If he had been known for only Give-n-Take and The Neighbors, Bill Carruthers would've been the Scott Sternberg of his day. But he was given a second chance with Second Chance, where he redeemed himself, especially as Second Chance evolved into the all-time favorite, Press Your Luck. Like Jim Peck used to always say, "It's never too late to take a second chance." Or a third, depending on how you look at it.
The swirling whirlwind was also used in beat the clock from 2002 with Gary Kroger. Honestly that’s crazy that they use this even before 2002. Gary Kroger‘s version was the only version I knew the swirling whirlwind from until I heard of the Diamond Head game. I think I’ve seen the Diamondhead game once but I don’t really remember it even though it was a few years ago. It was on UA-cam that I saw it.
I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for MMM, even being as clunky & unambitious as it was. Besides that, you NAILED it. Blank Check is easily the most brainless concept Jack Barry ever concocted, & it's SHOCKING to even say that given his track record with fantastic quizzers like The Joker's Wild & Tic Tac Dough. It's hard to see Give-n-Take as anything other than filler until Price's expansion to an hour; I think that show was lucky to make it beyond the drawing board owing to perfect timing. Diamond Head Game is to game shows as cubic zirconia is to actual diamonds (even that might be a stretch). As for The Neighbors...the theme song from the pilot episode just might be the most dreadful noise ever heard in a game show. YOU SWEPT THE BOARD. Honorable mention to Celebrity Sweepstakes, whose novel premise was picking a celebrity & hoping they know the answer.
I was probably one of the very few viewers who actually tuned in every evening to watch "The Diamond Head Game" during its run in 1975. But I admit I only did so to get my daily look at host Bob Ewbanks' assistant Jane Nelson, whom I had a severe crush on back then.
There's one more criticism you could make about "The Magnificent Marble Machine": the "electronic marching" sound effect used as each clue appeared on the display. It seemed useless to me except to say, "hey, it's 1975, we have electronics, we have to sound electronic."
In regards to "The Magnificent Marble Machine", according to Bob Stewart it would have taken 20 trips to the magnificent marble machine to win over $50,000.
"Give-N-Take" was a revival of sorts of the Art James-hosted "Say When"... build your own Price Is Right Showcase with a price limit...come close to the limit without going over to win the accumulated prizes ...only contestants don't pass prizes over to another to make them go over the limit or spin an arrow pointer to pick a prize.
One thing you forget to mention about Blank Check: The theme song. The melody is a ripoff of Chump Change which was used on Now You See It. The melody was close enough to get a lawsuit from Quincy Jones.
As an 11-year-old in 1975, I liked Magnificent Marble Machine. But maybe it was that I was kid then, and did play some pinball. The word-play front portion was not bad ("A child's favorite beer." "ROOT," says Artie Johnson.) Scrabble would later use this same word play. Now the pinball portion, looking back at it now, was painfully slow. A standard pinball game ran much quicker. (Maybe the board needed to be tilted forward more, to speed up the gameplay?) But the actual job of the pinball game portion wasn't to test reflexes, but to try to hit the bumpers to win prizes. It would have been a total dud if most of the players ended up with little prizes if the game got too fast. Now onto the comparison to Press Your Luck. When I watched the classic PYL episodes closely, there actually is less strategy in the play / pass mechanics than you think. Especially in the second round; I could count one, maybe two, times where the player had to make an actual play / pass decision, and the rest of the spins were mechanical. (Ironically there was more strategy in the first round, where the goal is to seed yourself for the second round.) [That would be one thing to research: how many times the top seed / middle seed / lowest seed won the game. My feeling is that there was little difference in the top and middle seeds, so the main goal was to just not finish last in the first round.]
Even at the tender age of 11 (I'm dating myself here, I know), I could recognize that The Neighbors was utter garbage, and to this day, I consider it one of the worst things I have EVER seen on television. As for it being a Newlywed Game ripoff, didn't Bill Carruthers work for Chuck Barris before setting up his own operation? I believe he did.
It's too bad Art James final show on tv, "Catch Phrase", didn't last longer. It seemed like a great format, but it may have lasted longer had the technology been more advanced at the time. After this, he spent the rest of his life presenting game show style presentations to stake holders of large corporations.
