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WHAT WERE THE BEST BLACK AND WHITE GAME SHOWS?

gregg75

gregg75

You rarely see them anymore. I think WHAT'S MY LINE and Groucho's YOU BET YOUR LIFE were tops. There was also TO TELL THE TRUTH, JEOPARDY (the old show was less technical, but still had lots of class), CONCENTRATION (I was awful at that one), PRICE IS RIGHT. Most were before my time so I'm sure there are some others.

The Game Show Network should take a night like Sunday and make it a retro night. I miss the Winston cigarette and Geritol logos plastered across the old show sets.
 
I DO remember watching the original "Jeopardy" in color with Art Fleming as host of the daytime NBC series. This show was great then, and is still great today. Probably will go down as the longest running game show in history, (if it ever is cancelled...unlikely). However, there may have been a stint between NBC and syndication when it was not on the air. A game show expert will fill us in, I'm sure.
 
There were two periods when "Jeopardy!" was off the air;
the first, from 1975 to 1978. The show was revived in the
1978-79 season with some format changes that no one
particularly liked: the player in third place after the Jeopardy
round was not allowed to play Double Jeopardy, and the day's
winner attempted to make a line of five in a row (five correct
"questions") horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, without missing
three, for a jackpot which built until someone did it. The show was
then off again from 1979 to 1984, when Trebek's version started,
and the rest is history.

GSN did have the old black-and-white game shows on Sunday
nights a few years back, all from the Goodson-Todman stable:
"What's My Line?," "I've Got A Secret," the Bud Collyer versions
of "To Tell The Truth and "Beat The Clock," "The Name's The Same,"
the Bill Cullen "Price Is Right," Herb Shriner's "Two For The Money,"
and an occasional obscure one like Lee Bowman's "What's Going On?".
There were some issues concerning cigarette logos; several years of
"I've Got A Secret" were not shown because it was the period when
Winston cigarettes sponsored the show; likewise, "Two For The Money"
was pulled because Old Gold sponsored the show and Shriner gave every
contestant a carton of Old Golds, win or lose in the quiz.

Most people would say "What's My Line?" was the best of the '50s b&w
game shows. My vote, however, goes to "You Bet Your Life," and I wish
I could see more of the George DeWitt episodes of "Name That Tune"
(1955-59).
 
They need to bring them back. GSN has had some success with shows like CATCH 21, PRESS YOUR LUCK and even BAGGAGE.

But I can do without LINGO, CHAIN REACTION and the new NEWLYWED GAME. Take those flops off and give us some retro........or some newer versions of the classic game shows.
 
I'm pretty sure "Squares" never aired in black and white, and I don't think "Jeopardy!" ever did either. There may be some BW kinnies of the original color shows, though.
 
Concentration would fit the bill, as the first episode aired in 1958, and was the last game show on NBC to go to Color (in 1965).
 
cwf1701 said:
Concentration would fit the bill, as the first episode aired in 1958, and was the last game show on NBC to go to Color (in 1965).
Click to expand...

Not only that but the original Price is Right that first aired on NBC in the 50s and early 60s with Bill Cullen (and his pet wind-up toys) and announcer Don Pardo!

Here's a kinescope clip of Bill and Don's last Price is Right on NBC before moving to ABC in the mid 60s. Was one of the first black and white game shows to switch to color during its NBC run. (wish the color videotape was still available though)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAUI0XS936c&feature=related.
 
...my personal choices would be I've Got a Secret (for Henry Morgan, just before he went whole-hog bitter, heh heh), What's My Line? (for Bennett Cerf on the panel and John Charles Daly's hosting) and Password (for the remarkably high level of intelligence and wit -- compared to later years' crops of stars -- displayed by the celebrity guests)...
 
Oh yes, I had forgotten Password. I was really horrible trying to guess the words, but got much much better as I grew older.

Allen had the hots for his future wife Betty White, but she gave him the cold shoulder for over a year before she finally started dating him. She always regretted having done that.
 
I was almost "raised" on Concentration. Loved the original 30-square format, plus I liked to see if adjacent squares would "jam up" or not, if a match was made in adjacent squares (well rectangles really). I missed that mechanical board.

