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Post by caseyabell on Aug 30, 2016 8:22:40 GMT -5
As some may know, Game Show Forum is redoing their fifty greatest game show list from 2006. The votes have been in for a while but they're rolling out the results very slowly. The bottom five 46-50 finally got posted. I won't follow each installment, but I did comment at my blog on selections 46 though 50...
Game Show Forum has finally started rolling out their top 50 list. Looks like it will take a while to get through all of them. The bottom five 46-50 are Twenty One, He Said She Said/Tattletales, Win Lose or Draw, College Bowl and Weakest Link. I would have left the first three off my list entirely. One was rigged and the other two just weren't good enough. (Win Lose or Draw did not make GSF's 2006 top 50 list, by the way.) But all three have plenty of age on them, so it's no surprise to see them on GSF's 2016 list.
The average age of these selections is a whopping 42 years, dating from the year of the first regular U.S. TV run. My guess is that the average age of the entire list will end up close to this number. By and large I expect a moldering list from deep in the game show crypt. This is the oldies board to end 'em all, you know. Only four dozen people voted in the poll, compared to 80 in 2006. Which shows that Game Show Forum itself is starting to wither on the vine, as one brave poster points out on the thread.
A funny note: at GSF almost all the objections to the bottom five selections center on Weakest Link. Hey, the show is only 15 years old. How dare such "modern" stuff sneak onto our list!
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Post by vahan on Aug 30, 2016 9:13:29 GMT -5
It should NOT be a crime to say "Older is Better". A lot of people, including the Game Show Forum, say that for a reason. Because older games in general seemed to have more of a heart to them. They didn't seem as rushed or as forced, like they are now.
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Post by Mandoli on Aug 30, 2016 9:56:03 GMT -5
It should NOT be a crime to say "Older is Better". A lot of people, including the Game Show Forum, say that for a reason. Because older games in general seemed to have more of a heart to them. They didn't seem as rushed or as forced, like they are now. Exactly. I'm not a member of that board, so I'm not subjected to what they say on a consistent basis. But "older is better" can apply to some shows. I like a few modern-era shows, which is why I say "both" for my favorite era. But some of the modern-day remakes (and I'll use Let's Make a Deal, for example) need to add touches of their classic counterparts in order to make things seem fresh. In my example, they've been going through all of these years with the same format. I think it's time to change things up a little bit. I've always been a fan of two traders in the Big Deal. Only having one per episode screams "we don't want to give anything away". |
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 30, 2016 10:46:10 GMT -5
Couldn't disagree more. Older is not necessarily better at all. In fact, Twenty One shows how older can be far worse.
Before the modern era of strict guidelines to prevent rigging, this fake show almost destroyed the entire genre as part of the 1950s scandals. There's no way Twenty One should be on any kind of greatest game show list. In fact, it wasn't even a good (or average, for that matter) format. That's why they had to rig the show to generate phony suspense, as none other than Mark Goodson once pointed out. This is a ridiculous selection for a top 50 list, even by Game Show Forum standards. To give the board a tiny bit of credit, a couple posters do admit some qualms about including it.
Still, Twenty One does have one overwhelming, supreme, all-important virtue in the eyes of most GSF members. It's old. Real old. Sixty years old. No wonder it gets onto their list.
As for the other two shows I would boot from the list, Win Lose or Draw was a mediocre format with celebs drawing bad pictures. I'll admit some of the pictures were so awful that they generated a little humor. But I actually agree with GSF in 2006 when they excluded the show from the top 50. As for He Said She Said/Tattletales, it was a mild and snoozy relationship show. A weak-tea Newlywed Game, you might say. I much prefer the stronger stuff with Eubanks and company.
I do agree with the selections of College Bowl and Weakest Link. I like well-paced quizzers. And as anybody would expect from the oldies board to end all oldies boards, Weakest Link is provoking the most disagreement from GSF members. Hey, it's only a decade and a half old!
I said I wasn't going to follow the entire list as they slowly roll it out. (Like the whole world is waiting in unendurable suspense.) And I won't bother following it on my blog. But I might post here as the selections come out, agreeing or disagreeing as we go.
GSF's 2006 list had an average age of 36 years. I expect a significantly higher figure this time, simply because almost all the selections will have ten more years of dust on them. You can't expect Game Show Forum to add many shows from the last ten years to balance out that effect.
