cards behind each one (playing cards) the low card lost. It is feasable since I remember they altered this qualifying game a bit several times  that a pumpkin was there . (or something that looked like that) But I don't remember a pumpkin...just cards.
THe pre-game qualifyer was eliminated after a few months (poss. weeks) though. Then they just called 3 players.

[Jimmy Owen]

GameShowGuy:  A couple of more shows that were set up similar to Password in the sixties on NBC were "What's That Song" and "Snap Judgment," which both lasted four times longer than "Fractured Phrases."

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'148790\' date=\'Mar 22 2007, 08:29 AM\']
GameShowGuy:  A couple of more shows that were set up similar to Password in the sixties on NBC were "What's That Song" and "Snap Judgment," which both lasted four times longer than "Fractured Phrases."
[/quote]

And in one of the more befuddling decisions that G-T ever made, in its last months "Snap Judgment" was exactly "Password" under another title, down to the celebs introducing their partners.  The only difference (other than renaming the Lightning Round the Big 5) was that Johnny O did the title, so he could cue the audience to do the finger snap ("And the game they're on their mark to play is 'Snap... [finger snaps] Judgment!'").

[clemon79]

On that note, I took a look at the Snap Judgment Wiki article, and want to know if anyone can tell me if I should know who the hell Benhallums1 is, and if I did would it explain why they don't have a command of basic English?

/Curt, you did yeoman's work translating the first format.

[Scrabbleship]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'148808\' date=\'Mar 22 2007, 12:58 PM\']
On that note, I took a look at the Snap Judgment Wiki article, and want to know if anyone can tell me if I should know who the hell Benhallums1 is[/quote]

The sockpuppet of a banned user who vandalized countless articles for little reason beyond being annoying.

and if I did would it explain why they don't have a command of basic English?

Because they had a bad habit of complicating things via poor language.

/Curt, you did yeoman's work translating the first format.

Reading that article hurt my eyes so badly, I might make the rest readable.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'148835\' date=\'Mar 22 2007, 04:47 PM\']
The sockpuppet of a banned user who vandalized countless articles for little reason beyond being annoying.
[/quote]
Right. I guess what I meant was: has that idjit ever been a user *here*?

[DrBear]

That article made irismason look like ernesthemingway.

[TheGameShowGuy]

I was a bit older when "Snap Judgment" aired and I remember that show (at least the original rules.) I remember once a male contestant got up to go to a backstage isolation booth (which looked like they went thru a big pully elevator (like the type in that hotel on "Petticoat Junction". Ed McMahon commented on his (the contestant's) pink pants (it WAS the 60's) ... I had B&W until 1974.  I also remember Gene Rayburn & EdMcMahon swapped hosting jobs for a week with Ed doing "The Match Game" and Gene hosting "Snap Judgment". Gene wore gaudy striped knee socks (pulling up his pants to show them) on one episode.
Never saw "Words & Music" but I think that also aired when I was older.
I vaguly remember early  LMAD (but really just Monty Hall) When did the costumes start- in full swing?

The crazy game I remember that annoyed my mother each morning (with players moaning and whining) HAD to be Fractured Phrases (based on the fact FF came on early and that it's rules were similar to the current board game,"Mad Gab". Having played Mad Gab, I see that similar effect that can be mistaken for moaning or crying...
It seemed that I'll Bet and Fractured Phrases were on longer. Time goes much more slowly when you're a kid! (Not that I'm an old timer at a YOUNG 45... now my buddy Steve will add his editorial reply)  Time flies after you graduate college!!
I also remember the 60s panel shows: IGAS and To Tell The Truth. (I remember TTTT swithching themes in circa '66 and adding the audience vote. I also remember my grandmother loving to watch Whats My Line (mostly for host John Daily). It came on after Candid Camera Sunday nights.
In addition I loved "Password"... the way the words popped up from the desk. (My students in a  Saturday morning "College For Kids" class enjoy this too-40 years later!!) It seemed though that Password back then aired quite infrequently. I took it (as a 5 year old) as being a "holiday special"  when it aired.

[DrBear]

The Password reference reminded me of mine...

Video Village, with it's big "chuck-a-luck" cage which I thought was very cool.
And Password's first set change, switching to the familiar CBS one with the football-shaped logo behind Allen Ludden. I thought it was because they were starting football season and CBS covered the Packer games!