Game Show Themes

[Ian Wallis]

I was watching a tape of a CBS "Joker's Wild" recently and was enjoying the fact that they aired their closing theme without applause for most of their first year on the air.  I always found it a treat the odd occasion where a theme would play without applause and was trying to think of how many shows have actually done this at one time or another.

Here's what I've come up with:

--Joker's Wild - '72-73 CBS and first week of '77 syndie
--Break the Bank '76 - several eps of syndie version
--Hollywood Squares - several eps of Davidson's version
--Family Feud - current version (most of the time)
--Tic Tac Dough - '78-86
--Guinness Game - most eps.
--You Bet Your Life - 1980 version
--Bullseye - most of the time
--Scrabble - around 86-87
--Jeopardy - several 1984 eps
--Headline Chasers - 1985-86
--Wheel of Fortune - a few eps from the '70s
--Dating Game - a few eps from '86 and '87
--Trump Card - a couple of eps
--Dealer's Choice - a few eps.
--Dream House - a couple of eps towards the end of the run
--All Star Anything Goes - closing theme had lyrics

One show that had heavy applause at the end was the '70s "To Tell The Truth" - which really didn't make sense because the closing theme had lyrics and the applause was so heavy that you could barely make them out.

Does anyone know of any that I've missed?

[adamjk]

Well Match Game 7x, for most part during it's run, had the theme playing into each break without applause.

[Chief-O]

adamjk, I think he meant when the CLOSING theme was played without applause.

>> --Hollywood Squares - several eps of Davidson's version
I've seen an ep. of Marshall's show where NBC's canned applause goes silent for the rest of the credits. A clip of that ending is somewhere on classicsquares.com.

I've also seen an ep. or 2 of Double Dare that had no applause at the end.

[Robair]

[quote name=\'Chief-O\' date=\'Sep 16 2004, 09:12 AM\'] I've also seen an ep. or 2 of Double Dare that had no applause at the end. [/quote]
 Some of the early syndicated "Super Sloppy" shows were padded out since they were short, so they added a slow-motion run of the obstacle course under the credits in post and added the theme without applause.

Another show that ended without applause, mainly because the audience was probably asleep, was "The Diamond Head Game".

[TimK2003]

My memory is thin on some parts of my past game show experiences, but I vaguely seem to recall when I saw a taping of Super Password in '87, Gene Wood had us keep quiet (no applause) for some of the close of each show.

Obviously Mother MacKenzie filled those gaps when I saw the eps later. But I found that quite odd if they were rolling Gene's pre- or post-recorded listing of parting gifts during that "quiet time" what difference would uncanned applause would make?

[WhammyPower]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Sep 16 2004, 06:57 AM\'] --Wheel of Fortune - a few eps from the '70s [/quote]
 I've seen at least one 80s episode w/o applause.

[Robert Hutchinson]

[quote name=\'Robair\' date=\'Sep 16 2004, 12:27 PM\']Some of the early syndicated "Super Sloppy" shows were padded out since they were short, so they added a slow-motion run of the obstacle course under the credits in post and added the theme without applause.[/quote]
That's weird, isn't it? For a game show with timed rounds? Unless they renegotiated how many commercials they were going to have . . .

[Ian Wallis]

Obviously Mother MacKenzie filled those gaps when I saw the eps later. But I found that quite odd if they were rolling Gene's pre- or post-recorded listing of parting gifts during that "quiet time" what difference would uncanned applause would make?

I thought of one more:  "Password" 66-67, but only the syndicated reruns (which have been aired on GSN).

On some shows, the audience would be silent during the reading of the parting gifts, only to start the applause as soon as the announcer finished.  I could never figure out why more shows didn't do that - if the main reason for those gifts was to promote the products, the applause and theme music could distract you from what the announcer was saying.

[Steve McClellan]

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Sep 16 2004, 04:53 PM\'] I vaguely seem to recall when I saw a taping of Super Password in '87, Gene Wood had us keep quiet (no applause) for some of the close of each show.

Obviously Mother MacKenzie filled those gaps when I saw the eps later. [/quote]
 Even J!---a huge proponent of live applause, mind you---does that to this day.

[ChuckNet]

I've got an ep of Pitfall where the audio guy must've been dozing or something, because the applause fades in and out during the credits...if not for the Global VO guy and an abrupt cutoff, it would've made for a nice sound clip.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[Don Howard]

The New Treasure Hunt ran its True Grit theme w/o applause until Johnny Jacobs announced that the preceding was A Chuck Barris Production just seconds before the show faded to black.

[davemackey]

Add certain episodes of the syndicated "Celebrity Sweepstakes" and "The Gong Show" (one of which is the genesis of the recorded version on the second "TV Game Show Themes" album) as well as "Fun House" to the list.

[uncamark]

Add most of the run of "Split Second"--applause dies down for Jack Clark to read the "the winning automobile and the eliminated cars were chosen at random prior to today's show" disclaimer and starts up as soon as he says "'Split Second' is a Stefan Hatos-Monty Hall Production--Jack Clark speaking."

And "LMAD" did the exact same thing, of course since Monty is busy dealing during the credits (and, of course, there was applause whenever someone won something during the credits).