Also, I forgot to say the 2002 version of beat the clock took some stuff from the diamond head to him. I’m sure whoever produced us either really liked the diamond head game or didn’t even know that they were taking certain parts of the diamond head game like the swirling Roland and the assistant. I forgot to say that I don’t think the producers of beat the clock 2002 knew they were stealing segments from the Diamondhead game. One of the things they took from the diamond head game that I didn’t realize until now was the assistant. Because they had an assistant just like on the diamond head game. Like I mentioned earlier about the swirling whirlwind it’s crazy to me that they took that concept from the diamond head game and put it in beat the clock. Honestly, that’s funny to me! I don’t think whoever produce the two I don’t think you’ll ever produce the 2002 version four packs of beat the clock really new about the diamond head game or maybe they like the diamond head game who knows. I just think it’s a funny coincidence that it was used in 2002 on a completely different show, by it, I mean the assistant and the swirling whirlwind.
Those are probably the five I'd pick, but Diamond Head Game is #2. I could at least somewhat tolerate the others, though I admit almost dozing off during Blank Check. Give-N-Take only had two good things- ad adequate host and an excellent announcer. '75 also had some very underrated games, like Big Showdown and Dealer's Choice. The former is one of the best games I have ever seen.
I wasn’t even born where these game shows were bad. My brother was born in 1975 which was the year when game shows literally went down the toilet. Compared these to “Tic-Tac Dough ‘90”, these were the worst of all game shows way back in 1975. It was the year when disco was hot. Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” became a classic. So did “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain & Tennille, “Laughter in the Rain” by Neil Sedaka, and other songs from 1975. The movie “Jaws” was a masterpiece.
So The Diamond Head Game and Blank Check both premiered on January 6, 1975 and ended on American Independence Day 1975. Well, there was one other show I know of that started on January 6, 1975, but instead of ending on July 4 of that same year, that show is still on today and is even known as "America's Game." Why even bother mentioning it when just about everyone here knows what I'm talking about?
Allstaritis (n.) - A terminal condition affecting game shows. Occurs when a struggling program removes contestants from the gameplay & shifts to an all-celebrity format. It is intended to either boost ratings (in which case there is a 0% success rate) or expedite the show's demise (in which case there is a 100% success rate!). Victims of this dreaded illness include Baffle, Password (ABC), Whew!, Bullseye, & Hot Potato.
I have to admit, I didn't think the idea behind Catchphrase was bad.. .it is just obviously terribly date, and had issues being put together. My question is .. how did Diamondhead only end up as #3?
I'll have to go catch the Neighbors to see what it's like,. I haven't seen any of that one.. I watched one Blank Check on youtube before...so you might be right on bumping it down to #3.
+Professor von Quizzelstein Catchphrase didn't have issues being put together- rather it was the crowded 80s syndication market that spelled its' doom. Of course, while it went onto huge success in the UK, Marty Pasetta never forgot about it. He tried twice in the 80s to rework, first as Puzzle Roulette, then just The Puzzle Game, both with Jim Lange at the helm. He tried it once more as "All-new Catch Phrase" in 2006, with Todd Newton, but that didn't pan out. And of course, Art James would go on to host the failed pilot for "Truth or Date", which was a hilarious trainwreck, thanks to two out of the three contestants being replaced by interlopers who promptly brought the show off the rails, not to mention the public lewdness displayed on the videowalls.
Another one you could possibly argue about it being a rip-off was "Rhyme & Reason" (ABC, July 7, 1975-July 9, 1976), hosted by Bob Eubanks. It had two contestants and six celebrities being read a root phrase. The contestants needed to write down a word that rhymed with the last word and hoped the six celebrities came up with the same word. Sounds like "Match Game", doesn't it? I believe there's at least one episode on UA-cam somewhere. According to "The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, 3rd Edition", a couple of regular panelists included Jaye P. Morgan and, of course, Nipsey Russell. Thankfully, the Monday after it was cancelled, it was replaced by a little show called "Family Feud".
“Rhyme & Reason” was the one that I don’t know off lasted for one season until 1976. In the final show, the contestants or panelists just destroyed the entire set completely. I wish if there is a finale of “Rhyme & Reason” exists if it’s in audio form, I would love to hear it.