I also had a new home game each year! I obtained the earliest two via eBay.

cd
 
kirkiefan said:
cwf1701 said:
Concentration would fit the bill, as the first episode aired in 1958, and was the last game show on NBC to go to Color (in 1965).
Click to expand...

Not only that but the original Price is Right that first aired on NBC in the 50s and early 60s with Bill Cullen (and his pet wind-up toys) and announcer Don Pardo!

Here's a kinescope clip of Bill and Don's last Price is Right on NBC before moving to ABC in the mid 60s. Was one of the first black and white game shows to switch to color during its NBC run. (wish the color videotape was still available though)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAUI0XS936c&feature=related.

How's this for a coincidence? When Bill Cullen's version of "The Price Is Right" moved to ABC, Don Pardo couldn't go, since he was under contract to NBC. Johnny Gilbert became the new announcer. Meanwhile, Don got the job announcing the Art Fleming version of "Jeopardy!", which he did for eleven years. And who has been the announcer on the Trebek version of "Jeopardy!" since its premiere in 1984: Johnny Gilbert.

Also, IIRC, Cullen's "Price" was in color on NBC, in b&w on ABC.
Click to expand...
 
bpatrick said:
There were some issues concerning cigarette logos; several years of
"I've Got A Secret" were not shown because it was the period when
Winston cigarettes sponsored the show; likewise, "Two For The Money"
was pulled because Old Gold sponsored the show and Shriner gave every
contestant a carton of Old Golds, win or lose in the quiz.
Click to expand...

GSN I can recall also had an "issue" with at least one of those Peter Marshall/Hollywood Squares episode that featuered Jan Murray telling a "gay Bruce" joke. Someone complained by making a claim that the joke implied that all men whose first name was Bruce are gay or whatever. I am pretty sure GSN did ended up pulling that episode as I don't recall ever seeing that episode since.

The best game show of that era to me was the Price is Right..just for those prizes alone. Wonder what Dotto was like?
 
"GSN I can recall also had an "issue" with at least one of those Peter Marshall/Hollywood Squares episode that featuered Jan Murray telling a "gay Bruce" joke. Someone complained by making a claim that the joke implied that all men whose first name was Bruce are gay or whatever. I am pretty sure GSN did ended up pulling that episode as I don't recall ever seeing that episode since."

The issue there may not be so much a political correctness issue. It might be that in these days when the name "Bruce" connotes, not something effeminate, but instead a masculine image of someone like Bruce Willis or Bruce Springsteen, the joke just isn't funny because it doesn't make sense any more.
 
I never knew how the whole Bruce=gay thing got started either. Maybe we can credit The Boss for helping kill it. Topic...I'd have to agree that the A-list Goodson-Todman games in the B/W era were the best, along with "You Bet Your Life", and for sheer brain power, "GE College Bowl".
 
I'd have to add "Who Do You Trust?" in the Johnny Carson era
(1957-62, ignore the Woody Woodbury era of 1962-63). Carson
perfected his interviewing and ad-libbing skills, as well as his timing
and facial reactions (indeed, everything but the monologue), that would
serve him so well on "The Tonight Show." And the contestants were
crazier than Groucho's by a country mile; my favorite is the guy who
took "air baths": he would lie down in front of an open window, let the
air waft over one side of his body, then he'd turn over and do the same
thing to the other side. Carson sniffed the air suspiciously, then asked,
"And I suppose if you want to take a shower, you turn on a fan?" That,
I've heard, was ad-libbed; in fact, head writer Roy Kammerman used to
complain that Carson ad-libbed better jokes than he'd written for him.
 
Not sure what years it ran, but at the time, I really liked Bill Cullen on "Eye Guess".
Seems like we later got a home version board game of this.
 
Eye Guess was a great show (although it's OT---all eps were color, running from 1966-69), and a very simple premise. Also one of the few board games to actually have the host's picture on it! Only 1 whole show has survived plus half of another*.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcUCHWmhTqM

cd (The "half show" survives as a B&W film)
 
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