Something that, if uttered in public, would completely expose you as a game show nerd.

Mine would have to be the Tic Tac Dough 1978 board being controlled by 9 Apple II computers and an Altair 8800 system.

Probably that Thom McKee won $312,700 on TTD or that Michael Larson won $110,237 on PYL.

Oh, and there was a host of WOF before Pat Sajak...;)

Anthony

Cripe, where to begin?

Either:

The puzzle that Ms. Horowitz (sp?) won the tournament of champs with on the original Concentration was "DAMASCUS, SYRIA"

OR:

The only dollar values that have been on EVERY Wheel layout since the show premiered in 1975 are $300 and $500 (yes, including that *ahem* Goen version).

There are so many here. I hope you don't mind a few examples.

Tex Crenshaw was the first to win a car on TJW.

Allen Ludden hosted a pilot for TJW before the show made it to the air.

Wink Martindale hosted a handful of shows before he became famous for TTD.

There were two more daytime Wheel hosts because Pat left that version.

There even was a daytime Wheel.

Wow. A (bleep)load.

These are fanboi-ish?

2-12-1-9-4

2-11-17-7-4

2-9-17-8

2-8-18-16-13-3-5-11-7-4

Those are the 4 patterns Larson used to win his money. He didn't bother to use the 5th one: 2-4-12-17-8.

Gotta agree with those...don't think you can get any nerdier than that.

/I mean that in a good way

Here's another one:

All of the lights on the set of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Regis' version) used a combined total of 1,896 amps of electricity.

They are in our age group, anyway.

Name a game show, and I can [likely] tell you what kind of microphones and/or cameras were used.

Wait, that's more "techie" than "fanboy"....

The premiere dates to most of the more popular shows, in various incarnations. Off the top of my head...

The Price is Right
September 4, 1972
September 12, 1994 (Davidson)

Wheel
January 6, 1975
September 5, 12, or 19, 1983 (nighttime)

Feud
July 12, 1976
July 4, 1988 (Combs)
September 20, 1999 (current)

Pyramid
March 26, 1973
January 19, 1976 ($20,000 version)
September 20, 1982 (CBS)

Card Sharks
April 24, 1978
January 6, 1986 (CBS)
September 17, 2001 (Bullard)

And even a few short-lived shows.

Dream House
April 4, 1983

Whew!
April 23, 1979

Break the Bank
April 12, 1976 (Kennedy)

I could rattle off a few more, but I'm scaring myself here. :-P

"Sale of the Century" is the only game show known where a husband and wife pair were both undefeated champions and/or won the top prize. (IIRC, Richard and Rani White; Richard during the Winner's Board format, Rani during the Winner's Big Money Game format.) (Can I say I remember seeing this in a library book at university?)

The only time Hollywood Squares did not play a Secret Square game was during the "You Fool!" incident during Season 2. Not good enough? OK, the Mr. X involved in that incident also was a contestant on "It Takes Two" and, much earlier, "Wheel of Fortune."

Speaking of "It Takes Two," isn't that the last series Dick Clark hosted? (I think the blooper shows had run their course with Dick as host, and the NYE shows aren't in the same vein. Corrections welcome.)

'Brian

IIRC, he still hosted the occasional Blooper special up until the early-2000s. I think they still air from time to time, but Dick stopped hosting before his stroke.

Failing that, he hosted "Winning Lines" from early-2000...

billy crystal holds the record for the fastest pyramid bonus round

Clementson's called me several times on my arcane knowledge of who was working at each of the networks' technical departments.

Dick Clark would tape ten 'Pyramid' shows a day.

Chuck Woolery's later day 'Love Connecton' wardrobe was furnished by Bernini.

GSN has been airing 'Blockbusters' on weekend mornings for nearly 5 years.

I'll stop.

Family Feud's game show host week.

The staging of the host/panel desks for "What's My Line" was reversed for "I've Got A Secret" because Goodson and Todman knew IGaS was a ripoff of WML, and therefore wanted to make the show look as different from Line as possible.

The first episode of I've Got A Secret was staged like a courtroom, and it looked so terrible that the set was burned the next day.

When writing clues for the "Jeopardy!" board, the writers fit no more than 7 lines and 13 letters on each line for a clue.

The formats of "Double Talk" and "Celebrity Double Talk" were identical.

Just by viewing, I have determined the original preservation materials for over a dozen of the programs held at the Paley Center, and will supply them on demand.

Actually, he hosted at least two pilots for TJW before the show's premiere.

-Kevin

There's the old standby of "Blackout was the only game show (TV show?) to both replace and be replaced by (all in first-run) the same show, $25,000 Pyramid."

You can count on prices in the TPIR games Ten Chances and Safe Crackers to always end in zeroes.

And there's something about 1.5 million colors of light, I think . . .

I misinterpreted the first line of this, and was about to be very impressed that Brian (or anyone) could remember that much detail about the 70s $otC, which IIRC did eventually feature married couples.

Yeah, the dates thing is what I probably specialize in, most notably that the Monday after the original J! went off was when WoF premiered. And does anyone else remember the great two page spread in the TV Guide that week... decent shots of Celebrity Sweepstakes, WoF, Blank Check, and (who cares, but it was) How to Survive a Marriage.