BTW, a user named “epaddon” has posted the final episode of “Rhyme & Reason”, but sadly, it was in audio form, but you can’t get a full video of that, and what happened was the entire set got destroyed completely. Here it is for your enjoyment. ua-cam.com/video/d8EYugdZdNo/v-deo.html
As Bob Barker once said, 1975 was the time you couldn't turn on your TV set without finding a game show. Triple M was pretty good in my book. More chance than skill and Stan Worth's music score was awful. GNT was OK, but nothing special. DHG was laughable even Bob Eubanks posted fun of it as you posted. The one dollar gimmick seems like something Dan Enright created. The only good things about BLANK CHECK was it used the same theme as NOW YOU SEE IT, Quincy Jones' CHUMP CHANGE and the title would later be used as a pricing game on THE PRICE IS RIGHT, now known as CHECK GAME. THE NEIGHBORS was the 1970's HOW'S YOUR MOTHER IN LAW, a show host Wink Martindale poked fun of. As always, these video posts are fun.
The pilot of Blank Check used the NYSI theme. But once the regular series made it to air, they used a sound-alike theme song by a one Alan Thicke though since by the time Blank Check made its NBC debut, NYSI was still on the air and Blank Check was unable to use the "Chump Change" theme.
megamanj2004X As I said before, it was commonplace for shows (esp. game shows) to use already-existing pieces of music as its theme at the pilot stage before using a soundalike as a series.
I actually KINDA like tMMM. Note I say Kinda, because other than the long drawn out and annoying word clue round, the Pinball round was pretty spectacular for it time!
The Neighbors should be at number one all time worst ever game show, however, the other game shows were very good, my mother {now deceased} love watching those four other game shows and she did hate The Neighbors game show!
Alan Thicke wrote the theme songs to The Diamond Head Game and Blank Check. The Magnificent Marble Machine theme song and prize music was composed by Mort Garson who wrote the electronic themes to the Wink Martindale Gambit game, Dick Enberg's Baffle, and Gene Rayburn's Amateur's Guide To Love .
I'm surprised "The Money Maze" didn't make the list. I'm a fan of Nick Clooney (George's dad), who hosted this show, but it was obvious to me at least that he wished he were somewhere else instead of sending contestants ratlike through a giant maze where they could win up to $10,000 (and he seemed fixated on that, repeating it over and over when a couple won the money). It's probably just as well that he never hosted another game show but decided to concentrate on being a news anchor in Cincinnati and for a time in Los Angeles. Even today, I think it embarrasses him to talk about this show.
Yeah, those shows sucked. When I watched the beginning of MMM, I clicked another video right away, and for Blank Check, I got bored watching it. The rest I've never watched, but I will never plan on watching. 12/17/2017 UPDATE: Diamond Head Game looked very effortless. It's no wonder why it's on this list.
i got a show for you to hate even more then The Neighbors on ABC, how about Camouflage in 1980 with Todd Campbell for Syndication?? OMG i watched 5 episodes & wanted to stab myself in the throat to see how discraceful this show was when it was cancelled in 2 months on a weekly basis in Feb-Apr on 1980, if you get a chance to see it, BE WARNED it might be as worse as The Diamond Head Game or The Neighbors, trust me :)
i totally agree since all it is like a complete Jerry Springer knockoff since it was 1979-1980 Syndicated Television, but even seeing the existing videos on Whammy83 & couldn't handle most of them since it made no sense even the winning prize was lousy as well even for '79 & '80
i don't understand why they made this show, did Chuckie Baby had an idea when he went to the doctor's office & read a highlights magazine in the waiting room? All i can say it's like that with a small payoff, less then $1,000 & MAYBE a new car, hell even when ABC broadcasted this series back in 1961 to 1962. it made sense, but when it was made in 1980, it felt out of place since the game only lasted only 2 months on a Weekly series
+Don't you contradict yourself when you say the original host and format were better, then say "I doubt you would like the original."? Or are you saying the original was better but still not that great? For my part, I prefer the original and wish Don Morrow had hosted more shows.
If he had been known for only Give-n-Take and The Neighbors, Bill Carruthers would've been the Scott Sternberg of his day. But he was given a second chance with Second Chance, where he redeemed himself, especially as Second Chance evolved into the all-time favorite, Press Your Luck. Like Jim Peck used to always say, "It's never too late to take a second chance." Or a third, depending on how you look at it.
"Second Chance" became the prototype for "Press Your Luck".
