Celebrity Sweepstakes

Here is the first part of the final NBC network episode of "Celebrity Sweepstakes", a show that ran from 1974-1976 on network and until 1977 in syndication. The show, hosted by Jim McKrell, had an obvious horse-racing motif and a checkered production history. There were legal wranglings between the two production companies involved, Burt Sugarman Productions and Ralph Andrews Productions. By the time this episode aired, Andrews was in full control of the show. The other parts are available to you in the sidebar.



There were a few format changes by the time the show ended - the celebrities, in the earliest episodes of the show, wrote their answers to EVERY question, and the odds were set on the basis of the questions themselves, not on the categories. There was also a tote board shown periodically that indicated the correct number of answers for each celebrity. I like this format, however, since it plays a little faster than I remember it. There was also a theme music change for about a year or so - an sprlightly Alan Thicke composition incorporating the "First Call" bugle tune heard at racetracks replaced the Stan Worth theme song heard here. And one of the nicer things about this show was that all contestants kept their money, even if they lost. One episode featured the loser going home with about $11,000.

In starting gate #4 we see Carol Wayne, then married to Burt Sugarman. She was a little less ditsy than I remember her being on the show, but she always had a sweet nature about her.

Yum! Peanut Butter

How about some peanut butter for a bedtime snack tonight? That was the conceit of this live commercial from a broadcast of the NBC game show "Say When!", hosted by Art James. However, that last little bit of the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar can come out a whole lot easier IF YOU BREAK THE JAR.

"Hollywood Squares", Old School

Has there been a game show with as many different theme music variations as "The Hollywood Squares", considering all the versions that have aired over the years? I generally don't link to these sorts of videos on YouTube, but this one is an exception. This is an end-of-show cut of one of the earlier versions of the show theme. Entitled "The Silly Song", it was composed by veteran television and film composer Jimmie Haskell and was used on the show from 1966-1969. It was supplanted by the composition more identified with that version of "Squares", which was called "Merrill and Bob's Theme" (honoring producers Heatter and Quigley) and was composed by William Loose.

There were maybe a half dozen more theme songs for "Squares" in the ensuing years, but this one seemed to be the most fun.

"OMG! Someone Got The Showcase Right! What Do We Do Now?"

This clip has generated a lot of debate on Internet game show boards. It is from Tuesday's episode of "The Price is Right", where apparently a fellow with a great love of the show and a photographic memory shouted out a number (23743) to a contestant, which sounded reasonable enough to bid.

What's hacking people off his how Drew Carey really underplayed this moment. And whether Mr. Know-It-All belongs in the audience of "Price".

TILT

Bob Sassone of TV Squad discusses "The Magnificent Marble Machine" and links to a YouTube presentation of what is possibly the only existing episode of the short-lived 1976 series.

Sassone gives all the facts correctly. The program was a concoction of the Merrill Heatter-Bob Quigley production company, which had greater successess with stuff like "High Rollers" and "The Hollywood Squares".

At the time of the show, pinball was ruling the arcades, with Gottlieb (Surfer, Bank Shot, Buccaneer), Williams (Space Mission, Aztec), Bally (Black Jack, Night Rider, Old Chicago) and Chicago Coin (Cinema, Sound Stage) putting oustanding product on location. (Of those four companies, only Chicago Coin still is in the pin biz under the name Stern.)

So why didn't this game show work? Because of its size, the machine action is very clunky, and the camera angles favored by director Jerome Shaw did little to enhance the action. Celebrities included the likes of Florence Henderson, Gary Burghoff, Leslie Uggams, Earl Holliman... you know the type. And one wonders if host Art James was aware of the absurdity of the whole exercise and just played along because he was such a pro.

The one thing that was improved about the show since this episode - which I believe was the fourth episode produced - was that music man Mort Garson eventually came up with more cues for the front-game ticker. And I do believe that NBC eventually demanded the show convert to an all-star format, which proved that the network didn't learn their lesson from tinkering with "Baffle" in the same way several years earlier.

Two Giants Leave Us...

Edie Adams.

Jack Narz.

Did these two titans ever occupy the same space on our mortal coil? Well, they now have something in common: an October 15, 2008 death date.