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Post by Mandoli on Aug 30, 2016 12:11:00 GMT -5
Couldn't disagree more. Older is not necessarily better at all. In fact, Twenty One shows how older can be far worse. And that's what I meant. I never said that all older shows are far more superior. |
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 30, 2016 15:09:43 GMT -5
Actually, I was replying to Vahan. He's an unabashed older-is-better guy. Anyhoo, I expect to agree with many of the old shows on GSF's list, as I did on College Bowl. Funny thing, one of this board's moderators posted a comment on my blog that I'm a newer-is-better guy. Uh, no. I like good game shows of all eras. As I've said 88 zillion times, Match Game 1973-82 is my favorite game show ever and that includes everything.
On the other hand, I would have no trouble voting GSN's The Chase into the top 10, and I would vote for many other post-2000 shows like Celebrity Name Game, Hollywood Game Night, Baggage, 5th Grader, Cash Cab, Minute To Win It, Russian Roulette, 1 vs. 100, Deal or No Deal and Street Smarts. We'll see how many of these shows sneak onto the GSF list. To ruin the suspense, I'll guess not many. At least Weakest Link is on there, and I agree with that selection even if many on GSF are complaining about it. I'd also have a number of shows from the 1990s like Win Ben Stein's Money, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Greed, Inquizition and Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure why Game Show Forum is rolling out their list so slowly. In the original thread, the vote-collector said he would "begin posting the results next Monday, August 29, five at a time every couple of days." At that rate it could take something like three weeks to get the entire list out. Gee, only 48 people voted. It's not like millions around the world are in excruciating suspense.
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Post by WarioSajak on Aug 30, 2016 17:25:44 GMT -5
Older is not necessarily better at all. In fact, Twenty One shows how older can be far worse. Rigged quizzes were an outlier and applied to something like five shows overall, and you know that. Before the modern era of strict guidelines to prevent rigging, this fake show almost destroyed the entire genre as part of the 1950s scandals. There's no way Twenty One should be on any kind of greatest game show list. In fact, it wasn't even a good (or average, for that matter) format. That's why they had to rig the show to generate phony suspense, as none other than Mark Goodson once pointed out. And in this case, Goodson was wrong. Dan Enright rigged the show because the premiere had gone poorly, with more questions missed than answered. It had zero to do with the format. (Oh, and the rigged quizzes pretty much discredited television as a whole. It wasn't until the coverage of JFK's assassination in 1963 that the medium was really taken seriously again.) Still, Twenty One does have one overwhelming, supreme, all-important virtue in the eyes of most GSF members. It's old. Real old. Sixty years old. No wonder it gets onto their list. Orrrr maybe it's because "greatest" is subjective, and the original Twenty-One was the "greatest" example of the rigging that was going on between 1955-58. Aside from that, it's entirely possible some were voting more for the 2000 revival, since if you voted for a show (say, Pyramid) you were voting for the franchise as a whole, so you could move it up or down your personal list if you considered a revival superior or inferior to the preceding version(s). This is also why He Said, She Said/ Tattletales was one entry, or The Who, What or Where Game/ The Challengers, or Second Chance/ Press Your Luck/ Whammy!, or all the Password shows, and so on. And as anybody would expect from the oldies board to end all oldies boards, Weakest Link is provoking the most disagreement from GSF members. Hey, it's only a decade and a half old! Orrr maybe it's because of the show's cutthroat nature, the fact not much was ever played for, the fact 9/11 caused the idea of "foreigners mocking Americans" to be seen badly in many eyes, or the fact it overrelied on celebrity shows post-9/11. It should NOT be a crime to say "Older is Better". A lot of people, including the Game Show Forum, say that for a reason. Because older games in general seemed to have more of a heart to them. They didn't seem as rushed or as forced, like they are now. Also, many shows had effort put into them. Nearly all of them weren't built around big money at the expense of having a decent format, or getting contestants who could scream and yell/fit certain stereotypes at the expense of knowing how to play the game (good players would run the risk of having to give money away). If you were a 30-minute show, you were expected to tape in about 35 minutes tops unless something show-stopping came up; none of this "go on for hours and reshoot everything and put it together in post because shut up" crap. The "older" shows also tended to have effort put into their sets (then: still colorful when turned off; now: entirely greyscale when turned off) and music (then: great, catchy stuff; now: drone on and on with no rhythm or beat at all), plus had hosts who wanted to be there rather than just picking up a paycheck while waiting for something "better". |
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 30, 2016 23:38:51 GMT -5
Mark Goodson was rarely wrong about game shows, and he wasn't wrong about Twenty One. In fact, the flop of the honest version proved him right, although posthumously. The format just didn't work unless it was rigged. And I have to smile at the thought that GSF members put the show on the list because of the 2000 version. Come on, the show made the list because of the decades-old rigged version, and you know that as well as I do.