Armory Brunot,Jr. hence the “evolution”
I WON the Diamond Head Game Show! In 1975. Never saw the episode bcuz I was in class at UofH. True story. Wish I could find my clip!
“Trust me”
- Jake “the Snake” Roberts
If anything, Bill Carruthers was vindicated. Second Chance morphed into Press Your Luck and it became a hit.
The swirling whirlwind was also used in beat the clock from 2002 with Gary Kroger. Honestly that’s crazy that they use this even before 2002. Gary Kroger‘s version was the only version I knew the swirling whirlwind from until I heard of the Diamond Head game. I think I’ve seen the Diamondhead game once but I don’t really remember it even though it was a few years ago. It was on UA-cam that I saw it.
I actually liked Marble, but then what did I know, I was 11.
I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for MMM, even being as clunky & unambitious as it was. Besides that, you NAILED it. Blank Check is easily the most brainless concept Jack Barry ever concocted, & it's SHOCKING to even say that given his track record with fantastic quizzers like The Joker's Wild & Tic Tac Dough. It's hard to see Give-n-Take as anything other than filler until Price's expansion to an hour; I think that show was lucky to make it beyond the drawing board owing to perfect timing. Diamond Head Game is to game shows as cubic zirconia is to actual diamonds (even that might be a stretch). As for The Neighbors...the theme song from the pilot episode just might be the most dreadful noise ever heard in a game show. YOU SWEPT THE BOARD.
Honorable mention to Celebrity Sweepstakes, whose novel premise was picking a celebrity & hoping they know the answer.
I was probably one of the very few viewers who actually tuned in every evening to watch "The Diamond Head Game" during its run in 1975. But I admit I only did so to get my daily look at host Bob Ewbanks' assistant Jane Nelson, whom I had a severe crush on back then.
There's one more criticism you could make about "The Magnificent Marble Machine": the "electronic marching" sound effect used as each clue appeared on the display. It seemed useless to me except to say, "hey, it's 1975, we have electronics, we have to sound electronic."
This should have been called"What Were They Thinking?"
george master Which number was it?
In regards to "The Magnificent Marble Machine", according to Bob Stewart it would have taken 20 trips to the magnificent marble machine to win over $50,000.
You do have to feel for Art James(R.I.P.)!
"Give-N-Take" was a revival of sorts of the Art James-hosted "Say When"... build your own Price Is Right Showcase with a price limit...come close to the limit without going over to win the accumulated prizes ...only contestants don't pass prizes over to another to make them go over the limit or spin an arrow pointer to pick a prize.
One thing you forget to mention about Blank Check: The theme song. The melody is a ripoff of Chump Change which was used on Now You See It. The melody was close enough to get a lawsuit from Quincy Jones.
I notice a mistake you put the 5 for the 4 spot instead of the 4
I wondered if we were going to see six shows, with a tie for 5.
As an 11-year-old in 1975, I liked Magnificent Marble Machine. But maybe it was that I was kid then, and did play some pinball. The word-play front portion was not bad ("A child's favorite beer." "ROOT," says Artie Johnson.) Scrabble would later use this same word play.
Now the pinball portion, looking back at it now, was painfully slow. A standard pinball game ran much quicker. (Maybe the board needed to be tilted forward more, to speed up the gameplay?) But the actual job of the pinball game portion wasn't to test reflexes, but to try to hit the bumpers to win prizes. It would have been a total dud if most of the players ended up with little prizes if the game got too fast.
Now onto the comparison to Press Your Luck. When I watched the classic PYL episodes closely, there actually is less strategy in the play / pass mechanics than you think. Especially in the second round; I could count one, maybe two, times where the player had to make an actual play / pass decision, and the rest of the spins were mechanical. (Ironically there was more strategy in the first round, where the goal is to seed yourself for the second round.) [That would be one thing to research: how many times the top seed / middle seed / lowest seed won the game. My feeling is that there was little difference in the top and middle seeds, so the main goal was to just not finish last in the first round.]
I really enjoy your channel. Thanks for doing this.
I remember "The Magnificent Marble Machine" and this idea was terrible.
Even at the tender age of 11 (I'm dating myself here, I know), I could recognize that The Neighbors was utter garbage, and to this day, I consider it one of the worst things I have EVER seen on television. As for it being a Newlywed Game ripoff, didn't Bill Carruthers work for Chuck Barris before setting up his own operation? I believe he did.
funny thing is, these shows are golden to some of the crap that's been shoveled this century
Poor Art James.
