12 years ago today, NBC pulled the plug on Caesar's Challenge and then discontinued daytime game shows FOR GOOD! To this date, January 14, 1994 is known as "Black Friday" to die-hard game show fans. From that day on, The Price Is Right is the only network daytime game show left on the air and Bob Barker is the sole-survivor of network daytime game show hosts. It's hard to believe that I've been miffed at NBC Daytime for 12 years!

It is? First I'd heard.

Well, on that we agree, anyhow.

Dude, get a freakin' grip.

Oh Gawd, Witch is back.

Ahmad Rashad is good on NBA Inside Stuff and he was on NBA on NBC, but he wasn't the best game show host.

Spike TV didn't actually revive Real TV -- those were reruns.

Chad Brown's better at poker too.

Ahmad did make the catch against Cleveland back at Met Stadium to put the Vikes in the playoffs that year.

Sorry, just like to interject the Vikings references when I can.

The classy group that they aren't.

God, a 12th anniversary. 12th. Is there even a substance for that? What is it, Formica? Lauan? Faux plastic pressed into crocodile scales?

I'm going with Gavaz on this one. Let it go. Game shows didn't die on that date. They just went elsewhere.

12th is silk or linen traditionally. Pearls are the
modern gift.

The date does mark the end of NBC being in the daytime game show business. Caesars wasn't cleared in my market, so for me C. Concentration a couple of weeks before was the end.

Whether the date will be significant to future TV historians is doubtful.

A teammate of Ahmad's who sat on the bench at that game was a "Caesar's Challenge" contestant.

This obviously doesn't matter 12 years after the fact...but how was he eligible for Caesar's Challenge?

Forget that, who was he? Benchwarmer Bob Lurtzema?

And back then, they WERE a classy bunch. You think Bill Cosby would let his TV wife marry a ne'er do well like the ones we've got now?

What all about being a professional athlete disqualifies you from appearing on a game show? Yeah, if you're a big name, you prolly did TV appearances or something and therefore have a SAG or AFTRA card, and that would disqualify you, but if you were in the trenches and otherwise a no-name, I can't think of any reason you couldn't. And if you were far enough down the foodchain (and if he was a benchwarmer, he might have been), he may not have spoken more than a dozen words to Ahmad.

However, the story I've always heard is that even if you've just briefly met Ahmad at a party, S&P has the right to call you ineligible. I still suspect that I didn't get on "Wheel" back in 1982 because I got a static electricity charge from Susan Stafford in a Chicago hotel lobby when shaking her hand (not to mention ol' dumbass me saying that I was trying out for "Wheel" with Nancy Jones standing next to her). On the other hand, I was extremely annoyingly perky during the tryout, so that could've been a bigger factor. (I know, that could get me on the show easily now.)

That's actually where I was going with this...and given that I know exactly nothing about the make-up of a football team, I could be totally off-base.

I would think that June 20th 1980 might come closer to fitting that description with three games being scuttled for a talk show. Or possibly even March 24th 1989 as that was the last day of NBC's three-hour game block. At least in those days most affiliates were pretty good about carrying network shows at specified times throughout the land instead of the "oh, just pick it up off the bird and beam it whenever you please if you even run it at all" system NBC Daytime has these days.

The Midwest NBC affiliates seemed to pioneer that technique in the late 80s...a 1987 promo from WOWT (Omaha/Council Bluffs/Lincoln) showed their lineup was all over the place, running soaps on the half-hour, game shows in the afternoons, etc...in fact, they didn't even carry the last year of $otC, opting instead to run Hour Magazine in the slot where it and (I assume) another GS previosuly ran, from 88-onward.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")