Alphabetically, Edie Adams is first. She was an actress, model, singer, comedienne, and trustee of the Ernie Kovacs video library. Edie wasn't Ernie's first wife, but she was his most beloved partner. Edythe often showed up on Ernie's television productions, including his early 1960's ABC specials which capped his career (and were for the most part preserved on black-and-white videotape). She continued her career after the horrible car accident in January 1962 that took Ernie's life. (Ernie spun out his Corvair station wagon, which didn't exactly prolong the life of the car that eventually became a Ralph Nader target.)

Jack Narz, from Louisville, Kentucky, was an influential early television announcer on shows like "Space Patrol" and "Life with Elizabeth", then branched out into game and quiz show hosting. His "Dotto" daytime show was the show that blew open the quiz show scandals, when a standby contestant was spotted studying a list of answers. There were a lot of people whose careers were either ruined or curtailed by the scandal, but Jack Narz was one of the few who continued his successes uninterruped, with shows like "Seven Keys" and "Video Village".

In 1969, Narz began a series of assignments for Goodson-Todman, including the newly-syndicated "Beat The Clock", then a syndicated version of "Concentration" (Gene Wood took over "BTC" for its final seasons), and a CBS network show, "Now You See It". Additionally, Narz still worked as an announcer, working such shows as "Card Sharks" and another CBS network version of "Beat The Clock" hosted by Monty Hall. He often appeared on other G-T shows' panels like "Tattletales" (with wife Doe, who was one of the first women to serve as a flight attendant), and "Match Game". Jack also did a lot of appearances with brother Tom Kennedy on shows both men hosted. Tom would pop in on Jack on "Beat The Clock" one week, then Jack would visit Tom on "It's Your Bet" the next.

Jack had been in extremely ill health, suffering two massive strokes in the last three weeks of his life, and suffering renal failure. But Jack fought to the end, and even with his glory days behind him, enjoyed telling stories of his successes and meeting fans enthralled by the GSN reruns of his 70's shows.

CBS Promo for "Spin-Off"

Here is a selection of filmed CBS promos for game shows airing in the 1975 season. There are promos for "The Joker's Wild", "Spin-Off" and "Now You See It". What's especially significant about the "Spin-Off" promo is it's probably the only footage you'll ever see on the show.

Presumably, the tapes were found a few years ago for "Spin-Off"'s 55 or so episodes (the show only ran for 11 weeks) at WCBS in New York, but no one is jumping at the chance to air them again, presuming the tapes are in airable condition.

When "The Joker's Wild" went off the air in June 1975, "Spin-Off" was its replacement. One of the very few network game shows from the New York-based packager Nicholson-Muir Productions, it was said to be an early TV adaptation of "Yahtzee". Married couples competed, answering questions to win the right to spin five displays in front of them. The displays flashed numbers at the rate of 17 different numbers from 1-6 per second; I'm presuming that the displays weren't totally random, like "Press Your Luck"'s patterns on its game board which in one case were studied and conquered, but the faster flash rate of 17 per second probably thwarted any attempts at memorization. Whichever couple made the best hand won the game and cash, with two out of three earning the couple the chance to play the Super Spin-Off for $10,000.

"Spin-Off"'s pilot was shot at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, with veteran game show producer Willie Stein as showrunner and veteran soap opera director Bob Schwarz at the helm. The series was produced at Television City, and Jim Lange hosted, fresh off his stint hosting "The Dating Game". However, the show was not able to overcome NBC's "Celebrity Sweepstakes" in the ratings, and after just a few weeks on the air, "Spin-Off" spun off into TV oblivion, to be replaced by a newer, more exciting show from Bill Carruthers Productions called "Give n Take", hosted by - surprise - Jim Lange.

While Nick Nicholson and Roger Muir blew their chance at network TV game shows, they had plenty of minor successes in syndication, with shows like "The Money Makers", "Pay Cards", "Super Pay Cards", "The Shopping Game" (perhaps their rarest show, hosted by Art James and produced for a little-carried early cable network named SPN that also aired public-domain movies from Poverty Row studios, reruns of "I Married Joan" and auction programming), and the later version of "Howdy Doody" (Muir was a producer of the show when it was an NBC property, and Nicholson briefly played Clarabell). Nicholson and Muir also were the credited creators of Chuck Barris' "Newlywed Game". Another hallmark of these N-M-P shows was their reluctance to tape in Hollywood or New York - "Pay Cards" was done in Cincinnati, "Super Pay Cards" in Canada, and "The Shopping Game" in Nashville.

