How did "Whew!" gain cult status?

[DjohnsonCB]

MG/HS wasn't carried by WHO in Des Moines but we got it on cable from KWWL in Waterloo and briefly on new indie KCBR 17 (now Fox 17 KDSM).  While on the subject of who owns "Whew!", does anyone know who owns the rights to the Nicholson-Muir library?

[BrandonFG]

As far as I know the show never aired in reruns, so I wouldn't be surprised if the estate still owns the show.

[Jimmy Owen]

MG/HS wasn't carried by WHO in Des Moines but we got it on cable from KWWL in Waterloo and briefly on new indie KCBR 17 (now Fox 17 KDSM).  While on the subject of who owns "Whew!", does anyone know who owns the rights to the Nicholson-Muir library?

Not sure but "The New Howdy Doody " has been on MeTV recently

[chargeradiocom]

While we’re on the topic of reruns… An oddball situation/question that’s been on my mind:

Whew! ended its run shortly before I was born, but I remember as a kid, probably 1985 or thereabouts, a cable company tech doing some work at our house. While he was working, the TV was running a game show with, as I recall, arrows & stop signs during the two-player rounds, then an end game with cartoony villain 2D cutouts. I’ve been enamored with game shows for as long as I can remember and knew most of the big 80s hits, but I had never seen that show. As a young kid I was also into cartoons and traffic signs, so this show would have been right up my alley. I could never find it on TV again in those days, though. I didn’t really do tape trading, but when I found circulating Whew! episodes on YouTube, I had a real sense of, “I’ve seen this show before.”

So I’ve wondered: Did it have a brief rerun package in syndication, even in limited markets? Or was it maybe a test feed the cable guy had that just happened to be running Whew!? Or is my brain having a total “Shazam starting Sinbad” block here?

[chargeradiocom]

Interestingly, though, other "cult" shows once thought mostly "lost" -- MGHS and Narz Concentration, for example -- seem to have lost their "coolness" factor after they were "found" and became widely available. Other than the rare or unusual event, we really don't talk much about them anymore.

I think part of it may also have to do with the fact that we have other, arguably superior* versions of those shows to compare. In two cases, the better-known, arguably superior* versions air beside the lesser-known versions on the same network nearly every day. Not to mention that Classic Concentration was itself a “locked away” show for a time, at least in terms of widespread availability. And while no other version of Hollywood Squares is airing anywhere right now that I can think of, the latest version is still fresh enough in people’s minds that the MGHSH take on Squares is going to seem lacking.

Whereas with Whew!, the shine may eventually wear off, but for now it’s still a “new” rediscovery. And, for the time being at least, we don’t have any other versions of it to make the 79-80 version look better or worse. It stands on its own. And in the context of a network targeting game show geeks, it’s getting to shine as a fine show, in a way that it never did when it was competing for eyeballs on daytime network TV.

(*Arguably, in the case of Narz vs. Classic Concentration at least. I don’t think you’re going to get too much argument regarding superiority on the other two.)

[TimK2003]

Compared to some of the primetime game shows that have aired over the last few years, Whew would have a great shot as a revival as it is actually a tamer show than a few of the others. (See: Crush, Candy).

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[Neumms]

I dunno. Match Game was back after just a year off, Hollywood Squares was back after two years off, and it may not have been enough time. The MG questions weren't as salacious as they were in the CBS days; I'm not sure if that was Goodson's decision or NBC's.

The salacious thing may have been done to death. I'm not sure how they could have written dirty questions in new ways unless the censors got looser (so to speak) and permitted some new words. The show was funny without them, though.

[Neumms]

“Anybody who wins in a 3-0 sweep will get to run the Gauntlet twice for up to $100,000 in cash.”

That was a really good idea on "Go."

I wonder if they should charge two boards apiece, the one who takes less time wins. No long shots, and the 6th level plays like the others. You always have a four board game and it eliminates the blocker's advantage in winning rounds.

[JohnXXVII]

It's been really interesting seeing celebs who did 80s Pyramid and Super Password turn up on Match Game/ Hollywood Squares!

The different mix of celebrities gives a glimpse of what could have been, not only of what it might have been like if NBC revived only Match Game in 1983, but also what it might have been like if they had a wider mix of celebs on the CBS show.

I think one of the problems of Match Game 7x was that they never really knew how to turn regulars into semi-regulars. It might have been beneficial to rest the regulars from time to time, to keep them fresh and at the same time bring in some new blood.

[GameShowGuru]

I know I'm late to the discussion, and much of the reasons were already given, but I'll succinctly re-iterate several of them:

1. Short lived show (11 months)
2. Until recently, was never aired on TV since it went off the air 41 years ago.
3. Randy Amasia (he single-handedly put the show in the Internet map)
4. Bert Sugarman's long-term reluctance to re-air the show (word was that he wanted a king's ransom to have them aired again)
5. Limited number of episodes available for viewing on YouTube (and of those, most IMO really didn't do the show justice as to how good the gameplay was).

Then, when you factor in that the actual game takes roughly 4 minutes to play (add 2-3 if you want to include the blockers soliloquizing their traps), with humor, knowledge, and strategy being executed within 60-second blocks of time, Whew! was a highly original game with a very unusual format - even if the rules were a bit complicated and it would take a moment to catch on to how the game was played.  The cartoon opening, colorful set, Scooby-Doo-ish looking villains with their one-line quips, and fast paced music (thank you Alan Thicke) helped give the show its charm.

I saw the show when it originally aired in 1979-80 (I was 5 years old at at the time; it was appointment TV for me, especially during the summer of '79), and it is definitely appointment TV for me now; as a matter of fact, it is probably one of the very few game shows I've seen in my life that I tune in to watch daily.

In short, Whew's cult status is attributed to the fact that the show is original - and it is actually a very good show; it's just that the declining ratings and CBS really didn't do the show justice, especially when they converted to the celebrity format.