What’s Your Favorite Game Show?

Last week we had our annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner with some friends. I made the corned beef, cabbage, soda bread, and some very cute rainbow cupcakes. (Get it? As in “gold at the end of the rainbow”? I didn’t give them gold, though, I told them to imagine it.) The cupcakes were a fun surprise, but they had an even bigger one for us. They brought along a tape of their recent appearance on a game show! We had a blast watching them and to our delight they also won! It was so much fun. We didn’t catch it when it first aired and since they were under contract not to say anything, we never knew! It was fun to watch it and they felt good finally being able to tell us.

It got us thinking about game shows. I’m a huge game show fan, so much so that I actually proposed a “game show blog” to a client a couple years ago. (They said it was “interesting” but declined nonetheless.) It’s one of my “it will never happen” goals to be on a game show one day. Wouldn’t that be a blast?

Many of my favorite game shows are from the 70s. I don’t think it’s a nostalgia thing either, I just really believe that game shows were more hilarious back then. Here are a few of my favorites. See if you agree.

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Match Game

This has to be the all-time best game show ever, and if you watch it, you have to view the 70s version. In fact, I loved that they called it “Match Game 73″ or “Match Game 75.” There was a reason this game was so good. It had a formula. There were three regular players who were Richard Dawson (who later went on to host Family Feud and was also in Hogan’s Heroes), Brett Somers (who was initially brought on at the request of her husband, Jack Klugman) and Charles Nelson Reilly. Gene Rayburn was the host. While this show started in the 60s, the 70s versions are much better because Mark Goodson and Bill Todman took over production.

The remaining three seats were filled by guest stars, always a cute perky young lady in the bottom left, a guy in the top left, and a funny lady in the bottom right. The writing was outstanding, and they did a lot of double entendre. For example, in the clip below, “Have you heard about Charles Nelson Reilly? He got a BLANK while streaking.” The contestant would fill in the blank and try and match the stars.

The other thing that made this funny was that, in true 70s form, the panel was drinking, smoking, and just always messing up. They were having a blast, and it made it fun to watch. To this day, if a Match Game comes on the tube my hubby and I sit and watch.

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1 vs 100

I so wanted to be on this show! 1 vs 100 isn’t on anymore (sigh….) but it still airs in reruns. I would have wanted to be in the mob (of course!) because I think it’s way more fun than being a contestant. The gist of this game, if you’ve never heard of it, is you actually answer questions against a panel of 100 people. You try to knock them off one by one. When you get it right and they get it wrong, they are out. Trouble is, if you get it wrong, the mob members split your cash. If you knock the whole mob out, you get a million bucks. Here’s a clip:

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Identity

Identity was hosted by Penn Jillette (from Penn and Teller fame) and had a very short run. Still, I loved it. I was so good at this game, I would have totally kicked butt if I were on it. Besides that, at the time it ran, I had just found out that my “This I Believe” essay was the second-most popular on the entire NPR website. Second only to Penn Jillette, that is! It stayed that way for years and years, and now, four years later, it’s STILL the fourth-most popular on the site. At the time, every time I would watch this show I’d marvel at the popularity of my essay, because Penn was famous and no one knew (knows) who I am.

Anywho, here’s a clip of Identity if you missed it.

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World Series of Pop Culture

This is the only game show I have ever actually tried to be on. My husband and I are huge geeks, and we know a lot about pop culture. We had a friend who was equally geeky, and we decided to try out for this game. Unfortunately, the questions they asked in the sampler were so darn hard we never made it past the first round! LOL. But it was fun to watch anyways.

Here’s a clip:

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Duel

Duel was another short-lived series, but really clever. It was hosted by Mike Greenberg, who before this show I had only known from the sports world. Contestants had to use a different kind of strategy with this game, but it wasn’t just about knowing the answers.

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Jeopardy

On a daily basis, Jeopardy is the game show I watch the most. I tape it every day, and shout out the answers, all the time pretending I know them all. I tell myself I would kick butt on the show. I doubt I would. Sometimes this show really depends on the categories, though, so if I was on and say the category was “Tudor History,” I’d win it all.

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Grand Slam

I hope they have a few more seasons of Grand Slam, because this show was like watching the two smartest people in the world battle it out. The concept was that they took the biggest winners from tons of different game shows, and had them answer questions from math, verbal, trivia, literature, etc. It had people like Ken Jennings, John Carpenter, Brad Rutter, and Ogi Ogas. The one match with Ogi and Ken Jennings was one of the best I’ve ever seen in my life. Here it is:

Brainiacs rule. Totally.