Here are the promos - if you listen carefully at the very end of the "Spin-Off" promo you'll faintly hear the first few bars of Nicholson's appropriately whirling-dervish-like electronic theme for the show.

We Only Ask This Every Five Years...

Last we trotted this one out was in '03... high time we pleaded with you all again. Back on January 1, 1995, I scribbled on the USENET group alt.tv.game-shows (don't even go there today, it's not worth your time):

How did Vanna White's singing debut on last night's pre-taped "Merv Griffin's New Year's Eve" go? To me, it was underwhelming. She sang "You Do Something To Me" from the roof of some hotel in Beverly Hills, then we found out who she was singing about: her son Nicholas.

More exciting than Vanna's singing was what came before it: Mort Lindsey and the band played the new version of the "Wheel Of Fortune" theme, "Changing Keys". It was the exact same arrangement used on the TV show beginning this season.

Certainly someone has this on tape somewhere.... if so, YOUTUBE the damn thing. I'm particularly interested in the WOF theme music rendition, which is not only my favorite version of all those of the Merv Griffin "Changing Keys" theme, it's also the rarest. The complete theme is not available. Just a 30-second loop of part of it taken from a video game or something like that.

"So, what do you do for a living?"

An easily answered question, but in 1950, producer Mark Goodson answered the question most eloquently with a pioneering panel show called "What's My Line?". For seventeen years, and another seven in syndication, a parade of people with the widest variety of jobs you could imagine passed by a panel of four whose job it was to ask questions to find out what they did. "No" responses caused the questioner to lose his or her turn; ten "No"'s and the contestant won $50.

In 1975, ABC (of all networks, since "WML" remained CBS property) mounted a 25th anniversary special for the show, featuring Mark Goodson, panelist Arlene Francis, and original host John Daly. Thanks to the good offices of Mike Klauss, you can see this special. Part 1 is embedded below, and you can easily get to the other eight parts from there. Enjoy.



On the same subject, J. Keith van Straaten is currently mounting his What's My Line Live Onstage show in New York City on Monday evenings - check it out!

Cleveland Rocks, Cleveland Rocks, Cleveland Rocks.... Ohio! (hio, hio, hio)

As I'm sure you've heard by now (because you're surfing legit news sites rather than going blogging), Drew Carey has accepted the hosting vacancy at "The Price is Right", after an extensive search that saw many legitimate contenders (and Rosie O'Donnell) vie to tread the sacred ground of the Bob Barker Studio at CBS, long corded mike in hand, presiding over pricing games and Showcases.

How does this corner feel about it? Great! We've been watching Drew in action for years both as sitcom actor and as host of "Whose Line Is It Anyway", but now he gets to interact with real people trying to win prizes. The deal was literally finalized as Drew was preparing to go on air with David Letterman earlier this evening, so the Letterman crowd was the first to hear the announcement that Drew is now the Plinko Master.

How's poor ol' Nikki Blonsky, so wonderful in "Hairspray" (which I saw today), gonna follow that? Perhaps signing on as one of Carey's Cuties?

Tommy Oliver 1932-2006

Bandleader Tommy Oliver, who was perhaps best known for being the musical director of "Name That Tune" during the 70's and 80's, died yesterday in California at the age of 73.

Tommy was a noted record producer and bandleader in the 1960's, working with such acts as Joannie Sommers ("Johnny Get Angry"), and later branched into television. He was the musical director for the late 70's "Laugh-In" revival that featured, among others, Robin Williams. He also became musical director of "Name That Tune" later in the 1970's, succeeding Bob Alberti, sharing the stage with a young singer named Kathie Lee Johnson (Gifford). Among the players in his band were the lead trombonist from the Tonight Show orchestra, Gil Falco, pianist Bill Mays, and drummer Frank Capp.

