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Forgotten Network/Syndicated TV Shows of the Past

bpatrick said:
Cullen had a few other forgettables:

Bank On The Stars (NBC, 1954; he replaced Jack Paar
as host)
Blankety Blanks (ABC, 1975)
Child's Play (CBS, 1982)
Pass The Buck (CBS, 1978)
Place The Face (CBS/NBC, 1954-55)
Winning Streak (NBC, 1974)
Click to expand...

As much as I liked Bill Cullen, he did seem to go through a lot of flops in the 70's and 80's, and most were produced by Bob Stewart, who had a tendency for producing game shows with short runs except for Pyramid, which was the only true classic game show he had after leaving Goodson-Todman.
 
Bill Cullen was absolutely better as a panalist. He had a fine wit and running the mechanics of a game show was something any competent announcer could usually do.

BC was a top morning man at WNBC in the 50's and early 60's, and of course probably best known as a panalist on IGAS. He really was wasted as a "quiz-master".

Joe
 
joeybabe25 said:
Bill Cullen was absolutely better as a panalist. He had a fine wit and running the mechanics of a game show was something any competent announcer could usually do.

BC was a top morning man at WNBC in the 50's and early 60's, and of course probably best known as a panalist on IGAS. He really was wasted as a "quiz-master".

Joe
Click to expand...

In his earliest days, Bill Cullen did radio for Pittsburgh Steelers games in the 1940's. :eek:
 
He also covered some sports events for "NBC Sports In Action,"
a clone of ABC's "Wide World Of Sports," in the mid-'60s.

His two main interests were sports and science; if a contestant
on "I've Got A Secret" was connected with one or the other, it
was almost a sure bet that Bill would come up with the secret.

Also, don't forget that he was a panelist on "To Tell The Truth"
in the Garry Moore/Joe Garagiola era (1969-78). He and Garry
were friends for years, and I think Garry talked him into being a
panelist on both "Secret" and "Truth." When Ann Cullen called Garry
to tell him Bill had died Garry thanked her, then said, "Excuse me while
I go somewhere and cry."
 
Winning Streak was truly forgettable for Bill, because under then the auspices of then-NBC daytime head Lin Bolen, he was dressed in leisure suits, butterfly collars, and shoulder-length hair!!! According to a post on the game shows newsgroup, poor Bill looked like "the world's oldest hippie"!

The same applied to Geoff Edwards on Jackpot!, with all those gold chains around his neck. He pretty much defined "bling-bling" decades before Snoop Lion, Kanye West, and others!
 
Lin Bolen liked to create "roles" for her hosts. For Alex Trebek,
she wanted a brooding, threatening look: the mustache for one,
and she told him to always wear dark suits. Chuck Woolery was
supposed to play the role of a country boy. Geoff Edwards was
supposed to be the playboy type: permed hair and leisure suits.
Jim McKrell was cast as a nice guy with a slightly naughty streak,
and his plaid sports jackets were supposed to fit that role.

When Dennis James was hosting daytime "Name That Tune" in
1974-75, he was told to let his hair grow out and to wear bell-
bottoms. He said he was embarrassed every time he looked at
himself. I'm not sure what she had in mind for Cullen, but she
was determined to update the look of the emcees as well as the
sets.

Lin Bolen is remembered as a joke; Ancil Payne, president of King
Broadcasting in the '70s, once referred to her as "the big screw-up,"
as she canceled several NBC game shows that were still doing reasonably
well and replaced the with few that lasted long ("Wheel Of Fortune" might
be the exception). Yet when she produced her own show in 1976, "Stumpers,"
did she hire one of her "young studs"? No. She picked Allen Ludden...and he
was recognizable as Allen Ludden and not some 50-something pretending to be
25 years younger.

She should have looked at the hosts on CBS (Bob Barker, Jack Barry, Wink
Martindale, Jack Narz, Gene Rayburn, Bert Convy, Dick Clark), all fashionably
but not outrageously dressed. Same for the ABC quintet of Ludden, Tom Kennedy,
Monty Hall, Bob Eubanks, and Jim Lange.
 
Anyone remember Rudy Valee hosting On Broadway Tonight in 1964/'65? Featured stars included Chita Rivera, Richard Pryor and Judy Garland, but the the main event for me was the show's theme song, sung by The Four Seasons.
 
I've wondered if Lin Bolen's drastic changes to NBC's daytime lineup was a factor in NBC stations like WMC in Memphis going to pre-empting a big part of NBC's schedule and replacing it with syndicated talk shows? I can remember that low ratings for NBC's game shows were used as an excuse by WMC to do so many pre-emptions, although I'm sure making more money was probably the bigger reason.
 
I wouldn't doubt it. I can remember when WOAI (then KMOL),
Channel 4 in San Antonio, carried all of NBC's daytime programming
except 11:30 AM (CT), when it had its midday newscast (it didn't
dare go up against market leader KENS at noon), but it started
pre-empting 10:30-11:30 for Dinah Shore's syndicated show as well.

In WSB's last year or two with NBC, it also pre-empted 10-11:30 AM
for Dinah.

And who knows how many NBC affiliates in the Central time zone elected
to run Phil Donahue from 9-10?

While of course money is what it's all about, it was difficult in the pre-Bolen
era to find many NBC affiliates pre-empting Dinah's NBC show, "Concentration,"
"Sale Of The Century," "Hollywood Squares," and "Jeopardy!" (although I know of
several stations that delayed it to 1 PM). Because of "Jeopardy!" a number of
NBC stations (like Channel 2 in Orlando and Channel 4 in Greenville, SC) would
pre-empt "Who, What Or Where" in favor of local news at 12:30. "Three On A
Match" at 1:30 got good clearances--maybe not the full network (Channel 4
in Nashville had its "Noon Show" at that time)--but it was the only show NBC
aired at that time between the loss of "Let's Make A Deal" to ABC in 1968 and
the expansion of "Days Of Our Lives" to an hour in 1975 that lasted more than
a year.