It's too bad Art James final show on tv, "Catch Phrase", didn't last longer. It seemed like a great format, but it may have lasted longer had the technology been more advanced at the time. After this, he spent the rest of his life presenting game show style presentations to stake holders of large corporations.
“Catch Phrase” lasted for one year back in 1985 where Art James did his final show as the host.
Also, I forgot to say the 2002 version of beat the clock took some stuff from the diamond head to him. I’m sure whoever produced us either really liked the diamond head game or didn’t even know that they were taking certain parts of the diamond head game like the swirling Roland and the assistant. I forgot to say that I don’t think the producers of beat the clock 2002 knew they were stealing segments from the Diamondhead game. One of the things they took from the diamond head game that I didn’t realize until now was the assistant. Because they had an assistant just like on the diamond head game. Like I mentioned earlier about the swirling whirlwind it’s crazy to me that they took that concept from the diamond head game and put it in beat the clock. Honestly, that’s funny to me! I don’t think whoever produce the two I don’t think you’ll ever produce the 2002 version four packs of beat the clock really new about the diamond head game or maybe they like the diamond head game who knows. I just think it’s a funny coincidence that it was used in 2002 on a completely different show, by it, I mean the assistant and the swirling whirlwind.
Jack Barry should have been ashamed of himself for Blank Check.
Those are probably the five I'd pick, but Diamond Head Game is #2. I could at least somewhat tolerate the others, though I admit almost dozing off during Blank Check. Give-N-Take only had two good things- ad adequate host and an excellent announcer.
'75 also had some very underrated games, like Big Showdown and Dealer's Choice. The former is one of the best games I have ever seen.
The Big Showdown had a great hard quiz format and an exciting end game. It deserved a better fate.
@@markschildberg1667 The end game was pure chance, which is forgivable, but it seemed incongruous with the quiz format that preceded it.
I have to agree with you, I hate these 5 game shows too.
When is the video about the chaimber?
Didn't The Neighbors got replaced by the far better and criminally underrated Break the Bank?
megamanj2004X yes it did on April 12, 1976 @ 2:30pm till July 23, 1976(2 weeks prior to ABC's Family Feud)
Give-and-take I liked, another form of Press Your Luck.
The Neighbors was awful, God awful,. Diamond Head other than the end when contestants was trying to pocket money, it made me sleepy poor Bob Eubanks.
Sort of a Tattletales clone with predicting if given answers by a spouse or a neighbor/friend will match.
I wasn’t even born where these game shows were bad. My brother was born in 1975 which was the year when game shows literally went down the toilet.
Compared these to “Tic-Tac Dough ‘90”, these were the worst of all game shows way back in 1975. It was the year when disco was hot. Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” became a classic. So did “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain & Tennille, “Laughter in the Rain” by Neil Sedaka, and other songs from 1975. The movie “Jaws” was a masterpiece.
So The Diamond Head Game and Blank Check both premiered on January 6, 1975 and ended on American Independence Day 1975. Well, there was one other show I know of that started on January 6, 1975, but instead of ending on July 4 of that same year, that show is still on today and is even known as "America's Game." Why even bother mentioning it when just about everyone here knows what I'm talking about?
It was the same year “The Big Showdown (aka ‘The Big Fall Down’)” ended on the 4th of July, 1975.
I LOVED Marble Machine!
RIP Regis Philbin
Boy you are funny! And nice to mention the late Roger Ebert.
I agree with this list given the fact I was born in 1983.
“Just Men” hosted by the late Betty White should’ve been in the GSG induction which is definitely the worst game show ever back in 1983.
Art james really had some bad lick with some shows
What is ESP anyway?
extrasensory perception
Mindless games shows of the 70s & 80s were the precursor for the mindless talk shows of the 90s.
Hmmmm...adding celebrities making things worse (like on MMM)? Gives me an idea for a future topic...
Allstaritis (n.) - A terminal condition affecting game shows. Occurs when a struggling program removes contestants from the gameplay & shifts to an all-celebrity format. It is intended to either boost ratings (in which case there is a 0% success rate) or expedite the show's demise (in which case there is a 100% success rate!).
