Online Pick of the Week (11/27): Jeopardy's 4000th Show

The pick this week is a great look back at one of my favorite game shows of all-time, Jeopardy!. It was nice to see the show get to the 6,000th episode mark this season, but I was disappointed not much was done for the milestone. But there's always this particular pick. This was back in 2002 and celebrated the show's 4,000th episode milestone. Not only was this a great look back at the series finest moments, but it also shows how well Jeopardy! has evolved overtime into a pop culture zeitgeist. You'll see this in the second part.

This retrospective also shows why I still show a great desire to follow the current era as well as the previous ones. The show evolves, like such as doubling the money values of the clues, adding the clue crew, getting an HD set, and going on the road, without alienating the main concept of the game.

Jeopardy!'s 4000th show celebration, my pick of the week!

Online Pick of the Week (11/20): Vintage Mishap

I suspect some east coast people watching the mini-series Loose Change in 1978 on NBC were not pleased with what they saw here:



As an avid TV watcher... I've seen some weird errors in my time... wrong graphics on the screen, tapes obviously starting too early or too late, a slate accidentally airing, too many commercials, someone obviously accidentally hitting the rewind button by mistake, etc. But this? Takes the cake. How could this have been running for as long as 17 minutes without before realizing something went wrong? How?

Perfect case of vintage network fail if I ever saw this one. My online pick of the week!

GSN's 1 vs. 100: Debut

When I first heard GSN was going to be the ones to revive 1 vs. 100, I was happy but also a bit curious and skeptical in how they'd actually do it. This is show that I always thought deserved better treatment from NBC. To me it always seemed that they cared more about Deal or No Deal.

I'm not that familiar with Carrie Ann Inaba. I do know she's a judge on Dancing with the Stars -- a show I've never seen a full episode of but actually considered watching at least some of this season for Margaret Cho until she was voted off -- so this is my first real time watching her in action. She does a pretty passable job here. She has a good rapport with the contestants and does a nice job at making the contestants feel at home. Not going to lie, but I do miss Bob Saget here. Though I am confident that Carrie will warm up to the show soon enough.

The questions are pretty good. They are written as well as they originally were. I liked that kind of wit that they carried. No problems there. The video mob wall looks decent; though the in-studio mob really helped add a better feel to the show.

One thing I don't really care for is the Ask the Mob lifeline being removed. You can still ask a mob member for their opinion on a particular question. Basically, a really good part of the show that I didn't see the point in removing.

As far as the prize budget goes, I'm really not disappointed about the money that's being played for. Yes, a million dollars was the highest point on NBC, but it has to be remembered that what we saw on there was a weekly nighttime show on a major network. This is a daily version, on GSN for crying out loud. $50,000 is fine. Even if it aired daily in first-run syndication I wouldn't expect the prize amount to be any higher than 6 figures.

New episodes air at 7:00 PM. Some disappointing elements (no "ask the mob" for instance), but in spite of that, I think this is worth watching as far as originals go. Far more exciting than much of the other batch of original shows that GSN have come and gone within the past year.

Online Pick of the Week (11/13): The $25,000 Pyramid

Pyramid is my absolute favorite game show, partly because of how unexpected and intense it can be.

From my own personal collection, this $25,000 episode from 1982 is a perfect example. Florence Henderson is one of the celebrity guests on this episode, and while she's usually regarded as one of the show's better players, and she is, on this particular episode? Not so great. The first winners' circle round in particular. But later on in the show there's a pretty good change that has to be seen to be believed. It just goes to show that really anything can happen.

My online pick of the week!

GSN's Thanksgiving Week Marathons

Marathons for this year:

Thursday, 11/25: Deal or No Deal (syndie 2008-2010, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM)
Friday, 11/26: Wheel of Fortune (episodes from seasons 23 and 24, 9:00 AM-3:00 PM)
Saturday, 11/27: Deal or No Deal (NBC 2005-2009, 9:00 AM-9:00 PM)



Well. Um.

Meh.