And I don't think that there are any "great" examples of rigging. Dump all those shows on a trash heap of infamy. They've got no business on a "greatest" list of any kind. Maybe you can make a separate list called Rigged But Important. And by the way, the rigging didn't discredit "television as a whole," but it did almost wipe out TV game shows as a genre.
As for Weakest Link's "cutthroat nature," well, just about every game show has winners and losers. Nature of the beast. I don't think 9/11 has anything to do with anything about game shows, and I don't even understand why you're dragging the tragedy into this discussion. Again, you know as well as I do that the main problem for many GSF members is that Weakest Link is "only" 15 years old. Such relatively recent shows get treated much more harshly on the board than shows with several decades on them.
Finally, on "effort" put into game shows...huh? Again, I don't really understand your point, but if you think modern-day game shows just happen with no effort, you're...mistaken.
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Post by Mandoli on Aug 31, 2016 0:30:53 GMT -5
Finally, on "effort" put into game shows...huh? Again, I don't really understand your point, but if you think modern-day game shows just happen with no effort, you're...mistaken. I see that as "hey, let's make a game show that's like everything else by making the grand prize seven figures". A lot of work is put into making a game show simple with knowledgeable contestants. (That's not to say that a million dollar game show isn't "simple".) |
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 31, 2016 9:18:01 GMT -5
This is basically the "mo money" objection to modern-day game shows, often heard on Game Show Forum. Of course, the rigged Twenty One (recently and laughably honored by GSF as one of the greatest game shows ever) showered $129,000 of corrupt money on Charles Van Doren, equivalent to $1,074,000 in today's debased currency.
But somehow the "mo money" objection fades away for the traditionalists when the show has six decades of dust on it. Looking over the list of relatively recent shows that I would put in the top 50, I see a number of shows that were downright skimpy with the cash. Nobody got rich on Cash Cab, Inquizition or Street Smarts, that's for sure. One of my fondest memories of Street Smarts is when one "winner" copped the grand total of...five dollars. Frank Nicotero reached into his pocket and gave the lucky contestant a five-dollar bill.
Maybe the traditionalists can complain about that now. Lord knows they'll always find something to complain about with any show less than a quarter-century old.
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 31, 2016 14:12:52 GMT -5
Game Show Forum wasn't kidding about the slow rollout schedule. They finally posted the next five 41-45 today. We're in for a very long haul, folks. And I'll tell you right now, these new five selections make me happy happy joy joy and angry angry growl growl at the same time. The shows from 41 through 45: Deal or No Deal, Jackpot, You Bet Your Life, 64K Question, Russian Roulette.
We'll do the happy happy joy joy first. Russian Roulette! YAYYYYYYY! Sure, the comments from the vote-collectors on this terrific show are annoyingly tepid at best. But this is GSF, after all. The show missed their top 50 list completely last time, which was a bad joke. At least some Game Show Forum members seem willing to evaluate relatively recent GSN shows with a bit of objectivity. A great quizzer with a great host and a great exit gimmick. Should be much higher up the list, but I'm glad it's there at all.
Now the angry part. 64K Question? BOOOOOOO! I'm not going through the full rant again, but can we just get rid of these rigged shows once and for all? 64K Question wasn't as blatantly rigged as Twenty One, but the pushy sponsor Revlon still tried to manipulate results in a corrupt and unacceptable manner. Yeah, I know it's old and that's good enough for a lot of traditionalists. But I say it's rigged and I say the hell with it.
Jackpot also gets the boot. It's only on the list because of its age, as even the vote-collectors seem to admit rather sheepishly. "I wonder whether this is a show that suffered from video being more readily available...This year, I watched the show again, and, well...like you said, it certainly was unique," one of them says with a wry face. This reminds me of Mark Twain's comment that Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds. Jackpot is just another one of those shows from the '70s and '80s that Game Show Forum tends to overvalue so absurdly.
Deal or No Deal and You Bet Your Life are obvious choices. No disagreement.
