Game Show Terrors

[JMFabiano]

Nothing game show related ever frightened me, but I was scared by local station sign-offs.  Not the actual sign-off message itself, or even the national anthem, but the impending color bars/tone combination or just the loud static. However, the national anthem films would send me running because I knew what was coming next.  Tests of the Emergency Broadcast System were a bit nerve-wracking as well, and again that was because of the loud noise. I had no idea about the cold war/nuclear bomb implications that were originally behind the EBS.

 

The \"program change\" messages would usually get to me, especially coming from the then-WNEW 5 in New York, and especially when a show was cancelled/removed from the schedule, and Tom Gregory or whoever said it \"will NO LONGER be seen...\"  And the Technical Difficulties slide/elevator music/announcements too...really creepy stuff! 

 

 

I loved the \"V of Doom\" as a kid

Me too, as well as its predecessor, the \"Pinball V-IA-COM\" which I commonly saw at the end of \"Josie and the Pussycats\" reruns. 

 

 

I recall not being terribly fond of the Screen Gems logo, though I don\'t think it really creeped me out. Now, however, when I watch, say, Bewitched on DVD, I\'m disappointed when it doesn\'t appear at the end and instead I\'m treated to the (very loud) Sony logo instead.

Fortunately (?), the SFH has made somewhat of a comeback in this decade, currently you can see it intact on several shows on Antenna TV.  Yes, the Sony logo has followed in the footsteps of the Columbia-Tristar \"Boxes of Boredom,\" eliminating almost every previous Columbia TV logo. 

 

ObGameShow: This was actually funny on WOF or J! \'80s reruns on GSN, as Jack Clark/Johnny Gilbert\'s spiel at the end of the show would be interrupted by C-T and CHARLIE O\'DONNELL saying \"Columbia-Tristar Television.\"

[Chief-O]

Never got freaked out by the \"V\" of Doom.

 

Did get freaked out by the Saban logo at the end of \"I\'m Telling\". On the non-GS list, the Group W logo on some \"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles\" eps scared me too. Mainly the music/sound in both cases.

[aaron sica]

Not game show related, but since we\'re veering off into scary TV stuff, this skit from \"Sesame Street\" always made me turn away at the end....

 

[Offshored2007]

1. The original Concentration buzzer

2. On the same topic, Hugh Downs yelling \"IS RIGHT\" would scare the sh1t out of me

3. Art Fleming singing bits of songs that were clues on the original Jeopardy! - creepy.

[tvwxman]

 

And, adding one to the list that hasn\'t been mentioned - as a toddler I could not watch \"Hurdles\" on TPIR - between the gun and the \'crash\' of the losing player - I was terrified at the age of 3.

I couldn\'t remember what happened with a Hurdles loss so I searched YT for one and found one - was it the \"Crash!\" graphic and the zooming in and out of the camera? yeah, I\'d be terrified of that too.

Yep. That.

[tvwxman]

Not game show related, but since we\'re veering off into scary TV stuff, this skit from \"Sesame Street\" always made me turn away at the end....

 

HOLY CRAP YES! What a memory that I haven\'t seen in 35 years!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks! (jerk... )

[TimK2003]

Here\'s another one that scared me that is somewhat game-show related.

 

Back when I was a kid, I would watch the original Channel 61 in Cleveland (WKBF) all the time.  One night (might have been after watching Dealer\'s Choice), they put up a static of that night\'s winning Ohio Lottery Numbers along with the (at that age) slightly-creepy OL Logo.  Not too bad, except their booth announcer was Phil McLean, a voice with pipes so low, he made Ernie Anderson sound like a soprano!! His deep, creepy voice was bad enough, until you threw in over-blaring music bed they used for the lottery segment -- the opening 10 notes of \"The Savers\" (70\'s Joker\'s Wild Theme) looped over and over.

[clemon79]

he made Ernie Anderson sound like a soprano!!

