$25,000 Pyramid on CBS ca. 1993

[Chelsea Thrasher]

So, was going through some more of the never-ending gift of VHS tapes courtesy Chris Lambert, and I came upon something.  On December 24, 1993, and again one week later on 12/31, CBS aired a half hour of $25,000 Pyramid on their daytime schedule.  The two episodes aired were 1/10/83 (on Christmas Eve), and 1/11/83 (on New Years Eve)

I'm curious if anyone knows what led to CBS running Pyramid on these particular days, and specifically, why Pyramid.   The show hadn't aired in first run in two years, and hadn't been seen on CBS in over five.  The show was doing reasonably well on USA (and the two shows are from the portion of the run USA was airing at the time), but it just seems like an incredibly random thing for a broadcast network to do, particularly given how otherwise terrible the genre's fortunes were on broadcast TV at the time.

[Jimmy Owen]

On the East Coast they had a half-hour to fill before a football game both days.

[BrandonFG]

It just hit me that CBS probably had a bowl game and/or parades on either of those two days, which would've pre-empted the soap operas. I'm guessing maybe the game started at 2:30 or 3:30, when "As the World Turns" or "Guiding Light" would've normally aired.

I remember watching "Pyramid" on that Christmas Eve, but can't remember what came on after that.

[clemon79]

On the East Coast they had a half-hour to fill before a football game both days.

I was wondering if it was football-related but didn't want to go look it up; 1993 was significant to me because I spent Christmas away from my folks that year and I remember going over to my uncle's place on Christmas Day for dinner because the Niners were playing. So that makes sense.

[ChrisLambert!]

The Sun Bowl (EDIT: Actually that year, called the John Hancock Bowl) on 12/24 and a regular-season NFL game (MIN@WAS), unusually, on Friday afternoon 12/31. I remembered the first, had to research the second.

Why Pyramid is a much harder question Especially since they had so many 1/2-hour TPiRs from recent Bake-off years on hand.

[PYLdude]

On the East Coast they had a half-hour to fill before a football game both days.

I was wondering if it was football-related but didn't want to go look it up; 1993 was significant to me because I spent Christmas away from my folks that year and I remember going over to my uncle's place on Christmas Day for dinner because the Niners were playing. So that makes sense.

The reason I remember this one so well is because NBC promoted the crap out of their sports lineup that day: they had their usual two basketball games on sandwiched around the Oilers-Niners tilt in San Fran.

This was the season that the NFL tried an eighteen-week schedule, complete with two byes for each team, if you remember that experiment.

(IIRC, the next time Christmas fell on a Saturday, the NFL scheduled a game on Christmas Eve afternoon as well- Jake Delhomme making his national debut as the Saints beat the Cowboys.)

[danderson]

i think that NBC preempted a syndicated show to air Oilers-Niners(cant remember the name of the show) and Sisters(drama show starring Swooise Kurtz and Sela Ward) to air Rockets Suns from America West(can remember Tom Hammond and Steve Jones on the later and Dick Enberg and Bob Trumpy on Oilers-Niners) i am going by a memory because i had a tape of both the Oilers-49ers and Rockets Suns from that day or was Knicks Bulls the late game?

[pacdude]

or was Knicks Bulls the late game?

The world may never know.

[danderson]

what shocks me is that NBC would take the 7pm hour away from the stations for Oilers 49ers, instead of having a 1pm start for Rockets Suns but when you have the chance to show two NBA games and a NFL game you do what you have to do(you very rarely saw the network cut into the access time in those days, outside of the Olympics or later on NCAA tournament coverage)  the late game by the way was Magic Bulls, not Knicks Bulls

[danderson]

The Sun Bowl (EDIT: Actually that year, called the John Hancock Bowl) on 12/24 and a regular-season NFL game (MIN@WAS), unusually, on Friday afternoon 12/31. I remembered the first, had to research the second.

Why Pyramid is a much harder question Especially since they had so many 1/2-hour TPiRs from recent Bake-off years on hand.

makes me wonder why they had MIN/WAS at 3pm instead of having it at 4pm so that they could show "Guiding Light"?

[clemon79]

makes me wonder why they had MIN/WAS at 3pm instead of having it at 4pm so that they could show "Guiding Light"?

Because the NFL tells the network when the game is going to start, not the other way around.

/at this point I just want to know what time Wapner was on.

[PYLdude]

makes me wonder why they had MIN/WAS at 3pm instead of having it at 4pm so that they could show "Guiding Light"?

Because the NFL tells the network when the game is going to start, not the other way around.

/at this point I just want to know what time Wapner was on.

Ten minutes ago.

[Kevin Prather]

makes me wonder why they had MIN/WAS at 3pm instead of having it at 4pm so that they could show "Guiding Light"?

Because the NFL tells the network when the game is going to start, not the other way around.

/at this point I just want to know what time Wapner was on.

Ten minutes ago.

Uh oh... Uh oh.... Uh oh....