After his replacement on "Name That Tune" by the late Stan Worth, Oliver joined Sandy Frank Productions for a pale carbon of "Name That Tune" called "Face The Music", hosted by Ron Ely. But when Frank finally acquired the rights to "Name That Tune" and successfully mounted a revival in 1984, Oliver was again at the podium. That, however, was Oliver's last TV gig.

Survivors include five children and two grandchildren.

LA Times death notice

A Modest Proposal

GSN, The Network For Games, routinely features an hour of black-and-white programming from old kinescopes in its 3 a.m. timeslot. Programming is culled from the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman archives, featuring shows like "Password", "What's My Line", "To Tell The Truth", and "Beat The Clock" among others.

This one is a no-brainer for GSN. Apparently, the network can get pretty darn cheap the syndicated library of "You Bet Your Life" which was packaged in 1961 under the title "The Best Of Groucho" for local syndication by NBC Films. When the films were repackaged, editors very carefully removed all references to NBC (except for the NBC "snake" in the show's closing logo) and the show's sponsors which included DeSoto-Plymouth Dealers, Ford and Toni Home Permanent, which explains grainy closeups of Groucho in some scenes. New open and close bumpers were edited in.

The films have been relatively unseen in recent years, with the exception of a package of original cuts of the show (with all original bumpers, commercials and logos kept in) that have aired sporadically on PBS stations. The show had a surge of interest in the mid-1970's (during a nostalgia craze which included a major revival of Marx Brothers movies, including the suppressed "Animal Crackers"), when the syndicated films began showing up in late-night time slots on local stations and got huge ratings against 11 p.m. network-affiliate newscasts.

Of course, the game (rudimentary as it was) took a backseat to the interviews of the contestants conducted by Groucho Marx, which were largely concocted by a staff of writers who projected Groucho's seemingly adlib quips on large projection screens out of site. More material was filmed than needed (and yes, I said filmed - the show was actually shot on film and then edited into a half-hour unit, with some of the rest of the material adapted for an NBC Radio version) to ensure the best material would get on the air.

The result? Classic television that seemed unpredictable, but was very tightly controlled by producer John Guedel, directors Bernie Smith and Bob Dwan, and writers Hy Freedman and Howard Harris. George Fenneman was the straight man/announcer, and at various times the band was led by Jack Meakin and Jerry Fielding.

All of which is pretty attractive to GSN's 3 a.m. audience of insomniacs. How about it, GSN? Pay the freight and get Groucho back on TV.

Pat Sajak's Head Is Out Of Control!

Is it just me, or does Pat Sajak's forehead get bigger with each passing year? When he started on "Wheel Of Fortune" in 1981, it was a manageable size. Now his cranium is just plain out of control. I think "Wheel" has been renewed through the 2010-2011 season, and by that time they'll have to strap that sucker down to keep it from exploding in the middle of the Mystery Round.

The Answer Is...."Offer to do his taxes free for life"

How does America's leading tax preparation company get publicity out of Ken Jennings' loss?

One Last Question For Ken Jennings

Who's doing your taxes this year, pal?

Alo-huh to Gene Wood...

I'll explain the headline later, but Professor Steve Beverly reports that longtime game show announcer Gene Wood has died of cancer at the age of 78.

He is perhaps best remembered for his years announcing "Family Feud" (1976-1994) as hosted by both Richard Dawson and the late Ray Combs. He has a raft of other credits in the game show field, everything from "The Price Is Right" (where he filled in for Johnny Olson after his death) to a succession of shows with Bert Convy, including "Super Password" and "Win, Lose Or Draw", where Gene once introduced a week's worth of shows from Hawaii with the slightly mispronounced "Alo-HUH!" Bert and Gene had a great working relationship that spilled over onto the screen.

Gene was also a clever, creative man. He wrote the script for the compilation feature "The World Of Abbott And Costello" and worked with Captain Kangaroo on scripts for that show's animated "Lariat Sam" segment, produced by Terrytoons. At breaks in taping of game shows, he'd pick kids out of the audience and rehearse them in re-enactments of old movies or corny melodramas, just for fun.