 

I always get Ernie Anderson mixed up with Ernie Anastos.

 

/keep f**king that chicken

[Kevin Prather]

Since we\'re off-topic now anyway, I\'ll throw in Guntzelman-Sullivan-Marshall\'s Guy Falling Off The Roof.

[JMFabiano]

he made Ernie Anderson sound like a soprano!!

 

I always get Ernie Anderson mixed up with Ernie Anastos.

 

/keep f**king that chicken

Not that Ernie Anderson always had a clean mouth (NSFW):

 

http://soundcloud.com/fortyfps9/ernie-anderson_vs_the-copy

 

 

[JMFabiano]

Not game show related, but since we\'re veering off into scary TV stuff, this skit from \"Sesame Street\" always made me turn away at the end....

 

 

The one that always got me was: the \"street\" one with the rabbits...I liked it up until the rabbit in the car drives by and says, \"Would you be more careful, crossing the street?\"  Also, the life cycle of the frog, ending with a grown frog hopping away and yelling, \"Heyyyyyyyyyyyy Kermiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!\"  (it should have been funny to me, but the yelling got to me back then) 

[Bobby B.]

-Late 80\'s/early 90\'s Jeopardy intro with the \"whoosh\" sound and the Jeopardy logo on the spinning globe.  I distinctly remember being at my aunt\'s house once and running into another room because I knew Jeopardy was coming on.  If I ever get on the show, I\'ll mention being afraid of Jeopardy as one of my interesting things for the contestant interview.

 

-TPIR Pathfinder wrong number SFX.  The set for the game was a little overwhelming too, but that sound was what really got me.

 

-The Dark Forest room in Legends of the Hidden Temple

 

-TTD dragon, moreso the roar than anything else.  Didn\'t see this one until GSN came along.

 

-This last one is a little weird, but I had some fears about Doug Davidon\'s TPIR.  The thought of people being injured scared me as a child, and I remember him joking about Hans being taken to the hospital when someone lost Cliff Hangers.  Also related to the injury fear, I remembered my mom watching Y&R around that time and seeing Davidson\'s character get hit by a car.  I couldn\'t watch him on Price for a few days after that.   

 

 

 

 

[Jimmy Owen]

One day on \"You\'re Putting Me On,\" the panel was acting out \"Judy Garland.\" Trouble was that Ms. Garland had passed away a few days before.  Don Pardo made a voiceover explaining that the program was recorded prior to her death. Sorta cast a pall on the fun and frivolity. A similar situation happened on \"Stumpers\" as Jack Cassidy was a panelist a few days after his death.

[JMFabiano]

One day on \"You\'re Putting Me On,\" the panel was acting out \"Judy Garland.\" Trouble was that Ms. Garland had passed away a few days before. Don Pardo made a voiceover explaining that the program was recorded prior to her death. Sorta cast a pall on the fun and frivolity. A similar situation happened on \"Stumpers\" as Jack Cassidy was a panelist a few days after his death.

 

And of course the same was done for the last four weeks of Allen Ludden\'s run on Password Plus.  Wonder if any of the OB versions of those episodes exist anywhere, with the announcement intact?  (GSN versions have no announcement)  This was something I vaguely remembered from when I was 3...and thus qualifies as a scare bomb as I do think I recalled the transition from Allen to Tom and feeling weird about it.  The voiceovers on Allen\'s last eps. couldn\'t have helped.

[trainman]

Only thing that vaguely fits this thread that I can ever remember being unsettled by -- I wouldn\'t go all the way to say \"scared\" -- was the late-\'70s local sponsorship announcement for \"Sesame Street\" on WEDU in Tampa, which was courtesy of GTE and featured some Touch-Tone beeps; we didn\'t have Touch-Tone phone service at the time.

 

I don\'t recall ever having any issues with production company logos, the \"Tic Tac Dough\" dragon, or anything else mentioned in this thread.