Bible Baffle

[opimus]

Bible baffle ran in Chicago on ch 38  in the late '70's and early '80's . Was it ever seen out of Chicago?

[zachhoran]

I think CBN aired a biblical themed game show with this title way back in early 80s. If it is indeed the same show you are talking about, then it aired nationally. It was one of the very first if not THE first original game show made for cable TV.


Welcome to the new digs, by the way.

[opimus]

BB was produced localy all the prizes were from local Chicago merchants.

[Matt Ottinger]

I vividly remember \"Bible Baffle\" airing nationally in the early days of CBN.  I watched it in Tennessee, which probably means that I saw it in 1981 or 1982.  I'll take your word for it that it originated in Chicago.  My memory is of the poorly constructed podiums that shook whenever a player buzzed in and -- best of all -- the fact that the buzzers were not lockout devices.  They were three independent buzzers with lights, and if the host couldn't tell which player buzzed in first, he'd just declare a tie and go on to the next question.

As for your prize, I'm really not sure I want to reward the fact that the first discussion in our new home was \"Bible Baffle\".

[Aaron Lloyd]

If you run a Google search for \"bible baffle\" and CBN, you only get one hit, and even that one describes BB as a local Chicago show.  There's no reference anywhere on the internet to BB airing on CBN.  Still, I saw it too.

There's alsoa current board game with that title.  I wonder if any of the original producers had anything to do with it.  And if so, shouldn't it be on Matt's home game page?

[rugrats1]

In the early-1980s, I recall seeing \"Bible Baffle\" in the Tampa Bay area on WCLF ch.22, a Christian-based TV station. Apparently, they picked it up from CBN, as they were airing alot of CBN's religious programs at the time.

The station was produced at another religious TV station -- WCFC ch.38 in Chicago, now Pax station WCPX.

As for the format, I don't remember much, but it's basically Bible Q&A, with religious-based items for prizes.

[trp0930]

I'm one of the few who do remember Bible Baffle in the fall of '82....It had quite a catchy theme (it still plays in my head often)...but when it was on CBN it was billed as \"the New Bible Baffle.\" Seeing I was 8, that's all I can remember from that show.

[uncamark]

The home boy has to jump in here:

\"Bible Baffle\" began its life on WCFC in Chicago as \"Bible Scrabble\" sometime in 1977.  The original format had two three-person teams competing to unscramble Bible verses and then go on to answer Bible trivia questions.  The set was ultra-low budget (at that time, they were using the old WBKB-TV studios at the top of the Civic Opera House building in downtown Chicago), the audience was canned and the host was the same guy who did the revamp that got the national airing, Ray MacKillop.  At some point early in the run either they heard from the Scrabble people or discovered that they were using a trademarked name and changed the title to \"Bible Baffle.\"  (Obviously, H-Q wasn't interested in challenging that one.)

The next year, the format was revamped to four contestants, two of each playing a round of Bible trivia to go on to the final round (and playing a scrambled verse as a bonus).  The winner of the final round got to attempt to unscramble a verse for a trip to Biblical Gardens at Wisconsin Dells (ooh, aah).  This was the version that was dubbed \"The New Bible Baffle\"--and the title stayed with it for the rest of its run, including the national exposure on CBN (and probably some other religious network, as well).  The station moved its facilities to the former Catholic Television Network facilities across the street somewhere in the middle of the run.  It went off sometime in 1982.

One night, I was scanning the dial and hit WCFC during a fund-raiser where McKillop was more or less defending the idea of doing a game show on a religious station--even though they had no time for \"altar calls\" on the show(thank God), McKillop claimed that they had received letters from game show fans who said they were \"saved\" watching the show.  OK.

BTW, WCFC has lived on, despite the sale to Pax--they moved to a custom-built broadcast facility in the West Loop in the mid 90s and remains active today as the cable network Total Living Network (TLN), which is now seen nationally.  (Some TLN programming continues to be seen on WCPX in the mornings.)  They just haven't done a game show since then.

[dheine1971]

Besides \"Bible Baffle\"/\"The New Bible Baffle\" (which I remember on former religious turned PAX station WCFC 38 in Chicago). Do you remember these other religious game shows?:

\"The Good Book Challenge\" (aired in the 1990's on some Long Island, New York independent TV station)

And 3 religous game shows aimed at kids:

\"Bible Bowl\" (1978-early 1980's)

\"Joy Junction\" (1980's - reruns air Saturday mornings on religious cable channel TBN)

\"Kids on the Move\" (1998 - Remember the Biblical times news magazine spoof \"Zion 7 Report\" in the middle of each episode?)

[rugrats1]

Besides \"Bible Baffle\"/\"The New Bible Baffle\" ... Do you remember these other religious game shows?:

\"Joy Junction\" (1980's - reruns air Saturday mornings on religious cable channel TBN)

We have a thread regarding JJ, which was more like a religious \"Bozo\" show rather than a game show:

http://tinyurl.com/mxmg

[Justin30519]

[quote name=\'dheine1971\' date=\'Sep 10 2003, 02:41 PM\']And 3 religous game shows aimed at kids:

\"Bible Bowl\" (1978-early 1980's)
[/quote]
This is the first I've heard of this program in years. I have vague memories of it. All I remember is:
- The title of the show was Bible Bowl
- It was the boys against the girls
- The boys were represented by a blue head (??), and the girls were represented by a red head (??)
- The winners got to eat cake
- The theme song was something like \"It's the Bible Bowl. It's the Bible Bowl.\" (May be wrong on this.)

Keep in mind I was three years old when this premiered. No wonder my memories are foggy. Does anyone know what network this aired on? Any information on how it was played: scoring system or whatever? What was the host's name? I have tried searching for bible bowl on the Internet before and have had no luck answering these questions that I have wondered about for a long time. (3,558 matches just returned on Altavista - all of them talking about recently competitions for local churches.) I'd appreciate any information. It would really be nice if someone had an episode on tape.

Justin (going back into lurk mode)

[brianhenke]

Trinity Broadcasting has had two game shows:

    The One Way Game (later the Family One Way Game) in the 80s.
 
    VIrtual Memory, hosted by Jamie Alexander and co-starring the annoying Mega Bite Mike, 2000-2002 (haven't seen it on the TBN schedule in a while).

    Plus, there was Genesis hosted by Jim MacKrell that was on Pax only once three years ago.

    Brian

    100 plus 100 equals 600?

    We want some more pro wrestling (STILL) and NASCAR questions!

[zachhoran]

And that's why Steve B. stopped posting about Virtual Memory every week......

[dheine1971]

I forgot to mention: Coach Jack Gray hosted \"Bible Bowl\", Sherriff Don McAlister hosted \"Joy Junction\".

\"Genesis\" on PAX was hosted by Jim McKrell (\"Celebrity Sweepstakes\") but was canned after its sneak preview episode.

[dheine1971]

Was the \"Bible Bowl\" theme sung to the tune of a Disneyland/Disney World ride attraction song called \"It's a Small World After All\"?