Victims of this dreaded illness include Baffle, Password (ABC), Whew!, Bullseye, & Hot Potato.
I think Password eventually saw the light & went back to civilian gameplay, but probably not fast enough to halt the show's demise.
REGIS PHILBIN WE WILL BE MISSED.
Question: Did you hate "The Neighbors"?
You weren't very clear about that.
I have to admit, I didn't think the idea behind Catchphrase was bad.. .it is just obviously terribly date, and had issues being put together.
My question is .. how did Diamondhead only end up as #3?
+Professor von Quizzelstein It at least had a game behind it, whereas Blank Check and The Neighbors didn't.
I'll have to go catch the Neighbors to see what it's like,. I haven't seen any of that one.. I watched one Blank Check on youtube before...so you might be right on bumping it down to #3.
+Professor von Quizzelstein Catchphrase didn't have issues being put together- rather it was the crowded 80s syndication market that spelled its' doom. Of course, while it went onto huge success in the UK, Marty Pasetta never forgot about it. He tried twice in the 80s to rework, first as Puzzle Roulette, then just The Puzzle Game, both with Jim Lange at the helm. He tried it once more as "All-new Catch Phrase" in 2006, with Todd Newton, but that didn't pan out.
And of course, Art James would go on to host the failed pilot for "Truth or Date", which was a hilarious trainwreck, thanks to two out of the three contestants being replaced by interlopers who promptly brought the show off the rails, not to mention the public lewdness displayed on the videowalls.
It is more like that the Magnificent Marble Machine and Give-N-Take were being inducted since there remaining three were already inducted.
Not really. Consider what I said about them here the official "Inductions".
What's the name of the user that rev this last mth
Another one you could possibly argue about it being a rip-off was "Rhyme & Reason" (ABC, July 7, 1975-July 9, 1976), hosted by Bob Eubanks. It had two contestants and six celebrities being read a root phrase. The contestants needed to write down a word that rhymed with the last word and hoped the six celebrities came up with the same word. Sounds like "Match Game", doesn't it? I believe there's at least one episode on UA-cam somewhere. According to "The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows, 3rd Edition", a couple of regular panelists included Jaye P. Morgan and, of course, Nipsey Russell. Thankfully, the Monday after it was cancelled, it was replaced by a little show called "Family Feud".
“Rhyme & Reason” was the one that I don’t know off lasted for one season until 1976. In the final show, the contestants or panelists just destroyed the entire set completely. I wish if there is a finale of “Rhyme & Reason” exists if it’s in audio form, I would love to hear it.
BTW, a user named “epaddon” has posted the final episode of “Rhyme & Reason”, but sadly, it was in audio form, but you can’t get a full video of that, and what happened was the entire set got destroyed completely. Here it is for your enjoyment. ua-cam.com/video/d8EYugdZdNo/v-deo.html
As Bob Barker once said, 1975 was the time you couldn't turn on your TV set without finding a game show. Triple M was pretty good in my book. More chance than skill and Stan Worth's music score was awful. GNT was OK, but nothing special. DHG was laughable even Bob Eubanks posted fun of it as you posted. The one dollar gimmick seems like something Dan Enright created. The only good things about BLANK CHECK was it used the same theme as NOW YOU SEE IT, Quincy Jones' CHUMP CHANGE and the title would later be used as a pricing game on THE PRICE IS RIGHT, now known as CHECK GAME. THE NEIGHBORS was the 1970's HOW'S YOUR MOTHER IN LAW, a show host Wink Martindale poked fun of. As always, these video posts are fun.
The pilot of Blank Check used the NYSI theme. But once the regular series made it to air, they used a sound-alike theme song by a one Alan Thicke though since by the time Blank Check made its NBC debut, NYSI was still on the air and Blank Check was unable to use the "Chump Change" theme.
I forgot it was on the pilot only, for some reason I could swear my ears heard it on the actual NBC version, I was just a stupid kid at the time.
you're good sir. No worries. :)
megamanj2004X
As I said before, it was commonplace for shows (esp. game shows) to use already-existing pieces of music as its theme at the pilot stage before using a soundalike as a series.
I would have put Blank Check on no. 1, but whatever.
I've always had a soft spot for game shows that had the dotted numbers scoring style.
I actually KINDA like tMMM. Note I say Kinda, because other than the long drawn out and annoying word clue round, the Pinball round was pretty spectacular for it time!