Gene's mischeviousness could also spill out on camera: when celebrating a milestone performance for host Jim Perry on the old NBC "Card Sharks", Gene came out on stage before Jim and produced a case of fine wine for him. The gag was for Gene to give away the bottles to those who he thought deserved to share in the success of the show, everyone from producers to hangers-on, until Wood was left with just an empty crate to give to Perry as he entered.

Gene Wood even graced this blog once:



That's Gene with Richard Dawson, holding up the official flag of Monmouth County, New Jersey, which served as the home base for all of the Mackey Brothers at various times (in fact, Robair still lives there).

Gene's last work as announcer was as a fill-in post VO on "The Price is Right" in 1998, during a Rod Roddy illness.

Art James Passes On...

One of my game show favorites, Art James, has died. He was either 74, if you believe the New York Times, obit, or 71, if you believe the IMDB entry under his name. Among his shows was a little trifle called "The Magnificent Marble Machine." In the first year of the Usenet group alt.tv.game-shows, I had this assessment of James and his career, and most of what I said still holds today, except for the opinion that "Pay Cards" taped in New York - he did that show in Cincinnati. In case you don't recognize "It's Academic", it was a high school quiz bowl show that aired in the 1960's in New York; the Washington, DC version still airs today on WRC with original host Mac MacGarry (since 1961!) still at the helm.

I saw weeks and weeks worth of episodes [of "Magnificent Marble Machine"] -- the show aired beginning in the summer of 1975, when most kids aren't in school -- and being somewhat of a pinball man, I thought it was a technological marvel defying every rule of pinball engineering. Did you ever see how slow that ball traveled on that machine? They really did have to keep it on the simple side for television purposes, but Heatter-Quigley's art director at the time, Romain Johnston, really made the machine look colorful. The arcade atmosphere carried through to the carnival-style music composed for the show by Mort Garson, who wrote some of the best themes of the early 70's. And, of course, there was lots of format and game play tinkering typical of HQ shows, eventually ending up as an All-Star version (like "Baffle" before it)

I really thought Art James was among the better hosts. It's hard to believe that "MMM" was one of only two shows he did on the West Coast -- the other being "Blank Check". All his other shows were done in New York ("Say When!", "Who, What Or Where Game", "It's Academic", etc.), Canada ("Super Pay Cards") or Nashville ("The Shopping Game"). I think he did the original "Pay Cards" out of New York too, since it was pretty close to Nicholson-Muir's home base of Larchmont, NY. But I think ol' Art will be best remembered for his Peter Pan Peanut Butter blooper. These days you can hear Art from time to time as announcer, on shows like "Family
Feud" and "Tic Tac Dough".

Who Will Replace Rod?

Who says no electioneering outside polling places? You are outside the door of the polling place for CBS.COM's
"The Price Is Right" web page. They are soliciting opinions on who would be the best announcer to continue in the footsteps of Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy.

Your choices are the four who have already had on-air auditions: Burton Richardson, Randy West, Art Sanders, and Daniel Rosen.

I'm sure Messrs. Richardson, Sanders and Rosen are nice enough guys, but I implore you: if you have any respect for the tradition of the program and the natural order of progression, your vote must go to Mr. Randy West. Follow the links below to read Randy's tribute to Johnny O, the original "Come On Down!" man from 1972-1985, and then go to CBS and vote Randy. Thank you.

Randy tells the story of Johnny Olson's life and career on his website
CBS - TPIR Announcer Poll

In Case You Missed It Last Night..

Hope you saw this Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" rerun on Game Show Network... you never know who may show up at the game!

Rod Roddy 1937-2003

Robert Ray "Rod" Roddy, announcer on "The Price Is Right", died this morning in a hospital in Los Angeles, at the age of 66. He had been hospitalized for the past two months with breast and colon cancer.

Besides "Price", other game shows with Roddy as announcer included "Press Your Luck", "Love Connection", and "Hit Man". He also provided the voice of Mike the microphone on "Disney's House Of Mouse". He had also been a disk jockey, working in the early days of Top 40 radio with such legends of the genre as Todd Storz and Gordon McLendon, and also branched out into radio talk, including one particularly memorable stint at KLIF in Dallas.

A week ago, I appealed to you to send cards and letters into Rod as soon as possible. Nobody would say as much, but we knew that we were going to lose this much beloved member of the Price family.