A pair of Pyramid riddles

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177064\' date=\'Feb 3 2008, 11:59 PM\']
June Lockhart, Susan Ruttan and (in a cartoon) Edie McClurg have all played Mrs. Claus in TV-movies.

Robert Morse in a 1995 TV-Movie and Howard Morton in the dreadful 1988 remake both played Grandpa Munster.

Damn you, Temple, for making me waste my time like this!
[/quote]
Curiously, this is the second time you've come up with Robert Morse as an alternate answer to a trivia question that I posed. You may recall a few years back at the J! board, I asked which Match Game panelist won a Tony for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Of course I was thinking of CNR, but you came up with Morse then. The funny thing is, with this question I checked just to make sure that Matthew Broderick hadn't appeared on Pyramid. (I also checked Melissa Gilbert, since I know Patty Duke had done the show.)

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177070\' date=\'Feb 4 2008, 02:53 AM\']
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'177069\' date=\'Feb 4 2008, 03:07 AM\']
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177065\' date=\'Feb 3 2008, 10:07 PM\']
Which character is this?
a. A person famous for playing him appeared on Pyramid.
b. He was the title character of a different show.
c. The person who played him on that show also appeared on Pyramid, and at least two cast members of the show did.
[/quote]
I'm honestly not sure I even understand the question.
[/quote]

It's a character that was in two different series, one of which was titled after the character.  The person who played the character was on Pyramid as well as at least two other cast members of the series named after the character. Name the character.
[/quote]
And Lou Grant wasn't even the first spin-off featuring a cast member who'd done Pyramid. Cloris Leachman did the show before Phyllis was spun off. (Liz Torres, a member of that show also appeared.) I don't think Valerie Harper appeared, but I don't have the documentation at work to check that.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'177202\' date=\'Feb 5 2008, 04:13 PM\']And Lou Grant wasn't even the first spin-off featuring a cast member who'd done Pyramid. Cloris Leachman did the show before Phyllis was spun off. (Liz Torres, a member of that show also appeared.) I don't think Valerie Harper appeared, but I don't have the documentation at work to check that.[/quote]
The best online source (certainly the easiest one to search ) would appear to be this one.  Another of our members is compiling an even more definitive effort, but his isn't online yet.  I was going to post my surprising 'discovery' that Betty White was the only Mary Tyler Moore Show regular to play Pyramid, but found the single (and early) week Leachman did.

I also thought I had another 'same character' one for Loretta Swit and Jo Ann Pflug, but Sally Kellerman played 'Hot Lips' in the movie, and Pflug played 'Dish', a different hot nurse.

[mmb5]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177207\' date=\'Feb 5 2008, 05:28 PM\']
I was going to post my surprising 'discovery' that Betty White was the only Mary Tyler Moore Show regular to play Pyramid, but found the single (and early) week Leachman did.
[/quote]
Ed Asner did as well.  He was on some of the $10K episodes GSN has.


--Mike

[William A. Padron]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177207\' date=\'Feb 5 2008, 05:28 PM\']
The best online source (certainly the easiest one to search ) would appear to be this one.  Another of our members is compiling an even more definitive effort, but his isn't online yet.  
[/quote]

Just to let everyone that I was the one that originally helped in 1999 putting together for that source the celebrity listings for the CBS/ABC daytime 1970's and syndicated Bill Cullen editions only.  Going through about seven or eight years worth of TV Guide listings on microfilm at the New York Public Library was not an easy task.  Pretty frustrating for me also then was not getting all the celebrity weeks, particularly those not listed by the magazine from the CBS $10K and the last season of the Cullen $25K (when it aired on WNBC-TV in New York).

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'William A. Padron\' post=\'177274\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 08:36 AM\']
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177207\' date=\'Feb 5 2008, 05:28 PM\']
The best online source (certainly the easiest one to search ) would appear to be this one.  Another of our members is compiling an even more definitive effort, but his isn't online yet.  
[/quote]

Just to let everyone that I was the one that originally helped in 1999 putting together for that source the celebrity listings for the CBS/ABC daytime 1970's and syndicated Bill Cullen editions only.  Going through about seven or eight years worth of TV Guide listings on microfilm at the New York Public Library was not an easy task.  Pretty frustrating for me also then was not getting all the celebrity weeks, particularly those not listed by the magazine from the CBS $10K and the last season of the Cullen $25K (when it aired on WNBC-TV in New York).
[/quote]


I think I may be able to fill in the last syndie season.  There were two stations in Michigan that ran it in full that season and my TV Guides had all the listings.  Plus KNXT in LA showed it slightly more regularly than WNBC. I have most of LA and NYC back issues of the '70's as well as Michigan.

[William A. Padron]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177276\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 09:04 AM\']
I think I may be able to fill in the last syndie season.  There were two stations in Michigan that ran it in full that season and my TV Guides had all the listings.  Plus KNXT in LA showed it slightly more regularly than WNBC. I have most of LA and NYC back issues of the '70's as well as Michigan.
[/quote]

Thanks for the offer, but I was able to get the full celebrity guest roster of the last $25K syndicated season, though no air dates listed, from that "one" member that Matt had mentioned in his post.  You are correct that WNBC-TV had played the show not often and very irregularly at different times, such as the Debralee Scott/Peter Lawford ep. listed on Sunday 10/1/1978 and the Lois Nettleton/Robert Urich ep. on Saturday 2/3/1979.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'William A. Padron\' post=\'177279\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 10:11 AM\']Thanks for the offer, but I was able to get the full celebrity guest roster of the last $25K syndicated season, though no air dates listed, from that "one" member that Matt had mentioned in his post.  [/quote]
Of course, back then we were still bicycling tapes, weren't we?  So there wouldn't be any one hard-and-fast set of air dates anyway (and I'm not a fan of saying that whatever the New York station did are the "right" ones).  At any rate, whatever Jimmy might find from his Michigan TVGs wouldn't necessarily match whatever anybody else found in theirs.