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Post by WarioSajak on Aug 31, 2016 14:21:25 GMT -5
One other comparison I forgot to mention: modern-day game shows almost always look for people who have a reason to "deserve" the money on offer and/or have a sob story that can be exploited. Game shows back in the day looked for people who could play the game well. Mark Goodson was rarely wrong about game shows, and he wasn't wrong about Twenty One. In fact, the flop of the honest version proved him right, although posthumously. The format just didn't work unless it was rigged. No, the format didn't work if it tried to shoehorn elements from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in, as the 2000 revamp did. I don't think 9/11 has anything to do with anything about game shows, and I don't even understand why you're dragging the tragedy into this discussion. Admittedly, I didn't make that clear: the ratings plummetted, so NBC forced the show to do a bunch of celebrity episodes. Again, you know as well as I do that the main problem for many GSF members is that Weakest Link is "only" 15 years old. Such relatively recent shows get treated much more harshly on the board than shows with several decades on them. Relatively recent shows get more flack because they try to follow in Millionaire's steps and/or put precedence over everything but "good contestants" and "good format" in order to give away as little as possible. Finally, on "effort" put into game shows...huh? Again, I don't really understand your point, but if you think modern-day game shows just happen with no effort, you're...mistaken. Modern-day game shows have substantially less effort put into them than game shows used to, or effort is put into the wrong places ( Who's Still Standing? focused on dressing the "Strangers" like stereotypes, Show Me the Money and Deal or No Deal did numerous retakes because shut up, Identity stalled to the point of absurdity the first time someone went for the top prize, 500 Questions went out of its way to not invite back the last winner of Season 1 to begin Season 2, etc.). I'm not sure why Game Show Forum is rolling out their list so slowly. In the original thread, the vote-collector said he would "begin posting the results next Monday, August 29, five at a time every couple of days." At that rate it could take something like three weeks to get the entire list out. Gee, only 48 people voted. It's not like millions around the world are in excruciating suspense. If you read the topic asking for votes, you'd know that they're being put out at this rate to facilitate discussion. Then again, given you've been doing little in this topic aside from bashing said discussion... |
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Post by WarioSajak on Aug 31, 2016 14:39:17 GMT -5
Yay, I get to do a double-post because more Casey Abell.  I'm not going through the full rant again, but can we just get rid of these rigged shows once and for all? No, because like it or not they're a part of the genre's history, and people can look at the format and say "Well, the format's good, but the execution was bad." Dotto and the original Tic-Tac-Dough were rigged, but they're generally considered to have had good formats. 64K Question? BOOOOOOO! [...] Yeah, I know it's old and that's good enough for a lot of traditionalists. But I say it's rigged and I say the hell with it. Never mind that the listing is The $64,000/$128,000 Question, and it's possible people voted because of the latter version, which has six episodes around (one Darrow, the rest Trebek). Jackpot also gets the boot. It's only on the list because of its age, as even the vote-collectors seem to admit rather sheepishly. [...] It's just another one of those shows from the '70s and '80s that Game Show Forum tends to overvalue so absurdly. The most recent version of Jackpot! ended in 1990. I think "video being more readily available" might refer to the longest-running version, the USA run, since it allowed more people to see that Mike Darrow paled in comparison to Geoff Edwards. |
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Post by carpetcrawler on Aug 31, 2016 16:41:48 GMT -5
A funny note: at GSF almost all the objections to the bottom five selections center on Weakest Link. Hey, the show is only 15 years old. How dare such "modern" stuff sneak onto our list!
are you really still beating this dead horse after almost a decade |
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Post by caseyabell on Aug 31, 2016 17:02:24 GMT -5
Except the horse is alive and kicking at Game Show Forum. It's still very much an oldies board, as the bashing of Weakest Link indicates. But I have to admit, the selection of Russian Roulette is a ray of hope. The vote-collectors, in the midst of various disdainful remarks about the show, admit surprise that it actually moved into the top 50, compared to its (ridiculous, IMO) exclusion in 2006.
One poster did have an interesting idea: "Are you overthinking the drop of Tattletales and Jackpot? So far they had the largest drop in voters -27 and -28. The average ranking for those that voted for Jackpot was the same 33. It appears that people that did not vote this time favored mid 70s shows last time."
That's definitely a possibility. The '70s and '80s were over-represented last time because, well, of the non-dead horse. This is Game Show Forum, folks. But maybe some of the harder-core oldies fans just passed on the vote this time, or they've drifted away from GSF entirely. (The board has been closed to new members for a long time.) The number of total voters fell by almost half compared to 2006.
It wasn't enough to get Tattletales and Jackpot out of the top 50 entirely, which I would advocate. But it was close for both shows as they fell quite a bit in the rankings. There may be more surprises in the voting as we very slowly move along in the Great Reveal.
Oh, just one more comment on the rigged shows. If you want to have a separate list for 'em, fine. But this is called the "Greatest" shows, and they don't belong, period. Again, to give GSF credit, the vote-collectors are noticeably uncomfortable about the rigged shows getting onto the list. And I have the feeling that we've seen the last of them. I can't imagine Dotto getting in there. The only rigged shows that made the list in 2006 were Twenty One and 64K Question, and they both fell several notches this time around. This again might indicate that the traditionalist stranglehold on the voting has loosened ever so slightly.
By the way, I'll continue criticizing choices I disagree with and praising choices I agree with. Don't like it? Don't read my posts.
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