There's also this... the premiere date of Match Game '73 was pushed back a week, apparently because of Watergate coverage. (At least that's how I understand it...)

This one's most frequent for me since GSN came into existence:

Someone asks why GSN doesn't rerun a particular show, and I can tell them that most of the run is gone and how many episodes are known to exist.

On Jeopardy, if you buzz in before Alex finishes reading the clue, your buzzer will be locked out for three-tenths of a second after the ready-light around the board goes on.

Until the set was rebuilt this summer, Price's doors still had a jack in them to plug The Phone Home Game into.

I'm sure my worst ones probably involve Nickelodeon game shows...

The Purple Parrots won exactly twice in season one Legends of the Hidden Temple, and far and away won the fewest episodes over the whole series.

Edd Kalehoff wrote the music to every Nick gameshow until Wild and Crazy Kids premiered.

Also (mostly because it makes me laugh), on What Would You Do?, the audience never let a contestant go to the Pie Pod without receiving the maximum number of pies available.

I weep, for I remember a day when that was NOT the case.

I'd say, knowing that the object for the players is to get three stars in a row, either across, up and down, or diagonally, and that it is their job to determine if the star is giving the correct answer or making one up, for that's how they get the square. Further, that each game is worth $100, and that they play a two-out-of-three match (they play for $200), and that there is also a Secret Square game. which is played after completing the one in progress.

/with a tip of the Le Show Chapeau to Myron Meyer

I've never been so grateful to just be a simple casual fan of game shows with a limited-at-best knowledge of the inner workings and obscure trivia tidbits of the genre.

/fanboy in denial

There are only three shows which have aired on GSN continuously, without interruption, for the network's entire history. Newlywed Game, Jeopardy, and Family Feud. And only Jeopardy has featured the same program series for it's entire run. No series of FF or NG episodes has continually aired on the network.

Alex Trebek hosted 3 Game Shows at the same time in 1991. They of course were Classic Concentration, To Tell The Truth, and Jeopardy!

http://bani.anime.net/o_rly.jpg

I remember the five-day winnings for Chuck Forrest, Bob Blake and Frank Spangenberg. ($72,800; $82,501; $102,597)

I know that Allen Ludden is buried in Mineral Point, Wis.

In 1987, the first two weeks in Hollywood Florida saw no Secret Square playings either.

The only time Bonus Game can be played first is if it's played for a car.

Does it count if you're revealing your game show geekiness to a fellow geek?

If so, another one: the final spin of the Joker's Wild $250,000 Tournament of Champions was Comedy Movies/Origins of Words/Art World. I remember scaring the crap out of Mitch Groff when I told him that in IM; he'd just seen it from GSN and I recalled it from its original airing.

Way too many of the couple's names who won houses on "Dream House", *and* the winning combination those who had instant wins won it with.

The first three instant wins:

Bob & Roxanna Maddox: 924
Lynn & Mark Hargill: 867
Susan & Lee Nelson: 916

First three house winners were not instant wins:

Jeff & Judy Abrams
Jim & Debi Barmundi
Nick & Holly Pappas

Yep... we all gotta have something. And I *know* I'm not the only one who can recite way too many openings to game shows.

Matt

Oh, that reminds me--in my youth (cough cough), I was far too fond of trying to figure out which pricing game on TPIR was going to be played based on the staging, prize reveals, etc. "Oh, look, three prizes, but the middle one is just a toaster--that must be Add 'Em Up."

YEAH. I was especially good at telling when they were getting ready to play Master Key or Ten Chances.

The split in the middle of the prize platform (it would break away to reveal a large prize like a car) was a dead giveaway, but no one watching knew it but me.

So the big door would open to reveal a luggage set and an encyclopedia and I'd be like "Car. There's a car."

Both the daytime and nighttime runs of TPIR have two third episodes.


As if I needed to prove my dorkiness...is that supposed to be a serious description, or maybe a typo of "Line em Up?" Because that's not even close to Add 'em Up.

Yes, but can you use the angle of the Turntable to predict Super Ball!! or Lucky $even?

The couple times I've decided to expose my game show geekdom in public it was reciting the (old) TPiR ticket plug or the rules to Nick Double Dare from memory.
I've also mentioned a couple of the names of Price music cues in public before.

Name any celebrity, and I can tell you whether or not they were a guest on "Pyramid" from 1973 to 1991.


Brendan

"The Price Is Right" and "To Tell The Truth" were in production at some point during the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s. If "Concentration" were to return with new episodes by the end of 2009, it would take that honor too.

Knowing who has nailed Alphabetics/Super Password on their first crack and which celebrities played only one week on both Password Plus and Super Password

Yeah, I goofed. And of all the times ... blast and drat it.

I, too, will claim an unhealthy ability to recite standard game show patter. "There are six of you, so once you buy a prize, you can choose to either bid on it, or you can Dare the other team to answer for double the dollars. We surveyed a recent studio audience, 8 letters in the word, and they gave us only a list of what was in the category. It's winner-take-all, so give the wheels a spin."

I'd really like to see this show!

(I must not be enough of a game show fanboy, because my knowledge seems to pale in comparison to many of the other posters in this thread...must be all that trivia about Amtrak operations over the past 36 years taking up too much space in my brain.)

If I'm a betting man, I'd say it would be a Jay Wolpert production.