The Neighbors should be at number one all time worst ever game show, however, the other game shows were very good, my mother {now deceased} love watching those four other game shows and she did hate The Neighbors game show!
The problem, “The Neighbors” had its theme song. The pilot had “Pick A Little, Talk A Little” from the “Music Man” being played on a loop.
As for MMM, it's not that pinball had no place on TV, as Sesame Street proved almost two years later.
At least both GNT and Diamond Head had great theme songs.
Alan Thicke wrote the theme songs to The Diamond Head Game and Blank Check. The Magnificent Marble Machine theme song and prize music was composed by Mort Garson who wrote the electronic themes to the Wink Martindale Gambit game, Dick Enberg's Baffle, and Gene Rayburn's Amateur's Guide To Love .
I'm surprised "The Money Maze" didn't make the list. I'm a fan of Nick Clooney (George's dad), who hosted this show, but it was obvious to me at least that he wished he were somewhere else instead of sending contestants ratlike through a giant maze where they could win up to $10,000 (and he seemed fixated on that, repeating it over and over when a couple won the money). It's probably just as well that he never hosted another game show but decided to concentrate on being a news anchor in Cincinnati and for a time in Los Angeles. Even today, I think it embarrasses him to talk about this show.
The Money Maze was not nearly as bad as these five.
I watched this fully expecting to see Money Maze!
Yeah, those shows sucked. When I watched the beginning of MMM, I clicked another video right away, and for Blank Check, I got bored watching it. The rest I've never watched, but I will never plan on watching.
12/17/2017 UPDATE: Diamond Head Game looked very effortless. It's no wonder why it's on this list.
Is that the only game show Regis did besides WWTBAM?
+Dan Barker He also did Million Dollar Password.
Oh, god, I forgot about that, thanks.
If you count Almost Anything Goes as a game show, Regis joined the crew of that show after The Neighbors.
Some of these shows had good elements. Like, if you combined "Give-n-Take" with "The Diamondhead Game", you'd get "Give Head"!
I get angry vibes from this, like a wannabe Todd in the Shadows or the other “Channel Awesome” people who have faded away after 2010 or so.
It was made during that period, so it went with the territory. Newer videos aren't like that.
Hollywood Connection was pretty bad. Diamond Head game was awful, especially when even Bob Eubanks tore it up!
HAHA! My mom was on Neighbors with our.... neighbor. Yes indeed my mom was a contestant
Even Bob Eubanks hated the Diamond Head Game.
i got a show for you to hate even more then The Neighbors on ABC, how about Camouflage in 1980 with Todd Campbell for Syndication??
OMG i watched 5 episodes & wanted to stab myself in the throat to see how discraceful this show was when it was cancelled in 2 months on a weekly basis in Feb-Apr on 1980, if you get a chance to see it, BE WARNED it might be as worse as The Diamond Head Game or The Neighbors, trust me :)
JEM Queen Yeah, anything new Barris made after The Gong Show was pretty pathetic. I still think Three's a Crowd is his absolute worst.
i totally agree since all it is like a complete Jerry Springer knockoff since it was 1979-1980 Syndicated Television, but even seeing the existing videos on Whammy83 & couldn't handle most of them since it made no sense even the winning prize was lousy as well even for '79 & '80
Agreed about Camouflage. Tom Campbell was of the worst hosts I have ever seen. It is sad when Johnny Jacobs is the only thing good about the show.
i don't understand why they made this show, did Chuckie Baby had an idea when he went to the doctor's office & read a highlights magazine in the waiting room? All i can say it's like that with a small payoff, less then $1,000 & MAYBE a new car, hell even when ABC broadcasted this series back in 1961 to 1962. it made sense, but when it was made in 1980, it felt out of place since the game only lasted only 2 months on a Weekly series
+Don't you contradict yourself when you say the original host and format were better, then say "I doubt you would like the original."? Or are you saying the original was better but still not that great? For my part, I prefer the original and wish Don Morrow had hosted more shows.
When are we going to get to Trump Card? #TheGamesOf1990
Probably in March. February's games of '90 will be Supermarket Sweep, that is if I have the time to do it.
GameShowGarbage
And April will be the Challengers, right?
Yeah.
The Challengers was so underrated.
Give-and-take wasn't that bad.