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177281\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 11:08 AM\']
[quote name=\'William A. Padron\' post=\'177279\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 10:11 AM\']Thanks for the offer, but I was able to get the full celebrity guest roster of the last $25K syndicated season, though no air dates listed, from that "one" member that Matt had mentioned in his post.  [/quote]
Of course, back then we were still bicycling tapes, weren't we?  So there wouldn't be any one hard-and-fast set of air dates anyway (and I'm not a fan of saying that whatever the New York station did are the "right" ones).  At any rate, whatever Jimmy might find from his Michigan TVGs wouldn't necessarily match whatever anybody else found in theirs.
[/quote]


That's true.  In fact, the Alpena station played some months earlier than the Kalamazoo station, and vice versa.

[William A. Padron]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177284\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 12:04 PM\']
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'177281\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 11:08 AM\']
[quote name=\'William A. Padron\' post=\'177279\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 10:11 AM\']Thanks for the offer, but I was able to get the full celebrity guest roster of the last $25K syndicated season, though no air dates listed, from that "one" member that Matt had mentioned in his post.  [/quote]
Of course, back then we were still bicycling tapes, weren't we?  So there wouldn't be any one hard-and-fast set of air dates anyway (and I'm not a fan of saying that whatever the New York station did are the "right" ones).  At any rate, whatever Jimmy might find from his Michigan TVGs wouldn't necessarily match whatever anybody else found in theirs.
[/quote]


That's true.  In fact, the Alpena station played some months earlier than the Kalamazoo station, and vice versa.
[/quote]

Believe it or not, if you happen to look at any of the 1970's of the New York Metropolitan Area editions of TV Guide when the Cullen 25K was on the air, the magazine would show the program listings for NYC and the New Haven-Hartford area in the same issue.  In the show's first syndicated season, it would be both seen on WCBS-TV in NYC and some 75 miles away on WTNH-TV in New Haven on Thursday nights at 7:30pm Eastern, but usually each with a different celebrity guest paired episode.  I decided in an arbitrary manner to go with the New York market when I was assembling the list, but I was aware that other stations around the country were not necessiarly playing the same 25K episode in any given week.

[clemon79]

As I've always said: New York is the center of the universe. Ask any New Yorker, they'll tell you.

[Jimmy Owen]

It seemed as though the show was a perennial "backup" in the last season.  WNBC put it on in November '78 on Friday nights to replace fellow Viacom show "Please Stand By" (a sitcom), then in December, I'm assuming WNBC commissioned a second weekly installment of Viacom's "Family Feud" and "Pyramid" went to various weekend fringe slots.  Something I found interesting is that WCBS dusted off by-then five year old eps of Dawson's "Masquerade Party" as competition for WNBC's "Feud" for a short time on Friday nights.

On KNXT in LA "Pyramid" started the season Mondays at 7:30, was replaced by "Disco Magic" in December and came back to access in March '79 to finish out the season on Thursday nights, as "The Muppet Show" moved to Monday to replace "Disco Magic."  They were still running "Pyramid" occassionally on weekends until Dec of 79, the season after the show went out of production.

[William A. Padron]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177325\' date=\'Feb 6 2008, 09:43 PM\']
It seemed as though the show was a perennial "backup" in the last season.  WNBC put it on in November '78 on Friday nights to replace fellow Viacom show "Please Stand By" (a sitcom), then in December, I'm assuming WNBC commissioned a second weekly installment of Viacom's "Family Feud" and "Pyramid" went to various weekend fringe slots.  Something I found interesting is that WCBS dusted off by-then five year old eps of Dawson's "Masquerade Party" as competition for WNBC's "Feud" for a short time on Friday nights.
[/quote]

Agreed...and WNBC-TV issued a press release photo, the one showing Cullen at his podium looking down while on the Pyramid set, with the caption saying that the show would be seen on Sunday evenings at 6:00pm Eastern beginning September 17, 1978.  WNBC did put the program on Friday nights at 7:30pm eventually in the time line you stated, but that only lasted just three weeks.  

In an interim shuffle, as it went up against WABC-TV's $100,000 Name That Tune, WNBC pre-empted one Friday night's scheduled episode, as advertised in TV Guide, with a science documentary special.  The following Friday night and afterward, it was indeed a second run of Family Feud, thus sending The $25,000 Pyramid back to any weekend time slot that was available the station needed to fill in as a gap.

[Jimmy Owen]

I liked how one of the half-page ads WNBC ran for Pyramid in TVG noted that the show was hosted by the "with-it Bill Cullen."

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'177337\' date=\'Feb 7 2008, 09:16 AM\']
I liked how one of the half-page ads WNBC ran for Pyramid in TVG noted that the show was hosted by the "with-it Bill Cullen."
[/quote]

Well, he was pogoing every weekend at CBGB's.  Never missed a Ramones gig.