Most of the games Bolen put on ("Wheel Of Fortune," "High Rollers," and maybe
"Celebrity Sweepstakes" might be exceptions) were inferior to the ones she canceled.
And the ratings showed it. Meanwhile, ABC, with "Happy Days," "Family Feud," "$20,000
Pyramid," and the soap block of "Ryan's Hope," "All My Children," "One Life To Live,"
and "General Hospital" ("Edge Of Night" had too many delays or pre-emptions), became
the network to watch in daytime.
 
Does anyone remember an NBC early-80s animated prime-time show called 'Jokebook'? As I recall, it aired on Sunday nights for a few weeks one summer('81 or possibly '82), and was never seen again. It didn't even make the Brooks and Marsh book(then again, neither did NBC's very brief run of new 'Flinstones' episodes for about a month in 1981).
All I remember of 'Jokebook' was a sketch of some little kid intimidated by toilet training, who cautiously enters the bathroom, ascends the 'throne', so to speak, accompanied by the 'Also Sprach Zarathustra/'2001' music, sits on the bowl..and falls in!
 
I do remember "Jokebook," it was a sort of showcase for short animations, produced by Hanna-Barbera. Scatman Crothers sang the theme. I remember the cartoon about the kid's first time using the toilet; it was called "Jerome" and looked like a pencil test (animation of pencil sketches that were not yet cleaned up, inked and painted).
Another "Jokebook" episode featured the (undeservedly) Oscar-winning 1971 short "The Crunch Bird," but they changed the punchline to "Crunch Bird, my butt!"
 
rnigma said:
I do remember "Jokebook," it was a sort of showcase for short animations, produced by Hanna-Barbera. Scatman Crothers sang the theme. I remember the cartoon about the kid's first time using the toilet; it was called "Jerome" and looked like a pencil test (animation of pencil sketches that were not yet cleaned up, inked and painted).
Another "Jokebook" episode featured the (undeservedly) Oscar-winning 1971 short "The Crunch Bird," but they changed the punchline to "Crunch Bird, my butt!"
Click to expand...

The show premiered on 4/23/82, but I'm not sure how long it lasted. Here's a TV summary of the premiere episode:

"The world's top animators illustrate classic short takes and other humorous vignettes.
 
A few more I plucked out of thin air, all from 1990:

Haywire, American Chronicles, DEA, and True Colors (Fox)
Uncle Buck (CBS), based on the movie starring John Candy
Tim Conway's Funny America (ABC)
Barnyard Commandos (syndicated)
Ferris Bueller (NBC), which featured a future megastar named Jennifer Aniston

1990 was a mixed year; you had the good (Tiny Toon Adventures, Law & Order, In Living Color, Beverly Hills 90210, the return of Supermarket Sweep), the bad (the revivals of Tic Tac Dough and The Joker's Wild), the so-so (The Challengers (Dick Clark's first post-Pyramid game show)), and the "What the hell were you thinking?!" (Cop Rock)
 
anotherguy said:
bpatrick said:
Cullen had a few other forgettables:

Bank On The Stars (NBC, 1954; he replaced Jack Paar
as host)
Blankety Blanks (ABC, 1975)
Child's Play (CBS, 1982)
Pass The Buck (CBS, 1978)
Place The Face (CBS/NBC, 1954-55)
Winning Streak (NBC, 1974)
Click to expand...

As much as I liked Bill Cullen, he did seem to go through a lot of flops in the 70's and 80's, and most were produced by Bob Stewart, who had a tendency for producing game shows with short runs except for Pyramid, which was the only true classic game show he had after leaving Goodson-Todman.
Click to expand...

Stewart always seemed to be trying to clone "Password," which he created when he worked at Goodson-Todman (he also created the original "Price Is Right," which was likely the start of his association with Cullen). He got it right only once, with "Pyramid" (which, BTW, Cullen hosted in its syndicated version from 1974-79).

But Stewart did produce, and Cullen host, one of the more amusing games of the '60s: Stewart's first show as an independent producer, "Eye Guess." Failure to match the question and the right answer could result in some funny responses. The two also joined forces on "Three On A Match," the only show to compete successfully with "Let's Make A Deal" and "As The World Turns" before "Days Of Our Lives" expanded to an hour and moved into the 1:30 (ET) slot in 1975.
 
I've never heard of "Cop Rock". What was that?

-crainbebo
 
i remember seeing "On Scene: Emergency Response" on my nbc stations WYFF and also "Missing Reward" on the same station
 
JayR said:
One of the hosts was Jesse "The Body" Ventura.



On Scene: Emergency Response later changed its name to Fire Rescue: Emergency Response.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the late Dave Foreman (executive producer) sued by family members of a victim whose video footage aired (the victim died)?



Off-topic: The US Coast Guard is part of the Uniformed Services, not the Armed Services. Originally under the Dept. of Transportation, they are now under the Dept. of Homeland Security.



Top Cops originally aired on CBS Television on Thursday nights.



Gary Cole also starred in Wanted, which aired on TNT.



I never watched Night Heat during its original run but caught it in the mid-90s on WWOR EMI Service, where it aired nightly at 7:00 pm ET.

A syndicated show not mentioned in any post: Lightning Force.
Click to expand...
i remember seeing that footage i think it was shulman?
 
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