I can't say I'm overly thrilled about a Deal or No Deal marathon (oh, who the hell am I kidding? I'm not thrilled for that one bit). Or these particular episodes of Wheel of Fortune airing. But the really good thing that comes out of Friday is that, for once in quite a long while, something's being marathoned that hasn't been run to death yet. Even though it comes from an era of the show that is really not a particular favorite. I wish I could say the same thing about Deal or No Deal.

Online Pick of the Week (11/6): Charlie O'Donnell Tribute

The clip this week is a nice tribute montage made in honor of television veteran announcer Charlie O'Donnell, who passed away early this week.

I think I'm just going to let this clip with Charlie's purely professional voice speak for itself:


Nice job by user Hondo20132. My online pick of the week.

GSN November Schedule Changes

starting November 15th:

7:00 PM 1 vs. 100 (GSN's new version)
7:30 PM Deal or No Deal (2008-2010 syndie version)
8:00 PM Family Feud (O'Hurley)
8:30 PM Family Feud (Karn)
9:00 PM The Newlywed Game (GSN's version, w/Sherri Shepard)
9:30 PM Baggage
10:00 PM 1 vs 100 (GSN's new version)
10:30 PM Lingo
11:00 PM Deal or No Deal
12:00 AM Catch 21
12:30 AM Family Feud (O'Hurley)
1:00 AM Family Feud (Karn)
1:30 AM $25,000 Pyramid (CBS 1982-88)
2:00 AM Millionaire (Regis)
3:00 AM Card Sharks (NBC 1978)
3:30 AM Card Sharks (CBS 1986)

Lingo also replaces the Newlywed Game/Baggage hour at 12 noon.

Sorry to see $100,000 Pyramid leaving; especially after finding out that reruns of the show have done well for the network. It would have been really nice if GSN just leased a different season of the show. Or better yet, when a show reaches its 100-200 episode mark of said lease, why not just immediately renew, so we can see the entire run in one go? I have to say that also airing $100,000 Pyramid and $25,000 Pyramid back-to-back was one of the few good schedule ideas to come from GSN within the past year or so.

As far as the rest of the schedule goes... most of it is just meh to me these days. I can't get excited about too much programming wise on GSN these days, sad to say. The only show I'm really excited about and actually try to watch daily at this point in time is Match Game '75. And Millionaire at 2 am? I'm sorry, but that's just sad. Pyramid and Card Sharks are die-hard favorites of mine, and I'm glad to see both shows retain spots on the schedule, they're good shows and they deserve it, but I'm thinking it'd be really nice if they'd get different episodes of both series. Both shows do well so it's not like it'd be a bad investment to lease more shows. Basically at this point, if you don't like seeing the same few shows repeated over and over again for most of the day, then you're pretty much screwed.

Remembering Charlie O'Donnell

My game show fan heart was truly broken this Monday when I found out about the passing of veteran television announcer Charlie O'Donnell.

Charlie is perhaps best known for his long running announcing role on Wheel of Fortune, a role that he started before Pat and Vanna were even on the series. He was there from its 1974 pilot with Edd "Kooky" Byrnes through the first 5 years of the show's run on NBC daytime, with original hosts Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford. He left in 1980 and came back to the show in 1989 and had stayed ever since.

Though his announcing career actually began in 1958, with the series American Bandstand, and Dick Clark's Bloopers and Practical Jokes. Game show viewers have heard him most, not only for his work on Wheel, but on the following series through the past few decades: All-Star Secrets, Card Sharks, Bullseye, Hot Potato, Monopoly, Trivia Trap, Tic Tac Dough, The Joker's Wild, The $25,000/$100,000 Pyramid, Let's Go Back, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, To Tell The Truth, The Wizard of Odds, and Wordplay. He was also a news anchor for KCOP-TV.

Charlie always had a voice of gold -- one of the most exciting things about the Wheel of Fortune bonus rounds over the years was his dulcet tone telling us in grand enthusiasm how much the winning contestants had earned that particular day.

Rest in peace to one of my all-time favorite announcers in the television industry.